.. have wonderful blogs. I have links to two already in place; and here are two new ones.
One is a craft blog demonstrating that there is a wonderful life of social activity and artistic endeavour beyond the world of the thesis; the other is an away-from-home journal by a former student working in a small European town. A beautiful example of writerly blogging.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
This is how you make stuff
Check this out: a card made by one of my students in the Medievalism class, who is not deficient in the designer's gene: the day they are handing in their essays, no less. In addition to the real ribbon tied on the bottom, it's complete with picture from the blog, and Marion and Belle from our Robin Hood and fairy-tale lectures. I discreetly won't mention her name, but thanks so much. You know who you are!!
Monday, June 09, 2008
The Drawing Gene
I do not exaggerate when I say I don't have any visual or design skills. My talents in this area go only so far as experimenting with a larger size of Times New Roman as a header. And even my stick figure drawings are laughable (seriously: they make people LOL). So you can imagine my delight when I realised my son had inherited my partner's talents in this regard, which are not inconsiderable. Here's a drawing Joel did yesterday of the little cat Mima, now approaching her eighteenth birthday.
Long-time readers of this blog may remember the drawing he did of the radiotherapy machine, back in January last year.
And here is another self-portrait, drawn from the digitally enhanced photograph on his computer desktop:
I'm off to the picture framer's tomorrow...
Long-time readers of this blog may remember the drawing he did of the radiotherapy machine, back in January last year.
And here is another self-portrait, drawn from the digitally enhanced photograph on his computer desktop:
I'm off to the picture framer's tomorrow...
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Why I love the intertubes
Dr Virago's post on Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" video prompted me to search for a video I had never seen, but always knew of: her "Hounds of Love", which features my ex brother-in-law as the male lead. The story in this video seems almost completely obscure to me, but it's great fun to see Gow in this role. He was a dancer with the Australian ballet, but was living in London with convenient English ancestry when my sister was wanting to stay on in the UK. He is a charming man (now working as a textile designer in Japan, after some major health scares); and if you watch through to the scene where he is dancing with Kate, you can get an idea of the fun I had at my sister's second wedding, when I got to dance with him. I am a pretty hopeless dancer (can never get free of wanting to move my feet to the beat of the music), but knew enough to recognise the bliss of being partnered by someone who knew what they were doing. How delightful to find him, sitting at my desk this morning!
Friday, June 06, 2008
Friday Garter blogging: back to the source
When I told a medievalist friend I was starting work on the Order of the Garter, he said something like, "oh, so that's a real return for you!" And I swear, I honestly had to think for a moment before I remembered that the topic of my PhD was the poem Wynnere and Wastoure, which features a long description of a prince and a king, presumably the Black Prince and Edward III, wearing garter robes of various kinds, as you'll see.
The poem was written between 1352 and 1370 (the Order was founded in 1348), and features an allegorical debate between Winner and Waster, or the principles of providential saving and courtly largesse, though over the course of the debate, the opposition between these two terms becomes radically destabilised, and it becomes harder and harder to offer easy definitions. It's a poem about how to manage the royal budget, perhaps.
After a dream-introduction, the poet describes his vision of two armies gathered and ready to fight it out. But the scene looks more like a tournament, or some kind of pageantry, and he describes the prince and the king who appear on a cliff top, looking down on the action. The poem features the first translation of the Garter motto (Honi soit qui mal y pense) into English: "Hethyng haue the hathell that any harme thynkes". Hethyng is something like "contempt, scorn" rather than shame as such.
The language is tricky; it's mid-fourteenth century, from a corrupt mid-fifteenth-century manuscript, of mixed dialect. So just an extract will do, I'm sure. I'm modernising yoghs and thorns, and also u and v. I'm also putting the key garter bits in bold type. The edition? Mine, of course. Ahem.
At the creste of a clyffe a caban was rerede [raised]
Alle raylede with rede the rofe and the sydes
With Ynglysse besantes full brighte betyn of golde
And ichone gayly umbygone with garters of inde [surrounded]
And iche a gartare of golde gerede full riche.
Then were th[er] wordes in the webbe werped of he[u], [worked in colour]
Payntted of plunket and poyntes bytwene [light blue]
That were fourmed full fayre appon fresche lettres
And all was it one sawe appon Ynglysse tonge, [saying, motto]
'Hethyng have the hathell that any harme thynkes'.
Now the kyng of this kythe kepe hym oure lorde!
... the poet describes a noble prince wearing the arms of the Prince of Wales...
And als I waytted withinn I was warre sone [peered]
Of a comliche kynge crowned with golde
Sett one a silken bynch with septure in honde,
One of the lovelyeste ledis whoso loveth hym in hert
That ever segge under sonn sawe with his eghne. [man] [eyes]
This kynge was comliche clade in kirtill and mantill,
Bery-brown was [the bleaunt] brouderede with fewlyes, [material] [embroidered] [birds]
Fawkons of fyne golde flakerande with wynges [flapping]
And ichone bare in ble blewe als me thought [blue material]
A grete gartare of ynde [gerede full riche]. [indigo] [adorned]
Fully fayly was that grete lorde girde in the myddis
A brighte belte of ble broudirde with fewles
With drakes and with dukkes daderande tham semede [quaking]
For ferdnes of fawkons fete lesse fawked thay were. [fear] [seized by falcons: falconed??]
The poem was written between 1352 and 1370 (the Order was founded in 1348), and features an allegorical debate between Winner and Waster, or the principles of providential saving and courtly largesse, though over the course of the debate, the opposition between these two terms becomes radically destabilised, and it becomes harder and harder to offer easy definitions. It's a poem about how to manage the royal budget, perhaps.
After a dream-introduction, the poet describes his vision of two armies gathered and ready to fight it out. But the scene looks more like a tournament, or some kind of pageantry, and he describes the prince and the king who appear on a cliff top, looking down on the action. The poem features the first translation of the Garter motto (Honi soit qui mal y pense) into English: "Hethyng haue the hathell that any harme thynkes". Hethyng is something like "contempt, scorn" rather than shame as such.
The language is tricky; it's mid-fourteenth century, from a corrupt mid-fifteenth-century manuscript, of mixed dialect. So just an extract will do, I'm sure. I'm modernising yoghs and thorns, and also u and v. I'm also putting the key garter bits in bold type. The edition? Mine, of course. Ahem.
At the creste of a clyffe a caban was rerede [raised]
Alle raylede with rede the rofe and the sydes
With Ynglysse besantes full brighte betyn of golde
And ichone gayly umbygone with garters of inde [surrounded]
And iche a gartare of golde gerede full riche.
Then were th[er] wordes in the webbe werped of he[u], [worked in colour]
Payntted of plunket and poyntes bytwene [light blue]
That were fourmed full fayre appon fresche lettres
And all was it one sawe appon Ynglysse tonge, [saying, motto]
'Hethyng have the hathell that any harme thynkes'.
Now the kyng of this kythe kepe hym oure lorde!
... the poet describes a noble prince wearing the arms of the Prince of Wales...
And als I waytted withinn I was warre sone [peered]
Of a comliche kynge crowned with golde
Sett one a silken bynch with septure in honde,
One of the lovelyeste ledis whoso loveth hym in hert
That ever segge under sonn sawe with his eghne. [man] [eyes]
This kynge was comliche clade in kirtill and mantill,
Bery-brown was [the bleaunt] brouderede with fewlyes, [material] [embroidered] [birds]
Fawkons of fyne golde flakerande with wynges [flapping]
And ichone bare in ble blewe als me thought [blue material]
A grete gartare of ynde [gerede full riche]. [indigo] [adorned]
Fully fayly was that grete lorde girde in the myddis
A brighte belte of ble broudirde with fewles
With drakes and with dukkes daderande tham semede [quaking]
For ferdnes of fawkons fete lesse fawked thay were. [fear] [seized by falcons: falconed??]
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
It must be cancer season
Every day, it seems, there are more and more news reports about cancer and cancer treatments. Within the last week, Melbourne researchers have reported finding that a "positive attitude", while it might make the rigours of cancer treatment more bearable, has no impact on the spread of the disease.
Also, news of a possible screening test for ovarian cancer (women taking Tamoxifen have a higher risk of developing this cancer, which is hard to detect in its early stages).
There's been a reported drop in the number of breast cancer cases, coinciding with a drop in hormone therapy use for menopausal symptoms.
And today, news from a team of Canadian researchers at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference linking vitamin D deficiencies to the more rapid spread of breast cancer.
That's four articles in four days, practically, all on breast cancer, and three out of four from Australian researchers. What an extraordinary amount of research into this disease — or perhaps it's just the disease that is regarded as newsworthy.
It's a bit hard to know how to respond to these developments. I'm grateful, of course, that such research has made my own outlook so good. For the record, I'm now in the twentieth month of a five year treatment plan. In five months I'll have my second annual mammogram and ultrasound, but I see my oncologist every three months and the general consensus is that I'm doing very well. I've cut down on my consumption of alcohol and processed meats; and generally improved my diet. I'm exercising regularly; and meditating occasionally; and trying to keep my stress levels down (though in the current climate at my university, about which I think I have been extraordinarily discreet on this blog, that is exceptionally difficult).
Many of these developments are coming too late for me, of course, though I've always liked the idea of getting a little vitamin D from the sun. Australians find it hard to balance the need for vitamin D against the need to guard against skin cancer, which is rife here.
My own prognosis is so good I'm not really at all on the lookout for alternative treatments or needing to hunt down the latest research. But I can imagine how people with more advanced cancers must greet this kind of research; and how people with much rarer conditions must despair at the uneven distribution of research funds.
At the very least, though, I now have a cancer antenna. People sometimes make a special point of telling me about their friends and relations who have cancer, though I'm still not always strong enough to doanything about this. But there is also a lovely solidarity amongst people I know with cancer. I feel closer, I think, than I would otherwise have done, to three friends in particular: Peter, Trish and Alison. And actually, special congratulations to Alison, who's just finished radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and who joined our Tuesday tennis group at work and played throughout her radiotherapy treatment. And to Trish (Crawford), too, a much-loved figure in early modern and women's history who was presented with a festschrift on just one of the fields in which she works at the Perth conference last week. Trish is an inspirational figure to many historians and feminist scholars, and was one of the first people to comment on an academic paper I gave (on Christine de Pisan, in 1985, I think). She's an inspiration to me now, for facing the difficulties of advanced breast cancer with courage and dignity and as clear an intellect as an academic scholar, or anyone, really, could wish.
Also, news of a possible screening test for ovarian cancer (women taking Tamoxifen have a higher risk of developing this cancer, which is hard to detect in its early stages).
There's been a reported drop in the number of breast cancer cases, coinciding with a drop in hormone therapy use for menopausal symptoms.
And today, news from a team of Canadian researchers at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference linking vitamin D deficiencies to the more rapid spread of breast cancer.
That's four articles in four days, practically, all on breast cancer, and three out of four from Australian researchers. What an extraordinary amount of research into this disease — or perhaps it's just the disease that is regarded as newsworthy.
It's a bit hard to know how to respond to these developments. I'm grateful, of course, that such research has made my own outlook so good. For the record, I'm now in the twentieth month of a five year treatment plan. In five months I'll have my second annual mammogram and ultrasound, but I see my oncologist every three months and the general consensus is that I'm doing very well. I've cut down on my consumption of alcohol and processed meats; and generally improved my diet. I'm exercising regularly; and meditating occasionally; and trying to keep my stress levels down (though in the current climate at my university, about which I think I have been extraordinarily discreet on this blog, that is exceptionally difficult).
Many of these developments are coming too late for me, of course, though I've always liked the idea of getting a little vitamin D from the sun. Australians find it hard to balance the need for vitamin D against the need to guard against skin cancer, which is rife here.
My own prognosis is so good I'm not really at all on the lookout for alternative treatments or needing to hunt down the latest research. But I can imagine how people with more advanced cancers must greet this kind of research; and how people with much rarer conditions must despair at the uneven distribution of research funds.
At the very least, though, I now have a cancer antenna. People sometimes make a special point of telling me about their friends and relations who have cancer, though I'm still not always strong enough to doanything about this. But there is also a lovely solidarity amongst people I know with cancer. I feel closer, I think, than I would otherwise have done, to three friends in particular: Peter, Trish and Alison. And actually, special congratulations to Alison, who's just finished radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and who joined our Tuesday tennis group at work and played throughout her radiotherapy treatment. And to Trish (Crawford), too, a much-loved figure in early modern and women's history who was presented with a festschrift on just one of the fields in which she works at the Perth conference last week. Trish is an inspirational figure to many historians and feminist scholars, and was one of the first people to comment on an academic paper I gave (on Christine de Pisan, in 1985, I think). She's an inspiration to me now, for facing the difficulties of advanced breast cancer with courage and dignity and as clear an intellect as an academic scholar, or anyone, really, could wish.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Friday Garter Poetry blogging and The Bulletin
Louise, one of my collaborators on the "Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory" project, found this wonderful poem in The Bulletin, from August 24, 1901. I'm attaching the pdf she sent me, which is fun for the advertisements that surround the poem, but thought it worth transcribing. This poem seems to me to tap into one of the deep secrets of the Garter myth: that it is really, in the end, about sex and scandal.
Juliet Vale suggests that another of Edward III's mottos, "It is as it is" ... “is the kind of phrase that might have provided the refrain in some forms of contemporary lyric”. The Garter motto — Honi soit qui mal y pense — is easy to imagine being attached as a refrain or a chorus to lots of situations, and that's certainly how it's often used today. "Pagan"'s poem in the Bulletin seems to me of this order (pun!), especially with its emphasis on the act of saying, or singing the motto. Apologies for lack of line indentations: too hard for Blogger, I think.
Dear Mollie! when you settle down,
The moon of some suburban heaven,
And twice a week go into town
Instead of every day in seven;
When Something in a pinafore
Has taught you what it is to marry,
Yet strangers think the darling more
Like neighbor Ned than husband Harry;
And, once outside your gate, commence
To hint untruths about your figure
(Oh, Honi soit qui mal y pense!) —
I'll hid behind my hedge and snigger.
Thanks, Louise! I would never have found this, and it's a beauty! And ... er ... dear readers, I would love to hear of any allusions or usages of this motto you come across. I have a fairish collection, but would love more. I will immediately put your name in my acknowledgements page (one of the best parts of the book to write!).
Juliet Vale suggests that another of Edward III's mottos, "It is as it is" ... “is the kind of phrase that might have provided the refrain in some forms of contemporary lyric”. The Garter motto — Honi soit qui mal y pense — is easy to imagine being attached as a refrain or a chorus to lots of situations, and that's certainly how it's often used today. "Pagan"'s poem in the Bulletin seems to me of this order (pun!), especially with its emphasis on the act of saying, or singing the motto. Apologies for lack of line indentations: too hard for Blogger, I think.
To Mollie — A Flirt
Once, when our first King Edward sat
An hour apart with some fair lady,
And no one knew what they were at,
Well hidden in an arbour shady,
When they appeared, the courtiers skipped
All ways at once to hide their laughter,
For down her knees her hose had slipped
And Ned himself had donned her garter.
The gallant monarch saw at once
The reason of their titillation,
And "Honi soit qui mal y pense!"
He cried, and saved the situation.
I know a girl who's not a prude,
And hardly takes her life sedately,
But who is willing to be wooed,
And finds her fun commensurately;
So when upon a verse I start,
To drive away my melancholy,
'Tis natural that the rhymer's art
Should seek a sound to echo— "Mollie."
What power have all of Slander's tongues
To wound you, Mollie, or to hurt you?
Sing "Honi soit qui mal y pense,"
And show your dainty heels to Virtue.
Though such as she no chances give
To even the wittiest Faith's Defenders,
(For modern girls, as I believe,
Secure their hose with silk "suspenders")—
Still does that naughty spirit wake
Which spurred a king to sport so shocking;
And should a silken ribbon break,
You may find Cupid in the stocking.
Here let me mention sans offense
A fact empirically shown, dear;
(Sing "Honi soit qui mal y pense")
My chaussure fits you like your own, dear.
An hour apart with some fair lady,
And no one knew what they were at,
Well hidden in an arbour shady,
When they appeared, the courtiers skipped
All ways at once to hide their laughter,
For down her knees her hose had slipped
And Ned himself had donned her garter.
The gallant monarch saw at once
The reason of their titillation,
And "Honi soit qui mal y pense!"
He cried, and saved the situation.
I know a girl who's not a prude,
And hardly takes her life sedately,
But who is willing to be wooed,
And finds her fun commensurately;
So when upon a verse I start,
To drive away my melancholy,
'Tis natural that the rhymer's art
Should seek a sound to echo— "Mollie."
What power have all of Slander's tongues
To wound you, Mollie, or to hurt you?
Sing "Honi soit qui mal y pense,"
And show your dainty heels to Virtue.
Though such as she no chances give
To even the wittiest Faith's Defenders,
(For modern girls, as I believe,
Secure their hose with silk "suspenders")—
Still does that naughty spirit wake
Which spurred a king to sport so shocking;
And should a silken ribbon break,
You may find Cupid in the stocking.
Here let me mention sans offense
A fact empirically shown, dear;
(Sing "Honi soit qui mal y pense")
My chaussure fits you like your own, dear.
Dear Mollie! when you settle down,
The moon of some suburban heaven,
And twice a week go into town
Instead of every day in seven;
When Something in a pinafore
Has taught you what it is to marry,
Yet strangers think the darling more
Like neighbor Ned than husband Harry;
And, once outside your gate, commence
To hint untruths about your figure
(Oh, Honi soit qui mal y pense!) —
I'll hid behind my hedge and snigger.
Thanks, Louise! I would never have found this, and it's a beauty! And ... er ... dear readers, I would love to hear of any allusions or usages of this motto you come across. I have a fairish collection, but would love more. I will immediately put your name in my acknowledgements page (one of the best parts of the book to write!).
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wolf Daddy
A beautiful animation (thanks, Fiona!) with a most endearing account of vegetarianism, awkward gender politics, and a lovely account of writer's block....
Picking up the phone for the planet
I've just made a great phone call. Within five minutes, all our domestic electricity is now solar powered!
We've always gone with green options for our domestic power bills, but yesterday we got a leaflet explaining the difference between accredited and non-accredited green power, saying that for the same modest premium we were paying we would have our accredited green power increased from 20% to 25%, but that our 80% non-accredited renewable energy (i.e. hydro energy from plants built before 1997) is no longer considered as helping to develop sustainable energy programs, and so is no longer part of the scheme.
So for an extra 5.75 cents per kilowatt hour, all our electricity will be provided from solar energy. We feel quite elated! It's not just the computers and our music and lights that we love: we also run two filter systems for fish, one inside and one outside, that pump water all day. It's wonderful to know that these are now entirely sun-powered.
We had planned to put solar panels on the roof during the recent re-building, but the cost was just too much for the final stages. We do have solar hot water, though, which has been great, and has cut the gas bill substantially.
The night after the federal budget, we had also been to a meeting in Fitzroy with a man who had left his executive job to start up a company that was gathering households in groups of fifty and ordering solar panels from China in bulk. With the government rebate of $8000, it would cost just over $1000 for a small house to have its own solar panels. But now that the rebate is means tested, it is just out of our reach again. We'll start to save, but in the meantime, we are happy to pay this extra premium. We'll try and keep reducing our usage, though — and now that we are paying more, we might be even more scrupulous about turning off the lights...
Here's the website of this government Greenpower scheme: http://greenpower.gov.au
This move has come at just the right time. I have started to feel quite unaccustomedly despairing of our planet's future in recent weeks. I know that one household is small beer, and that industry and agriculture and air and car travel — and the general proliferation of ... stuff — are much more serious issues. But it seems impossible to do nothing, so trying to lighten one's ecological footprint seems a good idea.
Want to measure your ecological footprint? Go here. (If everyone lived as I do, we'd need 2.7 planets to sustain us: I was probably doing ok till they asked about air travel...)
We've always gone with green options for our domestic power bills, but yesterday we got a leaflet explaining the difference between accredited and non-accredited green power, saying that for the same modest premium we were paying we would have our accredited green power increased from 20% to 25%, but that our 80% non-accredited renewable energy (i.e. hydro energy from plants built before 1997) is no longer considered as helping to develop sustainable energy programs, and so is no longer part of the scheme.
So for an extra 5.75 cents per kilowatt hour, all our electricity will be provided from solar energy. We feel quite elated! It's not just the computers and our music and lights that we love: we also run two filter systems for fish, one inside and one outside, that pump water all day. It's wonderful to know that these are now entirely sun-powered.
We had planned to put solar panels on the roof during the recent re-building, but the cost was just too much for the final stages. We do have solar hot water, though, which has been great, and has cut the gas bill substantially.
The night after the federal budget, we had also been to a meeting in Fitzroy with a man who had left his executive job to start up a company that was gathering households in groups of fifty and ordering solar panels from China in bulk. With the government rebate of $8000, it would cost just over $1000 for a small house to have its own solar panels. But now that the rebate is means tested, it is just out of our reach again. We'll start to save, but in the meantime, we are happy to pay this extra premium. We'll try and keep reducing our usage, though — and now that we are paying more, we might be even more scrupulous about turning off the lights...
Here's the website of this government Greenpower scheme: http://greenpower.gov.au
This move has come at just the right time. I have started to feel quite unaccustomedly despairing of our planet's future in recent weeks. I know that one household is small beer, and that industry and agriculture and air and car travel — and the general proliferation of ... stuff — are much more serious issues. But it seems impossible to do nothing, so trying to lighten one's ecological footprint seems a good idea.
Want to measure your ecological footprint? Go here. (If everyone lived as I do, we'd need 2.7 planets to sustain us: I was probably doing ok till they asked about air travel...)
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Out of the mouth of the teenager
We had just watched an episode mid-way through the last season of Six Feet Under, in which David and Keith were struggling with their two new adopted children. Joel said, "Which do you think is harder? Growing up? or bringing up a family?"
Damn good question, I say. And of course, the two things are probably related, in that the way we bring up children has got lots to do with the way we were brought up, and our own experience of growing up. All those unarticulated dramas and memories that bubble along behind the day to day chaos of holding family life together.
This has been a great series. We are watching it on DVD and while I sometimes recoil at the Language - Sex - Drugs nexus, on Joel's behalf, it's been a great study in character, in family and in excess of various kinds, as nearly all the characters spiral up and down in hope and despair. And almost anything is better than watching commercial television.
And anything that triggers that kind of question can't be all bad, I think.
Damn good question, I say. And of course, the two things are probably related, in that the way we bring up children has got lots to do with the way we were brought up, and our own experience of growing up. All those unarticulated dramas and memories that bubble along behind the day to day chaos of holding family life together.
This has been a great series. We are watching it on DVD and while I sometimes recoil at the Language - Sex - Drugs nexus, on Joel's behalf, it's been a great study in character, in family and in excess of various kinds, as nearly all the characters spiral up and down in hope and despair. And almost anything is better than watching commercial television.
And anything that triggers that kind of question can't be all bad, I think.
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