(no subject)
May. 13th, 2012 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
OK. Kalamazoo's over. Uh, some highlights:
Squigamunk, I think you might appreciate this:

It was even cooler in person.
Straussmonster, I saw Scott H. He's now come over to the dark side, and also become a Communist. really. He also reports that having a job is actually forcing him to be semi-respectable: "It's terrifying!" So is the thought that my colleagues now have their own graduate students.
Oh, and of course there was lots o' free wine. (Although the guy who used to do mead tastings has retired from same, alas.)
I went to some panels. The ones that stick in my head were the ones on medieval textiles, and the demonstration of longsword fighting (slowed down so one could follow what was happening, and with discussion of the two 15th-c. manuals). Very cool. EVen cooler: Mini knife-fighting tutorial at the end of the session! [Yes, in my heart I'm really a SCA geek in some respects...]
Oh, and I think I gave a talk in there somewhere. To only about six people, but one of them said it was at least exciting.
And I hung out with some cool people. Unfortunately, none of them was both going in the right direction and had space in their car,* so I'm going to be getting on a bus again in a couple of hours...
* not surprising, inasmuch as most people are having to cram vast numbers of newly-purchased books into their cars, as well.
Squigamunk, I think you might appreciate this:

It was even cooler in person.
Straussmonster, I saw Scott H. He's now come over to the dark side, and also become a Communist. really. He also reports that having a job is actually forcing him to be semi-respectable: "It's terrifying!" So is the thought that my colleagues now have their own graduate students.
Oh, and of course there was lots o' free wine. (Although the guy who used to do mead tastings has retired from same, alas.)
I went to some panels. The ones that stick in my head were the ones on medieval textiles, and the demonstration of longsword fighting (slowed down so one could follow what was happening, and with discussion of the two 15th-c. manuals). Very cool. EVen cooler: Mini knife-fighting tutorial at the end of the session! [Yes, in my heart I'm really a SCA geek in some respects...]
Oh, and I think I gave a talk in there somewhere. To only about six people, but one of them said it was at least exciting.
And I hung out with some cool people. Unfortunately, none of them was both going in the right direction and had space in their car,* so I'm going to be getting on a bus again in a couple of hours...
* not surprising, inasmuch as most people are having to cram vast numbers of newly-purchased books into their cars, as well.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 11:04 pm (UTC)That is pretty awesome.
Mini knife-fighting tutorial at the end of the session!
Did you learn anything from it?
no subject
Date: 2012-05-14 11:43 pm (UTC)The panels sound awesome. I've always wanted to study longsword, but the closest salle teaching it I've ever been able to find was at the Higgins Armoury in Worcester and that's too far to drive once a week.
Mini knife-fighting tutorial at the end of the session!
Hands on? How was it?
[Yes, in my heart I'm really a SCA geek in some respects...]
I relate to this. A great deal.
Oh, and I think I gave a talk in there somewhere. To only about six people, but one of them said it was at least exciting.
Six is better than none, and exciting is a great compliment.
Sorry you couldn't get a lift. I hope the journey's gone as well as a bus journey can go.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-15 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-15 03:30 am (UTC)It's best not to be getting into actual knife fights, yes. What's the saying? "The winner is the one who winds up in hospital."
Actually, that reminds me of back when I was playing in the SCA and living in Hyde Park, the one in Chicago. I had one friend who said he was carrying his feast dagger* at night in case of trouble. I asked him which of us had more training with edged weapons, and which one of us was carrying one. He said I was thinking too much like a period person in assuming that someone else carrying a knife would know how to use it.
A very head-desky moment, that.
*I never liked those things. A single-edged knife is a lot more useful for eating and everything else a body actually does with a knife.