Medieval Fair

Guest post by GrannyJ

The fair was excellent. It took place in two large fields that were set up to represent actual medieval fairs that might have taken place in Western or Eastern Europe or the Middle East. The day was sunny, not too hot, with a nice breeze off the water. A perfect day.

There were musicians, buskers, artisans, falconers, archers, merchants, weapons of war, vikings, and jousting knights in shining armour on horseback.

I loved the jousting but it is not a sport for sissies…that is for sure. They call it full contact jousting - no scripts, no choreography and no air-bags. The horses are huge and they are travelling at about 35mph. The hits when they come are comparable to being in a car crash. One of the jousters told me that when someone gets hurt it can take months to recover. In the final competition there was a huge crash where both jousters were hit, the lances broke and flew in all directions and both knights ended up on the ground. As soon as they fall, the horses stand still. Here is the website for the Knights of Valour  for further details.

They are trying to get more people involved and start up an actual league - similar to NASCAR! In the little video clip the man with the loud voice is Mike. He got quite involved! Mike was cheering for Sir Matthew, but unfortunately he lost out to Sir William in the final round. Mike is no better at picking the winner of a jousting competition than he is at hockey! For $5.00 you were allowed to ride one of the war horses after the jousting competition.

I guess you can’t have a medieval fair without “weapons of war”. I actually enjoyed the Warrior’s Battle. The men were in full armour and they really went at one another with actual weapons - but blunt swords and axes. The funniest part was when two little girls volunteered to be the princesses and they were kidnapped by the Black Knight and taken to the castle. Then came the storming of the castle. I got a little video clip of that. It was a riot!

There was also an encampment of tents representing the various regions. The Eastern European presentation included a re-enactment by the Dark Ages Recreation Company.

Their website has this little blurb:

DARC is composed of people interested in using living history to research aspects of life in Northern Europe during the Viking Age. This is accomplished through workshops and experimental archaeology where the focus is on developing traditional skills as we create accurate replicas of period artifacts and processes. Our historic events are centered on the 'camp', where the activities revolve around 'daily life' and the interaction of carefully researched characterizations. The Company further strives to provide a resource of skilled and experienced historic interpreters and physical demonstrators to museums, schools, and educational programs.

The participants which included whole families, actually camped out in their tents over the 3 days of the fair. Their demonstrations included historic glass bead making, wood carving,

In the marketplace there were tons of things for little princesses and knights, (and big ones also and too!) I think every kid there bought a wooden sword. And then after the jousting they were allowed to come and be knighted by the king.

I must mention the Roaming Pickle Man. I made sure to get a picture of him in his kilt. He was quite nice looking. And he could call out PICK-LES! in one breath that had to have been 30 seconds or longer! Very impressive.

We all had a great time.

So proud of my niece!

Guest post by CC

[CC kindly sent us some photos of her niece Laura's time in Africa. I put the post together by copying CC's comments on the blog and what she wrote in the emails.]

Laura is traveling to a small village named Naivasha. It is 1.5 hours from Nairobi and she is going on a volunteer program to help children in an orphanage/school for 4 weeks. I am so proud of her for wanting to do this you cannot imagine it. She had wanted to do something like this and researched it for the past year. She is 19 years old and has traveled extensively with all of us but this is a wee bit different --- She is really looking forward to it as are all of us (her family) and I have no doubt it will be etched in her memory forever.

******

I want to thank all of you for your prayers and well wishes for my niece Laura --- I am so grateful for them --- and she is too!

My sister has been able to speak with her only once, but she sends her photos and texts when she goes into town every few days (to use their wifi..:-) ) She is extremely happy, she said the kids call her mom and she gets spontaneous hugs all the time... I am soooo happy for her. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I do have a few photos she has snapped and sent:

En route to Nairobi

The resort where she goes to use wifi ... What a beautiful view (and what a difference
from where the orphanage is... poor little ones ... Sigh)

Most of these orphans have HIV---kind of abandoned at this place. It is run by a private couple -- they have no funding -- just donations. Every time I feel humanity is just getting worse and worse, I find out about these stories and smile, realizing there are more wonderful people than not. Thankfully!


[Thank you, CC. Laura is as beautiful and as generous as her auntie... ]

Grasshopper's treasures - Part II

A guest post by Grasshopper

Hi everybody, here is the next installment in the Native American auction I recently won. Some of you may recognize this photo Regina posted on that old blog called Palingates (Remember her?). Anyway, I've had these for about 40 years, they were given to me by a family friend who knew I loved all things Indian (except for the scalping). They are 9" from wrist to forearm. I asked a few knowledgeable people about the cuffs and they said they were local, meaning the Wisconsin/Illinois area, but nobody knew which tribe.

I knew the cuffs were included in the auction lot from their photo, but when I got to see them close up at the preview, I was amazed at the similarities to the ones hanging on my wall all these years. Same colors, same type of beads, similar flora and same white background. So similar yet completely different. They are smaller, at 6" from wrist to forearm, perhaps made for a woman or a child. With a little research and some help from Cowans auction house, I'm now quite certain they are from the Ojibwe tribe in the Western Great Lakes region.

I cleaned the one on the left to show the condition at the time of the auction.

Sometimes I try to figure out what flowers or plants or critters they were trying to apply to their beadwork. Perhaps after smoking a Peace Pipe they began embellishing and creating new variations of the nature around them with their imaginations?

The fringe on this pair is much longer and are very dried out and stiff. I'll have to figure out a way to oil them without damaging the beadwork. By all accounts they were probably made between 1840 and 1860. Pretty good condition for that age. For all I know, they may have been sitting in an old chest for the last hundred years. I'm sure there's more history to these beauties but this is all I have to share with you for now. Thanks, Dances with Grasshoppers.

Here are some links about the Ojibwe:

Ojibwe People
Ojibwa Indians
Clothing and beadwork
Photos of Ojibwe beadwork

Democracy Now - A guest post by austintxx

Today's post comes courtesy of austintxx, written in his unique style, involving some adult language...

I am a member of KPFT, a totally listener supported community radio station in Houston. The station first came on the air on March 1 , 1970 with the first song played being "Here Comes The Sun" by the Beatles. The KKK decided that they did not like a community radio station that played any and all music and let any one that wanted their voice heard come to the station and speak out. So just a little over two months later, on May 12, 1970, the KKK blew up the transmitter. After several weeks of repairs, the station was back up and running. THEN, on October 6, 1970, the fuckers did it again! The song being played at the time of the second interruption was "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie. On January 21, 1971, when the station came back on air, Arlo was in the studio to play "Alice's Restaurant" live. How perfect is that ?

I listen to the station 6-7 hours every weekday and one of my favorite shows is Democracy Now, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales. These are two of the best broadcast journalists in America. Period. You will learn more in the hour that you listen to this program than you will doing anything else that day. No commercials and they shoot straight as it gets.

We are having our fall fundraiser presently and imagine my pleasant surprise when it was announced that Juan Gonzales was coming to Houston to promote his new book News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, co-authored with Joseph Torres of the media reform group Free Press, and to help out the station.

Well, it took mere seconds for me to pounce on the phone and pledge to do the meet & greet.

So, this past Wednesday, Oct 26, I went to Talento Bilingue de Houston and met and listened to Juan and Joe speak.

Juan blew us away

The man's eloquence and depth of knowledge on media history in America is unmatched.
Here is Amy's interview with Juan and Joe and you can see what real journalism is all about.


Also this following week on Tavis Smiley on PBS, Juan will be making an appearance.

“Juan González and Joseph Torres have rendered a splendid public service with this highly readable and engrossing story of how the press sees—and doesn’t see—who we are as a people. Race and ethnicity, power and privilege, the visible and the invisible are at the core of our democratic crisis today, and it’s hard to imagine a better way to face the challenge than to be armed with the story this book tells so well.” ~ Bill Moyers, Public Affairs Television.

I want to thank La Regina for allowing me to share my experience here.

[Thank you, austin!]

A birthday treat

Today we have a guest post by our friend HelenNPN. It's her husband's birthday on the 30th, but the post had to go up today because it's already tomorrow where they are and she wanted to surprise him when he got up in the morning. Confused? Blame it on the time difference...

Over to Helen:

Milford Sound is part of the “wild west” coast of New Zealand. It is a fiord, fed by rainfall and freshwater springs. Remote and accessed by helicopter or a relatively expensive two hour bus ride plus a two hour boat ride from the nearest small town, it is nevertheless quite a popular draw for those who wish to view an untouched ecosystem. It is the kind of place that gives New Zealand the catchphrase, “99% Pure.”

Starting out from the motel, we couldn’t help but take a photo of the sign by the laundry clotheslines – apparently drive-by-laundry-hangings provide a criminal element in an otherwise serene Kiwi neighbourhood. ; )

The bus ride passes through lush yellow green valleys and waterfalls in beech forests. We are encouraged to fill up our water bottles at the from the passing springs before heading into the most remote areas - there will be no place to buy water and the confidence in this lovely fresh water is absolute. The terrain eventually becomes quite rugged; after what already seems like a long journey you find yourself on a boat, facing a very mysterious and slightly foreboding waterway. Colors fade in the mist and the Gilligan’s Island theme starts up in your head.

As the air becomes more moist, waterfalls seem to sprout before your eyes. It feels like you are looking on a primeval landscape, viewing how the first waterfalls fell from the first land that just now rose and shook off the ocean. A picture of how life began somewhere both grim and lush. In these caves a unique species of glow worm spread themselves out like constellations inside the terminal darkness. If enough food doesn’t make it into the cave, they feast on each other, but the colony is always maintained. The long deep body of water cut by curtains of cliffs ultimately opens to the sea.

Despite the isolation, there is always a roaring merry go round of noise from the ocean-wind-falls-sea birds. A group of seals stretch and revel in the isolation. The sun breaks through as we head back to the dock for the long bus ride back to the little town Te Anau, which seems like a very remote outpost itself.

All photos were taken by my husband Philip, who I think did a splendid job of catching such sweeping and dimly lit views with an ordinary digital camera. Happy Birthday Philip!


[Happy birthday from all of us too. Have a wonderful day with lovely Helen, you're a lucky guy!]