So, reading up on history today, and apparently there was a mayor of New York who tried to have George Washington killed. Yes, that George Washington.
I tend to tell my friends stories from history a fair amount of the time. I think some of them think I'm making them up, which is why I can't tell them this story because it is way too crazy. There are too many details that sound made up, like the fact that this idea was planned out in a tavern. The moment that came out of my mouth everyone would think this was a tall tale. Me? I think it's the sort of thing that could only happen in New York.
...So despite my love of European history, I really don't know anything about the country of Malta, other than it was once controlled by the British and is hardcore Catholic. To fix this oversight, I sat down and read a short article on traveling to the country.
History Things I Learned:
Carthage and Rome duked it out for Malta. Obviously, the Romans won in the end.
St. Paul brought the christian faith there, like he seemingly did everywhere else in the Mediterraean.
During the Middle Ages, the island was controlled by Muslims. Again, not a surprise as other parts of the Mediterraean was controlled by Muslims, most famously southern Spain, but also southern France and parts of coastal Italy.
Napoleon, a native of next door Corsica, conquered the island and stole pretty much anything he could, which is what he did elsewhere, like in Egypt.
Lord Byron traveled there. I wonder if that trip was related to his infamous Greek trip that ended so badly. Also, he complained about the streets, which totally sounds like him, because he's such a whiner.
I could probably conclude here that Malta is basically like its sister European countries in terms of history, but this might be simplistic.
Amazing Side Notes:
They have a Popeye theme park. I don't really know what to make of that, but if I ever go there, that might be a fun place to go, though I suspect I would go just to say that once I went to a Popeye theme park.
Maltese is a blend of Italian and Arabic. Sounds like my sort of language.
I spent part of today reading up on the history of gay bars. The worst thing about reading this kind of stuff is how much it makes me want to actually go to some of these places.
I really want to check out The Atlantic House, even though I can't imagine a reason why I would ever be in Massachusetts. It sounds like a really fascinating history: it's existed since the 18th century and it was a regular haunt of artists like Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill and Andy Warhol.
(As a sidenote: will I know that I have made it as a writer when people are aware of where my regular haunt is? And is it a problem I don't currently have one?)
One of the worst things about reading this article is I found myself thinking about how much I would love an excuse to go to these places.
And as a last note: How disappointing is it to hear The Double Header isn't much of a gay bar anymore?
Here's a lovely brief history of the purse.
I must admit that I hate purses sometimes. I don't like always being expected to carry one. I don't like how bulky they can get. I generally hate most of the designs out there.
So, that said, if someone wants to buy me ridiculously huge skirts out there so I can hide stuff under there...let me know.
Ms. Beaton of Hark a Vagrant! has created quite a great series of comics, frequently dealing with history and literature. In a recent guest comic, Darwin has his adventures.
What really intrigues me about this particular comic is the idea of combining Darwin with Pokemon. At one point, Darwin says he has to "catch them all" and now I am imagining a whole long story where Darwin "captures" creatures in Poke balls and battles it out with various naturalists (no one used the term "scientist" back in Darwin's day.) I'm thinking maybe he should battle all those contemporaries who criticized him. And maybe for good measure he should be traveling around with Charles Lyell, who inspired and supported him.
On a related note, I've wanted to write a screenplay about Charles Darwin for years but still haven't gotten around to it yet. Don't worry: I promise I will.
Sometimes, even your teachers manage to surprise you.
This morning, I found this video waiting for me in my inbox from my feminism professor. Even though it's true that she is a huge Bronte sisters fan, this is not exactly her style. But I love it. It makes me smile. "Girls can't write books, ha ha ha!" Lol. I love the idea of boys and girls enacting feminist narratives. Also, brontesaurus. The only thing I'm a little bothered by is the lace on the dinosaur. I feel like it needs an old school cameo pin too. My one disappointment when it comes to this professor was not taking her Jane Austen class last year. I think one of my seminars was at the same time, and I didn't want to give that up because I didn't know her and had no idea if she was going to teach a good class. Turns out the feminism class was awesome. I would have almost certainly enjoyed her Austen class.
Paper update: Today, I managed to write eight pages on Teresa of Avila and another eight on Matilda of Tuscany. I also finished my research and outline on the later paper. I'm feeling rather productive. The Teresa of Avila paper might need a thesis reworking, since I feel like I'm breaking one of the research paper cardinal sins by trying to make a thesis without any real evidence. Tisk, tisk. When will I learn? One of the strange things about working on research papers is that you end up having a lot of random thoughts, as I discussed last night. Today was no different. First, I discovered that Matilda apparently signed with the title "ducatrix" when she was married to Welf V. It's a unique title, since it's inbetween duke and duchess. I've been thinking about what mistress name I am going to have. Even though I don't want to work professionally like the lovely Mistress Matisse, who I admire greatly, I do want to have kinky relationships. As far as I can tell, a mistress name is not a requirement, but it would be nice to have one. Ducatrix Matilda? Or maybe Ducatrix Madeline? Usually, it's more like "Mistress Kinky Name Here", but since I stumbled across this little history nugget, it seems like a sign. Although I have been playing around with Anathema as a mistress name. It's just strange enough and has the right sort of dramatic history. Also, I have once again managed to find the sort of material that might make a good historical romance. I'm working on the relationship between Matilda of Tuscany and Gregory VIII, and they were very close, even to the point where some angry bishops and Emperor Henry IV declared it being inappropriately so. I actually don't want to write a May/December romance about them, not because there's anything wrong with that, but because my sense is they were more of the father/daughter variety. I want to write one of those "historical" novels that Philippa Gregory manages to make so much money off of. Philippa Gregory writes about real people, and she gets all of the facts she has to get right, but then she basically makes up her own crazy stuff about people. Her books are trashy, but in a way that is hard to notice when you're reading them. (Though the American movie version of The Other Boleyn Girl makes it super obvious.) My trashy not-really-based-on-history historical novel is this: Gregory was the literal father of Matilda. He knocks up Beatrice when she was hostage of Godfrey V of Lorraine and Gregory was in Germany at the court of Henry III. (See? Based on actual truth, but twisted in a way that is highly unlikely.) Adorable child Matilda hanging out with younger, not-yet-Pope Gregory. Gregory, cunning man that he is, has Matilda's two older siblings, Beatrice and Frederick, murdered, laying the ground for Matilda to inherit her father's holdings. Fantastic. Like I said last night: probably not helping me write papers. But fun to think about none the less. One of the things I find that makes paper writing easier (other than say treats and not being under the gun and not having irritating professors and having something interesting to say) is music. Mostly, I've been listening to the delightful Gimme Fiction by Spoon. (It is up, if you look, on YouTube.) I have a lot of thoughts on the album, mostly positive, but I feel like I don't want to carry on too much about it here. Mostly, let me just say that it's nice to be singing lines like "Great dominions, they don't come cheap" midway through a sentence explaining the rhetoric of femininity in Teresa of Avila's writing.
The other song I'm in love with? "Break It Up" by Patti Smith. Smith is one of those people I put on lists about ideas/movies/music I am promising myself to check out. Friday afternoon, I was on my office's computer, and one of the other workers usually messes with it so that it plays random stuff off of Last.fm. Mostly, it's hipster stuff, which I have mixed feelings towards. The first thing that came up this time was this song, and I fell in love. Now I'm going to have to listen to the whole album.
The professor was actually impressed today during the review for the final on Wednesday. We were actually asking good questions so that we would understand it. I'm really sad about leaving medieval history, though I suspect I won't have enough time to get upset about, seeing as I have another final, two research papers and a thesis to write in the next nine days. So maybe I'll postpone that until after the term is over. But thinking about it now, a few things become clear. First, becoming a medievalist was totally a fluke. I decided one morning freshman year, while asleep in my bed, that I wanted to try a second major in history. All year I did not have history classes and it made me sad. Every history major has to take the basic class, and I choose a class based on location and time. When I signed up, there was no subject and no teacher attached. It was all random that I got medieval. I suspect if it had been something else and the teacher had been cool, I might be obsessed with that now. Secondly, I'm so glad that medieval happened because it forced me to learn a little Latin and to see how complicated European history is. It's easy for Americans to brush off stuff and just focus on the plague or the Crusades, but other stuff happened, like the Investiture Contest, like the splitting of Charlemange's empire, like the Pope's policy of neutralizing any significant political power in Italy. All of it had long reaching consequences, and all of those examples are important to understanding things today. I'm happy for that perspective. And also, being a medievalist is just another way I'm nerdy. It's a different kind of nerdy, but one that Dungeons and Dragon kids can appreciate. I'm hoping that in the future, I will occasionally make time for medieval history. I'm want to keep reading about it.
If you happen to be like me, I can suggest the following books:
God's War: A New History of the Crusades One of the best books I've read on the Crusade. Easy to understand prose. He doesn't shy away from explaining the important ways the Crusades were influences by other things happening at the time. William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry Crouch is Marshal's main biographer, and this book is a decent explanation of his life. Might be a little harder to work on if you're not familiar with the events at hand. Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of Romanesque and Gothic One of the strangest books I've encountered in my studies. I'm not sure I buy the argument of the book, which is that architects and masters worked sort of in tandem to create great masterpieces in their respective fields. But the explanations of medieval architecture are perfect. And there are pretty pictures. My copy has those pictures in black and white, but I'd love to see a color version of this book. The Song of Roland One of the first poems in French. It's the classic story of the brave knight Roland who sacrifices himself to save his beloved king, Charlemagne. Though not accurate historically, it's still a fun read. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings A glorious book. Easy read and great images to bring the Viking world alive. Arthur: The Seeing Stone Though not an actual history book, this is easily my favorite fictional book about the time period. Although written for a young adult audience, it's delightful.
Today's stress happens to be in part because of one of my history classes. We were supposed to turn in a proposal for a research project. The first time I went to see the professor over an idea I had, he said it was fine. Then the next day he complained about the topic to the rest of the class, not mentioning my name or anything, just complaining. Okay. So then I got worried that he wouldn't be fair grading it, because my experience has been that professors do not always grade as partially as they're supposed to. I wanted to do a queer reading of King Lear once. Professor was completely against it. I did it, and I got an okay grade. I should have found something better to talk about. So, last week, talking with Kelly, I came up with another idea. Did a little research, tweaked the idea, and submitted it yesterday. Today, he sends me an email saying it's a great idea and then suggests a couple of other books to help with the research. I guess I should be happy he's enthusiastic, but I'm not. All I can think of is that I basically let him dictate to me. I feel like I've been manipulated, even though I've been fully aware of it the entire time. Mostly, I wish he hadn't commented on it at all.
On Monday, my friend Kelly and I were discussing how we should make a movie about William Marshal. Today, while sitting in a class and learning about Henry II, who seems to have been really interesting, I think I still like the basic idea. I think it would be better as a miniseries about William Marshal, focusing on his time as Young King Henry's knight. After Young King Henry dies, he goes to Jerusalem, and then we can end at Marshal's death. I'm thinking, in the beginning, we let Marshal tell three stories about himself to establish the kind of person he is, maybe the first three interesting stories about him from the poem that is about him. I like this idea mostly because so many other movies have been done about other people who have spent time around Henry II, like Becket and The Lion in Winter. Henry II seems to have really captured writer's imaginations, since there's Murder in the Cathedral, and hell, even the Canterbury Tales is ultimately about Becket. I tried, over Christmas Break, to watch The Tudors, and wasn't that into it. Maybe I've over done it with the Tudor history? It seems unlikely, but possible. I think, mostly, that it's no fun for me because I already know what's going to happen to all the main characters, unlike most Americans, who maybe know, at best, that Elizabeth will eventually become queen. I think also court intrigue is just depressing, because it reminds me how untrustworthy everyone is.
We're only on the second week on missionaries in one of my history classes, and it's driving me crazy. When we're in class talking about it, it's not too bad. Mostly, it's an issue of how boring the sources are. All of them are written by white priests who complain about how hard it is to get "natives"/"heathens"/"infidels" to understand them, given the language and cultural barrier. Then they say some racist things. Then they whine about how strange other religions are. And then they say some creepy things about how they trained local children in Christianity and how those children are now destroying idols, which, given recent events, I really don't want to hear about. I think I'm stressed about this upcoming paper I have on mission work in North America. We have to use the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, which is a huge source. I'm overwhelmed by this paper and the lack of structure. I'm afraid I'm going to fail. I also am curious as to what the "allied" part of the documents is suppose to mean. All the bits of this source I've looked at have talked solely from Jesuit perspectives. Who are these allies? (Franciscans?)
So, reading up on history today, and apparently there was a mayor of New York who tried to have George Washington killed. Yes, that George Washington.
