I think I may have an opening slide for my Sword in the Stone paper. From the Life Magazine photo archive hosted by Google:
A different take on how Arthur was able to get that pesky sword free. For those unwilling to click the link to zoom, the inscription on Excalibur reads “Excalib– / Made in GER–“. Perhaps Excalibur is a Henckel.
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Because of the new iPod, I’ve been searching out album art to tag my MP3’s with. While trying to find the cover for an old Mediaeval Baebes CD, I came across this, the cover to the Washington Symphonic Brass album Carmina Burana & Other Delights:
Why is this monk covered in whipped cream, you ask? For that, we have Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to thank. The cover to their 1965 album Whipped Cream and Other Delights, features the model Dolores Erickson wearing a dress made out of the stuff:
Alpert’s whipped-cream-coated cover is a fixture of “Sexiest Album Cover Ever” articles,* an image so iconic that it has spawned a host of parodies just as unfortunate as the Burina monk. Here are just a few:
From left to right, that’s Pat Cooper’s Spaghetti Sauce and Other Delights, Soul Asylum’s Clam Dip and Other Delights, and the Frivolous Five’s Sour Cream and Other Delights. Viewed in light of these, it’s clear that the Washington Symphonic Brass messed up. If you’re going to name your album Carmina Burana and Other Delights, the monk on the cover should be slathered in Carmina Burana, not whipped cream. Poor form, Mr. Symphony Brass. Poor form.**
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*Such as this one, this one, and this one.
**To be a purist about it, the monk should probably be naked, too, but you’re never going to hear me calling for more monastic nudity.
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Attentive readers have no doubt noticed a lot of backdated posts suddenly appearing. My apologies to future historians hoping to chronicle the day-by-day thoughts of twenty-first-century medieval bloggers, but my policy in general is to let the datestamp reflect the day when I started the post, not when I finished it, unless I’m post-dating for automagic scheduled publishing.
The start of the semester just hit me hard this time, and lots of posts went half-finished when I realized that, oh crap, I forgot to make the photocopies of the Venus of Willendorf, or something similar. I think I have it all back under control now.
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Found on a random internet trawl, “The Complete & Utter History of Britain,” a comedy show made by some of the members of Monty Python–before they was Pythons! Via Youtube:
Since I just finished explaining the Norman Conquest to my freshmen, I was particularly vulnerable to this bit:
ANNOUNCER
It was here that there occurred the first momentous event of 1065. Eric Smith, the serf, was walking to work, when… he stubbed his toe.But even this was soon to be overshadowed by a host of other remarkable events.
Richard the Quincy hits his thumb. (“Dooowww!”)
Norman Black discovers the force of gravity [man trips and falls over].
Aaron Simon Miller Anvil Smith discovers the thimble. (“Found it!”)
Edward the Confessor sits closer to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And Bristol Zoo was not yet built. […]
But how do those who lived through this remarkable year actually remember 1065?
MAN ON THE STREET
“1065? Never heard of it.”WOMAN ON THE STREET
“Is it a kind of pastry?”SOME OTHER MAN ON THE STREET
“Black Pudding.”A MAN WHO SELLS MUGS
1065? [spits] Terrible year. Terrible, rotten year for us in the commemorative mug business. I got hundreds of these in the back of the shop. A Present from 1065. Welcome to 1065. Ha! 1065: Top Year. And what happened? Nothing. Same as the year before. I’m getting out before 1066, I can tell ya.
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Pop quiz, hotshot. You’re the illuminator for Bodleian Library MS Douce 49, a late 13th-century Flemish Psalter.* You notice there’s a bit of spare room up above your historiated initial of the Passion of the Christ (pictured above). Mel Gibson won’t return your calls, and you’ve already burned your lifelines. What do you do? What do you do?
Nonetheles, enjoy your Passion of the Christ, now fortified with essential monkey.
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*True, you probably wouldn’t refer to it as “Bodleian Library MS Douce 49.” You’d probably call it, “The prayer book for Mr. ‘Oooh, that page isn’t gilt enough for me, I’m such a fancy pants noble'”. Assuming you hate the guy who commissioned it, of course.
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I got an iPod Touch for Christmas and am now obsessed with it. From the end of this sentence on, all my blog posts will be typed on its tiny touch screen.
AS I eas sayding, I realy lovr this nmew tecjknowlogy.*
Anyway, while searching for new iPod wallpaper, I discovered two things. The first is that even the iPod is not safe from the old “so-crappy-its-medieval” meme. According to MacNewsWorld (the website for people who don’t have time to press the space bar, they’re so busy getting up-to-date mac news from the world), Apple recently relaxed its policy that required third-party iPod application developers to sign non-disclosure agreements before being given their development kits, a stunning about-face that could only be described with the headline, “Apple Goes a Little Less Medieval on Devs.”
I think the word they were looking for was “draconian,” not medieval. Dragons–particularly those from ancient China–are well known for their elaborate non-disclosure agreement rituals.
The other thing I learned is that we are currently experiencing a global shortage of medieval wallpaper for our iPod Touches and iPhones. When I did a search for medieval ipod wallpaper, the first thing I got was this:**
As always, I try to keep an open mind about questions of periodization, but I’m pretty sure that Buffy the Vampire Slayer holding a riding crop isn’t going to make it into the Norton Anthology of Medieval Iconography any time soon. So, as a thank you to all my readers who use an iPod Touch to view this site, here you go:
Voila! Medieval iPod Touch wallpaper.***
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*See what I did there? I faked a bunch of typos to make you think I had switched, when in fact–oh, so you knew that? What would you say if I told you that I actually had typed that on my tiny touch screen, but only faked being bad at it, and that I am even now still typing on the tiny screen, but with the skill and dexterity of the very skillful and dexterous iPod touch typer that I happen to–what, you don’t buy that, either? Well who cares what you think, anyway, Dr. Know it All?
**I know that you all know better than to trust my footnotes, but I swear, that’s what I pulled up. In the time since I first started this post, the first wallpapery hit on Google Images for “medieval iPod touch wallpaper” has been replaced with an image of the band Dethklok from Metalocalypse. [UPDATE: Now Dethklok has fallen to 2, behind wallpaper with the motto “I Love Ale!” Hopefully, all the readers I’m getting today from BoingBoing Gadgets will soon raise the monkeys above to #1 on Google’s search.]
***Be warned, I’ve installed special tracking cookies. I will know if you download Sarah Michelle Gellar instead, and I will inform the tenure review committee.
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In an article discussing the possibility of the Anglican Church appointing its first female bishop, a reporter from The Times offers this helpful bit of analysis:
Edward the Confessor, the 11th-century King most closely associated with the abbey [Westminster], would probably be more alarmed by the singing Santa Claus and teddy bear outside her solid oak door* in the cloisters of the abbey than he would by her [Canon Jane Hedges, the potential bishop] being a woman.
This is, I think, an excellent line of argument. We should all, before embarking on a controversial decision, ask ourselves, “Would the outcome alarm Edward the Confessor more, or less, than electronic Santa Clauses?” Do keep in mind that Edward the Confessor died in 1066 and likely was familiar with only the most rudimentary electronic novelty devices. If this seems a little esoteric a question, feel free to substitute in any familiar electronic novelty device that seems appropriate to the situation.
is a typical portrait of Edward the Confessor. Dude doesn’t look like he’d be alarmed by much.****
*The second her refers, I believe, to Westminster, though I remain open to the possibility that Canon Jane Hedges has a solid oak door.
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Since I am now professionally embracing this weird thing I do on the internet, I thought I’d let my readers know where they can find me, professionally speaking, in 2009.
I will also be attending the PCA/ACA’s (Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s) conference in New Orleans over Easter weekend. (Pop culturalists are an ungodly sort.) There, my topic will be “The Sword in the Stone in Outsider Arthuriana”. The original title used the vulgar word for “psychoceramics” for the Arthuriana I mean–things like Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and the Alano-Sarmatian hypothesis–but the session organizers rightly suggested I try not to piss off famous people who do actually come to the PCA/ACA conference from time to time.
I’m also working on a paper on the Middle Ages in Sid Meier’s Civilization games that would have been better suited for the Pop Culture conference, if I weren’t already doing the Sword in the Stone thing there. Recently, while leading Charlemagne to an embarassing defeat at the hands of the Incans and their pesky airships, it struck me how fundamentally weird it is to think of a “Middle Ages” in a game that by design will lack all of the usual events that we use for our periodization. If the Middle Ages isn’t, in Sid Meier’s creation, defined with reference to the fall of Rome or the Protestant Reformation, how is it defined? Does Sid (or his minions to whom he handed off the game) have anything deeper in mind than “In the Middle Ages, your attack units are knights with an attack strength of 4 and a defense of 2, while in the Modern Era, your attack units are tanks with attack of 10 and defense of 5”?
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From the lower right margin of a late fifteenth century book of hours, Bodleian Library MS Douce 266:
And as a bonus, I’ve translated the accompanying text:
CHRISTINE
In sleep he sang to me
In dreams he came
That voice which calls to me
And speaks my name
And do I dream again?
For now I find
Thephantommonkey of theoperamanuscript is there,
Inside my mindPHANTOMMONKEY
Sing once again with me
Our strange duet
My power over you
Grows stronger yet
And though you turn from me
to glance behind
Thephantommonkey of theoperamanuscript is there
Inside your mind
In related news, I heard recently that Andrew Lloyd Webber has entered a development contract with a video game studio to bring his vision of dancing cats and roller-skating Jesuses (Jesui?) to the big screen (that’s hooked to the X-Box). I think my advice for the adaptation is obvious.
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According to medieval calendars, January is the time to take the month off to feast by the fire, so no farm chores this month, people; take some time to yourselves. You deserve it, after all that reaping, sowing, and slaughtering your livestock these last few months.
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