One of the people who visited our house yesterday left their eyeglasses here. Since you are all on LJ, please let me know who they need to be returned to .

My apprentice Viscountess Muriel has joined the hive mind of LJ ... blondefeather

I've just created an LJ community for SCA folks who are interested in period food and live on the Left Coast ... it is "leftcoastfood"

I've sent invitations to many of you. If you want to join in, or know others who are interested, please let them know.

By Left Coast, I'm primarily focussing on the West, CAID and An Tir. The purpose of this is to help with coordinating things like the up coming cooks playdate at the West An Tir War and to publicize events that may be of interest to those of us into period food ... things like last November's culinary symposium in An Tir and the Perfectly Period Feast the was done here in the West and which is to be done again.

If this is your area of interest, please feel free to join in. Membership is moderated by me. If I don't know you, please introduce yourself when you ask to join.

As an offshoot of the discussion from Leon's interesting post (http://red6count.livejournal.com/2756.html?thread=1#t20164), is one facet of the trouble people have with Jade and Uther's reigns (see ... not lumping all Spartans together, I'm specifically naming names ... and I realize that there are *many* different opinions on why "meatloaf" is the common short-hand) is that since they keep reigning with different ladies it adds to the impression that they are just in it for the displays of martial prowess and not in it for the chivalric ideal of naming your lady Queen of Love and Beauty? Which is "right" (please note the quotation marks) ... wanting to be a Duke or wanting your lady to be a Duchess?

I was explaining to a friend this weekend that in many kingdoms the kings and queens sit the wrong way around. The purpose of the Crown List is to win renown and honor for your consort. So, The Queen is the highest position. And the King sits at Her right, as the position of greatest honor. But in a culture that puts the King first, she sits at his right. It is a small and perhaps subtle point, but Queen first is an indication that a kingdom's culture is chivalry, rather than prowess, first; that it is a "might for right", rather than "might makes right" culture.

When people who seem to have a prowess first and might makes right attitude reign frequently, it can be an indication of a cultural shift that is to be resisted. Whether or not those who reign frequently have this attitude or not ... if they are preceived as having it, that leads to trouble.

Town Hall Restaurant, which is accross the street from my office, will be starting up a next al fresco lunch service next week. To promote it they were serving free BBQ ribs and coleslaw to the Financial District masses today. Tasty food. Nice music. Sunny day. Good stuff :-)

I put on my big old shiny hat and was a meanie at someone. We will see what comes of it.

I've goofed off (at least in regard to getting A&S entries completed) all week so I've had to change plans on what to enter for "cleaning supplies". I've come up with some stuff I think will be fun. In fact, if one particular entry scores well, I may become insufferably smug :-)

One of the other competitors in the competitions at A&S Tourney made a comment along the lines of, aren't A&S contests about makin' stuff instead of writin' papers?

So, LJ land, what are your thoughts? Are arts and sciences competitions in the SCA about making stuff (performances are included in the category of "made things") or is it about writing research papers? Of course, documentation is necessary, but documentation, to me, is what I did, why I did it, and sources. That's it. Try to keep it to one or two pages. I don't think I need a paper on the historical and cultural relevance of those items I based my artifact on, unless the "made thing" for the competition is a research paper.

A&S was way fun. I suck at photography, so Sarah took pictures of my goodies for the competitions. Pictures 2 through 20 on this site are my goodies.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahbellem/sets/72157619670610837/

Thanks Sarah

With much help from my sweetie and the neighbors, my A&S Championship entries proceed.

My replica 15th c Spanish Playing Cards ... for the "Things Found in a Tavern" are well underway and are looking reasonably cool.

I made Ointment for the Face When Walking or Traveling from the Manual de Mujeres for the "Pilgrim's Bag or Things in a Pilgrim's Bag". Some of the ingredients, oatmeal and peach pits, are touted as ingredients in modern skin treatments. Some things don't change much I guess :-)

I also made my Pilgrim's Badge today. There is a beautiful 16th c Spanish (of course, what else would *I* do) pilgrims badge in the National Museum of Scotland. It is a jet carving of Santiago that is set in a silver scallop shell. Diane taught me how to carve stone (much fun ... there will be more of this later) and got me some jet. Since this is a new skill, my carving of Santiago is much more two dimensional than the piece that inspired the project, but you can tell is is a dude wearing a turban, brandishing a sword and riding a horse, which is what it is supposed to be, so I'll call it good. Not having the silver-smithing skills or tools, I set the carved jet in a real scallop shell. Instead of a soldered bezel like the original, mine has a cloth and thread setting to attach the jet to the shell. It works and doesn't look too bad. Also, it is more complex than the standard pewter pilgrim's badge.

I need to write up the documentation for all of these and my cheeses (Preserved Food) and finish my relic or reliquary entry. For that I'm doing a collection of amulets which includes a small reliquary. Apparently it was common for noble children in 16th c Spain to be festooned with religious objects as a hedge against infant mortality. While I doubt the efficacy of the practice, it still makes for a cool little bit of material culture. I have the case to put the relic in as well as a cross, a chunk of coral and a few religious medals. There are certain advantages to living next to a Mexican neighborhood (besides the obvious culinary ones) ... shops that sell religious trinkets.