Lest we forget

Another in my series of "the best of" my blog. The Toronto Morality Play Among other things, proof that all our present problems can't be blamed on one politician or one party.

Progress on the Chronicle of the Good Duke

Followers of my work know that I have been translating the 15th-century chivalric bibliography The Chronicle of the Good Duke Louis of Bourbon for a good while now. (Gulp! since 2010!) I just finished my third run-through of the Chronicle this very morning. The next full run-through should be the concluding one!

Image: The French court of Charles VI in the time of Duke Louis!

Rape in Game of Thrones and ISIS -- realistic medievalism?

Jeff Sypec examines in his blog the idea that rape in Game of Thrones is a positive element in George R.R. Martin's fictional version of the Middle Ages -- more realistic because more brutal. At the same time some ISIS supporters claim Islamic authenticity for their mistreatment of non-ISIS women and girls. Is there any truth to this?
Jeff, who is quite an intelligent guy, looks at this question from a number of different angles. For instance:

Even though [Amy S.]Kaufman [author of "Muscular Medievalism" in the 2016 issue of The Year’s Work in Medievalism,] isn’t blaming Game of Thrones viewers for ISIS, her article won’t sit easily with many fantasy fans. I appreciate that she isn’t just sniping on Twitter; she’s drawing a sober, thought-provoking analogy. I like her strident contrarianism, and I think she’s right to wonder what the pop-culture ubiquity of Game of Thrones actually means. Even if you’re certain the answer is “not much,” why not ponder it further anyway? As I write this, my TV is advertising “Game of Thrones Night” at Nationals Park in D.C., complete with t-shirts and a chance to “visit an authentic Iron Throne.” If someone mugs for a selfie with a TV-show prop on a fun night at the ballpark, what is it they’re trying to be a part of? Why do they need to believe so badly that fictional violence gets us closer to the “real” Middle Ages?
“The medieval era is the dumping ground of the contemporary imagination,” Kaufman writes, “rife with torture, refuse in the streets, rape, slavery, superstition, casual slaughter, and every other human vice we supposedly stopped indulging in once we became ‘enlightened.'” It’s worth asking what we miss seeing in the Middle Ages if we’re invested in only this view. Despite what George R. R. Martin believes, his dark, despairing fantasy isn’t any more “authentic” than the Disney-princess version, nor is it less harmful. Observations like Kaufman’s always bring me back around to a blunt conclusion by medievalist and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey: “There are . . . many medievalisms in the world, and some of them are as safe as William Morris wallpaper: but not all of them.”

It might be worth reminding both Jeff and Amy that the idea of the Middle Ages was invented specifically to serve as a background for recent progress. A very large number (if not all) the depictions of the Middle Ages will always be negative in many respects.
I am pleased by the excellence of Jeff's blog post. He's a survivor of what us (habitual classifiers) will probably call the Golden Age of Blogging. (There is no Golden Age of Twitter, sorry.) Nice to have such a meaty discussion.
Image: Jeff's from Maryland, and the state flag is a welcome reminder of an earlier age of medievalism.  Jousting is, or has been, the state sport.

A Fashion "Virtual Experience" by Google

This article at Smithsonian.com describes a Google project which gives access to a large number of sites relevant to "3000 years of fashion history." It's called "We wear culture."

Any chance I know anyone who might be interested?

Interested in mass graves? Put Lützen on your list

Lützen was one of the most important battles of the Thirty Years War -- the Swedish King and Protestant champion Gustavus Adolphus was killed there. In 2006 the bodies of 47 other soldiers were found there. Smithsonian Magazine has a write-up, as does Yahoo.

Thanks to Explorator.

Surreality in a CBC newscast

Early this morning I was listening to the news on CBC Radio One. The news mentioned two things that a few years ago I would have found to be beyond belief. Not that they were actually new or unheard of: just that I could remember a time when neither of them would have seemed at all likely.

The two items: the musical "Hamilton" (yes, I know, rather old news, and only mentioned in passing today)

And

a Canadian-led military mission to Latvia.
"Strange days have found us..."

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca

Every once in a while, publishers send me a book that you my readers might be interested in seeing discussed in my blog. I try to oblige and because what they send is pretty interesting. Around Christmas time, St. Martin's Press sent me Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, a true life story of crime and poverty and the struggle for social reform, in fact all sorts of things. I misplaced the book and so I'm only getting around to reviewing it now – apologies.

Brad Ricca studies and teaches literature, and has a particular interest in superhero comic books. My guess is that Batman is one of his favourites, because gritty is the word you do want to use when discussing Mrs. Sherlock Holmes some, whose real name was Mrs. Grace Humiston. A female lawyer in early 20th century New York, she would have had lots to say to the Caped Crusader. She could've pointed out who the villains were and what might be done about them.

Humiston as a pioneering female lawyer in New York had personal experience of women's contributions being dismissed or undervalued from her own career. Not for her in a normal position in the normal law firm. She made herself available instead to the hopeless cases, men and women both who were so poor and socially isolated that they just got crunched up in the wheels of the legal profession and the courts. Humiston used her own resources and wits, and the help of a few collaborators, to do a better job for these people than establish authority ever would. This led her to be eventually labelled "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes" by a newspaper, but it also attracted criticism. Humiston had no patience with people who shirk their duty and her criticism of the New York Police Department alienated many of the cops.

The most famous case was the disappearance of Ruth Kruger, an 18-year-old girl. The police wanted to close the case unsolved, as just another "wayward girl" meeting her inevitable fate. But Humiston was pretty sure this was not the case. In fact Ruth was "just another" case of a different sort, Humiston was sure, a case of sexual predators kidnapping and enslaving girls who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where the police saw crowds of wayward girls, Humiston saw a network that in an organized fashion swept girls into an underworld that most people wanted to forget about. Humiston went from trying to address individual cases of injustice to aligning herself with the widespread reform movement of the time. One of the causes dear to that reform movement was of course the abolition of "white slavery." Humiston's efforts to find Ruth and rescue other girls in trouble led her to become an internationally known figure, both praised and criticized for her tireless pursuit of Ruth's case and others.

Ruth was eventually found – not in some brothel, but in a hole in the ground underneath the neighbourhood bicycle shop. Ruth had not been taken in by the white slavery network – which certainly did exist – but by a man who knew her personally.

One of the best parts of this book is the way the Ricca's prose reflects the newspaper and the official records of the time. This book will be really appreciated by people who want to immerse themselves in the era of World War I and the dangerous and disorderly cities of the time.