Bodvarr's SCA Miscellany

Why SCadians are Like Rope

2005-10-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

As the old engineering saw goes, "You can't push a rope." Well, you can't push volunteers, either, unless their desire to volunteer is a lot stronger than the push you plan to impart. And when the push is at a group of volunteers whose self-avowed purpose is to have fun, well, it doesn't take a very hard push to shove them right out of the organization.

Being the corporate drone (project manager) that I am, I tend to look at these types of situations as business problems. Even at the local level, the SCA group functions like a (n often dysfunctional) family business. Some folks are in it for the long haul, some are there because their parents are (literally), some are only there to pass the time before moving on to other stages of their life. A wise business owner, he knows this and only asks from his employees what he knows they'll be able to give (for what he's paying). An unwise business owner estranges his family, has a hard time finding good (or any) help, and if the trend continues long enough, he loses his business.

I believe the same is true of SCA branches. The SCA is peopled by a wide variety of members, ranging from the "in-it-to-win-it" lifers to those for whom the SCA is just a (sometimes very short) phase of life. If you're planning to "manage" this kind of business (read: be a local officer), you need to know how to identify the players and task them accordingly.

Somewhere in this pit of an office I have several references that I'll draw from in further musings...

In the meantime, don't try to push a rope - pull it ever so gently, and you might like what's at the other end.

_Bodvarr

Medieval Maps - Paris

2005-08-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/france/paris/stroll/porte_st_martin/porte_st_martin.html

Very cool! Love the graphics and the style of the map. It's late period - almost to the end of the 16th century.

More on Autocratting

2005-08-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

It's hard to find information on autocratting. Well, not really hard, but the information available via searches is scattered and often varies wildly in quality. As I'm studying for my Project Management exam (yeah, the PMP), it comes to me that a central source of knowledge for autocrats with templates, best practices, and other such project management items might be of use to the Society at large.

What do you think? Add comments or send me an email (bodvarr.geirsson@gmail.com).

Thanks,

Bodvarr

Autocratting

2005-08-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

As a project manager in mundanity, I find information on autocratting SCA events very interesting at a professional level. Here are a few links that I'd like to look into in more detail sometime.

Shire of Dragon's Mist - Autocrat's Checklist. This is a great activity list for all those things you should be thinking about. It's a laundry list, so you'd want to use only the features specific to the event (no need for a tourney field at an A&S event, for example.) Oh yeah - biffies are port-a-johns (I think.)

Shire of Dragon's Mist - Autocrat Resources. I like the site information database in Microsoft Excel format. The particular content is only good for their area, but the information contained is great for anyone wishing to host an event - Site name, address, city, # of people it can accommodate, cost & deposit, Phone and contact name, payment forms accepted, and notes. It has 3 tabs, splitting the sites up by general, camping, and picnic (very nice touch). To this I would add typical reservation lead times and website address.

Barony of Wastekeep - Autocrat's Friend (PDF). 33 pages of advice on being an autocrat.

Bright Ideas and True Confessions - Sandra Dodd's Autocratting Pages. This is the main page. BUT - I love this page on how to rate the Autocrat's performance: http://sandradodd.com/ideas/autocrat2.html - it just warms the cockles of my heart.

Ok, ok, I give! This one is on how to handle disasters - RISK MANAGEMENT at its finest! http://sandradodd.com/ideas/autocrat3.html. Fantastic!

Plunder Tournaments - how cool! I particularly like the one where each fighter fights, then the winner gets to pick a prize. All fighters contribute a prize to the tourney, and all fighters get a prize to take away - but the best fighter gets to pick first, down to the hapless fighter who won not a single round. Very cool. here's a link to the original article: http://sandradodd.com/ideas/tourney2.html

Another Link to Many Cordials

2005-07-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

This link will take you to Kevin White's page of cordials - mostly homemade equivalents of commercial liquors, but good information nevertheless.
http://www.angelfire.com/wy/DaBoozer/liqueurs.html

I'd like to try the Aniseseed Ouzo, but grain alcohol might be tough to come by here in Pentamere.

Online Medieval Manuscripts

2005-07-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

Renaissance Magazine issue #44 has an article on Medieval Manuscripts that have been made available over the Internet. This aligns so very neatly with my interest in calligraphy and illumination; here are some of the links as a reference. You'll have to read the article to get all of the detail, though.

The Lindisfarne Gospels
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/themes/euromanuscripts/lindisfarne.html
Incredible. The magnify feature lets you zoom in on any detail of the page - there are 32 pages or so represented.

Utah Museum of Fine Arts - Paging Through Medieval Lives
http://www2.art.utah.edu/Paging_Through/

New York Public Library - Digital Gallery
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/
Ok, I'm not sure where the medieval manuscripts are on this website, but they have over 300,000 digitized images. Big!

The Aberdeen Bestiary
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/

The Physician's Handbook
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/physicianshandbook.html

The International Dunhuang Project (Silk Road Sites)
http://idp.bl.uk/

Rattan Cultivation

2005-07-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

There has been a running thread on the Middlebridge for the past week or so about the general availability of rattan, scarcity, panic, death & destruction, etc. I did a brief search and discovered that rattans are a warm-climate reed found in southeast Asia. This link from the Royal Botanic Gardens has some good information about climate and cultivation.

Some quick facts:
Calamus Manan is the fastest-growing large diameter rattan species, and has been recorded at up to 6m per year of growth.

Camp furniture on a "Beer Budget"

2005-07-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

Or at least, that's what Charles Fleming says. His website (http://www.charlesfleming-sca.com/) has a whole section on how to build period-looking furniture for your camp without breaking the bank.

Gothic Arch Chair

2005-07-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

This link is for a complete pattern and instruction set for some stunning gothic arch chairs.
http://www.greydragon.org/furniture/chairs/index.html

Blueberry Liqueur

2005-07-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

This link to the orginal recipe is from the Rampant Badger Brewery site - http://www.nwlink.com/~badger/cord7.html

7/16/2005 - Made first batch.
Ok, I made an octuple batch (yes, that's 32 cups of blueberries). Having a large quantity of old Ball Mason Jars (the kind with the glass lids), I used them to segment out the ingredients into 8 of the jars. They are quart jars, and after mixing them, each was a little over half full.

Here is the recipe I followed - it's a little different from Badger's original.
Ingredients List

4 cups fresh blueberries
2 cups 80-proof Vodka
1 cup water (1/2 at the beginning, 1/2 later)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp. whole cloves
1/2 tsp. whole coriander seed

Directions

Mash up the blueberries.
Put mashed blueberries into jar.
Add vodka, cloves, coriander, 1/2 cup of water.
Cover and let stand 10 days. (Mixture should be quite dark)
Strain mixture through cheesecloth (4-5 layers works great)
Heat 1/2 cup water to just under boiling, and stir in sugar.
Let sugar syrup cool to lukewarm, and pour into mixture.
Cover and leave until clear.

Notes on the 7/16/05 Batch

This is some potent stuff - had just a minor taste and could feel it almost right away. It was lukewarm when I tasted it, from the sugar syrup, and even so it was fairly tasty - no alcohol taste at all.
I bottled the first batch on 7/16/05, so on 8/1/05 strained out the solids and added the syrup. I'm wondering how long it will take for the cordial to turn clear.
The cloves came through strongly - might use less next time to let the blueberry flavor shine a bit more.

On the Making of Cordials

2005-07-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

We're having our 3rd annual Pennsic Pity Party this year, and I'm going to make some sort of cordial. Margarethe just bought me 17 stoneware and silver cordial-size goblets, and they desperately need christening.

Besides, I want Zygmunt to go airplane watching again. :D

First link - good basic instruction about the making of cordials, from the kingdom of Trimaris.
http://artsci.trimaris.org/artsci/education/alcohol/cordials/CordialPaper.html

Ahh, Badger's cordial recipes - I would like to try the liquid sunshine (lemon and cloves):
http://www.nwlink.com/~badger/badgbeer.html#cordrecipe

To Make a Bed

2005-07-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

We broke our mundane fold-out bed this weekend. It was one of those telescoping/expanding beds sort of like the current camp chairs. We've used it for about a year, but it's always been uncomfortable. The air mattress always seemed to leak, and then we'd wake up lying on those little posts - very painful.

Just a few weeks ago we started talking about constructing a more period-style bed, with a futon mattress. I guess the bed must have heard us, because it failed the very next time we used it. Karma.

So I'm in search of some plans to build a period-style bed. We're still camping (and will be for some time) in a mundane tent, so I'm not overly concerned about *exact* periodicity. The 10-foot rule would be ok to apply, though.

Oh, and I don't want a rope bed - it has to slot / fit together quickly, because I don't want to spend forever putting my bed together.

Here's what I've found so far:

http://www.ravensgard.org/gerekr/bed.html - Based on the Gokstad ship find. It's a slat bed design, which I could live with, but assembling the slats will still likely take more time than I have patience for... This is a nice site, however - the author has kindly provided examples of his other woodworking, which includes some stellar chests and beds.

http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/index.html - This is a link list of all manner of camp projects, from pavilions (100+ links) to chairs, camp showers, and of course beds. Lots to look at, and many of the links are to PDFs with complete construction instructions.

So THAT'S how Google Does It

2005-07-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

Ajax; it's not just a scouring powder. Now it's a way of developing interactive web applications that make a website seem like a desktop application. I've had numerous conversations with programmer colleagues and we've all been wondering. Ok, so I haven't run out and researched it, but we enjoyed some water cooler conversation about it.

Now I have the term - Ajax. Asynchronous Javascript plus XML. Here's a great link from one of the leaders in the field (Adaptive Path).

And all the programmers I know sneer at JavaScript - pfah! Google rocks!

(Sorry this post wasn't SCA-related, but, well, Google Rocks!)

Yet another Sticker Link...

2005-07-11T04:54:00.000-07:00

This website offers custom printing of stickers with complete color processing. Seems like it would be handy to have your heraldry stuck on unobtrusive sections of your household items for identification purposes.

It wouldn't stop the criminal act, but if you left something out, then a good gentle could return it to you. Faster than burning, etching, painting, etc.

Here's the link: http://www.123stickers.com

Spiffy Decal Link

2005-07-11T04:49:00.000-07:00

Just got this from the Midrealm mailing list - it's a link to a company that sells vinyl automotive decals, including the Welsh/Midrealm Dragon. You can get them in 5", 7" and 9" sizes, and multiple colors (but who'd want one other than Red?) Here's the link directly to the Dragon: symbolz.com.

Towards a More Period Appearance

2005-07-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

http://caeranterth.northshield.org/Library/periodcamp.html - this is a nice article on how to make your encampment look more period, without draining your wallet. Someday we'd like to have a "really period" looking encampment, but with (7) small children, too many modern conveniences are necessary for us to camp at all. Things like cribs, pack-n-plays, rocking chairs, etc. all combine to make us rather mundane.

Edited 7/27/05 to correct link. The Caer Anterth site is now located under the Northshield Kingdom's website. Thanks to my wife for catching the dead link. -Bodvarr

Monster Link Library

2005-07-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Kingdom of Atlantia has an enormous list of links powered by a database. It's got 381 links for the Scribal arts alone. The short name is www.scalinks.com, but the url you get redirected to is: http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/wsnlinks/.

Persona, Vikings and Heraldry in the SCA

2005-07-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

Bodvarr Geirsson is a "Danish Viking", at least until he entered the Knowne World in AS XXXVI. I envision him to have participated in some of the final true Viking raids in the late 11th century (1050-1070 or so); it seems difficult to accept that all viking activity stopped directly after the battle of Hastings in 1066. Whether there is historical proof of this is something I hope to research (or at least discover through reading secondary research).

Living on the Jutland peninsula, in the Hedeby-Schleswik environs, it is possible to imagine the influence of the developing southern Germanic states. Although formal heraldry was an invention not fully realized until the 12th century, it should have been forming at this time (Speculation again).

Thora Sharptooth's article, entitled "Personal Display for SCA Vikings" describes late-period vikings as possibly having a single zoomorphic creature as a personal device. Down at the bottom is a link to an image of her pavilion (pavilion taxonomy). In front of her pavilion is a bench, complete with back rest - that looks like a *great* piece of furniture to add to my own camp. I wonder where I could find the plans?

The Viking Answer Lady provides this article "Heraldry for a Non-Heraldic Culture: Vikings and Coats of Arms in the SCA". It has a wealth of information on how to adapt Viking culture to fit the culture of the SCA. The article includes sample charges, good examples of field divisions, colors and metals, and many many references to other works to aid the Viking herald.

Yet more Scribal Links

2005-07-04T03:03:00.000-07:00

This is becoming a regular thing - just found this site while searching for some medieval exemplars.

http://www.cynscribe.com/
It's a site dedicated entire to calligraphers and letter artists.

This site has a downloadable version of the Midrealm Scribe's handbook, by Sir Ranthulfr Asparlundr. (Link to PDF document)

Calligraphy Links

2005-07-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

This link is based on some work done at Harvard - a class project, from the looks of it. It's focused on medieval calligraphy in particular. It shows Carolingian Miniscule as a period hand from the 8th-12th centuries; if true, could use it for northern Europe around 1100ad? Not looknig for runes, but rather for manuscript examples from the Jutland peninsula around 1100ad. If anyone has references to this kind of material, I'd enjoy hearing from you!
http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~humae105/fall97/twest/

Under the "I Want This Book" category - "Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique", by Marc Drogin. Everyone and their brother (get it, monastic reference!) references this work as one of the preeminent sources for medieval script and illumination.

A page of links from the Kingdom of Atlantia: http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/topics/call.htm. It appears quite comprehensive!

Online SCA Demo Site

2005-07-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

This link just came across the Middle Bridge (the Midrealm's email list). It's a demonstration of what the SCA is, in a website format. It appears well-designed, and the graphics are crisp. http://www.scademo.com. I'm looking forward to poking through it in more detail.

Actually, it's a very appropriate use of the medium. Rather than go to a specific group's website, which tends to focus on local events (at best), the demo site is targeting newcomers as an audience, and catering to those needs. This is something I've talked about in design discussions with our local group (Incipient Canton of Iron Oak, Pentamere, Midrealm), particularly because so many group sites seem so...fragmented.

2005-06-30T13:08:00.001-07:00

Ok, another cool scribal link - this one to a site that has images of medieval manuscripts. (And the link's not broken as of this post date.)
http://www.byu.edu/~hurlbut/dscriptorium/dscriptorium.html

AON Celtic Art & Illumination - this is a great website. It includes beautiful examples, as well as some instructional material on celtic knotwork and how to draw it. Very cool.
http://www.aon-celtic.com/

Some More Scribal Links

2005-06-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

This one's a given, I should think - the Midrealm Scribal College site (someday I might aspire to being a Midrealm scribe - it gives me something to shoot for)
http://www.midrealm.org/signet/

This is a whole page of links to other Medieval artwork resources on the Web. A few of the links aren't active, but there is a lot here.
http://www.fidnet.com/~weid/art.htm

Ok, I've always been interested in maps, and this link (http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/EM1.html) is to a whole site dedicated to early medieval maps. Very cool. Hoping to pore over it in more detail.

Some Scribal Links

2005-06-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts (pictures)
http://www.kb.nl/kb/manuscripts/

The Illuminated Page - Contemporary Medieval Illumination (Seems a bit of an oxymoron)
http://www.illuminatedpage.com/

Ok, more later. I think this is going to be fun.

First Links

2005-06-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

Since I have no access to editing my web site from anywhere but my behemoth development PC at home, this blog is to track thoughts and observations from the other 23 hours in my day.

Right now I'm very interested in learning more about the scribal arts; I'd like to be able to give some service to the Society, and drawing is something I used to enjoy a great deal. Please understand, I've been casting about for a craft for some time (about three years), and have drifted through a few different phases. Leatherwork (because I have the tools), mail-making (because my 8-year old was interested - until he realized he couldn't bend the rings), a little armoring, and web development (because that's my day job, mostly).

What I've come to realize is that a) I'm fairly mercurial about my interests, and b) some semblance of balance is important in my life. Working with computers all day is great, but sometimes at night, it's nice to work on something else. Something quiet, something that appeals to my sense of minute detail.

Enter scribing and calligraphy.