Research Cheater

O Great LJ Hivemind...

I come to you with a request for information. A friend has recently been being pestered to produce evidence showing that 16^th C German men *did not* wear netted gold cauls under their battle helmets.

My initial thought upon hearing this was, “Are you crazy? Who would wear an item THAT EXPENSIVE under their helm?” I mean… gold…netted…re-embroidered over…? Are you nuts?

My second thought was, “I thought we normally tried to prove that someone *did* wear an item rather than the opposite? I mean, prove to me that 16^th C German men didn’t wear fairy wings under their backplates!”

*eye roll*

Then I realized; I have seen dozens of Landsknecht re-enactors wear these things around during the day while in their breastplates over the years. I don’t think I’ve seen any of them smash a helmet down over the top…but maybe that is where this guy got the initial idea. OK, so it may just be an issue of monkey see, monkey do. As for actual evidence of this taking place in the 16^th C on the other hand, if there are 16^th C images of un-helmed but armored men wearing these in portraiture, my guess would be that the images in question are “I’m Showing Off My Armor” shots; the addition of the “gelbhaube”/caul as a way to enhance the overall look-at-me-and-my-pimp-gear image, rather than to indicate that the caul was part of an armor rig in some way.

Then again, I don’t know that this particular re-enactment-ism has ever been really researched.

So I put it to ya’ll; anyone out there have any details (wardrobe inventory items, images of extant woolen arming caps, narrative descriptions, etc.) that might help clarify this issue with some data?

‘Hot Cowgirls, Mount Up!’

If you don't watch Supernatural, you are not going to understand 95% of this. If you insist on clicking through the cut link anyway here is a brief primer:

1) Sam and Dean are brothers
2) They live on the road, moving from crappy hotel room to crappy hotel room (and hunting/killing evil things along the way)
3) Sam is a research geek
4) Dean is a porn geek (if you read between the lines)
5) It is known that the boys father did some "questionable things" to support his hunting habit when Sam and Dean were young..

....

I don't think this is what the writers meant by "questionable things"...

( Or, "How I Stopped Worrying and Began To Wonder If Matt Cohen Needed The Rent Money"...? )

Poetry Wednesdays: Forgotten Language

I sometimes forget how much I love poetry. I can't write it to save my life, but I love reading it.

I'd like to stop forgetting.

So, I am going to be posting a favorite poetry tid-bit every Wednesday. Some will be poems I remember and love from my childhood, others will be new discoveries. Feel free to send back your favorites in the comments section!

And now, from one of my favorite authors, Shel Silverstein. Reading this reminds me me that I once swore I would never stop believing in faries and elves, in the existence of magic and the conversations of trees.

Broken promises are the hardest ones to forget....

Forgotten Language by Shel Silverstein

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?