Category: GENERAL

Location, Location, Relocation…

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So, one thing that surprised people was our seemingly sudden move back to Korea. Not just because people were surprised that we moved so suddenly, but also because we chose to come back to Korea specifically. Like any major decision in life, it’s a complex mix of things, some of which I won’t talk about here, but I thought I’d say a little about it anyway. For one thing, life on tourist visas with short-term health insurance policies (I can only get six months at a time these days) was growing increasingly untenable. (My health’s fine, I’ve actually lost plenty of weight and …

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Rethinking Reconnection

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Oh, and only a few short days after I mentioned I was aggressively digging into my email archive, I’m at virtually Inbox Zero™. The only mail in the inbox is left there as reminders of upcoming interviews (and one piece of writing I need to edit and send out for a deadline), and the other tabs have ten or fewer emails in them. Even with the responses to emails I’ve sent out this week trickling in, it hasn’t been all that difficult to keep on top of it so far. And, to my utter shock, I only have 40 unfinished/unsent draft …

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Tallow, The Baltic Trade and Filthy, Shadowy Georgian London

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I was surprised, a while back, to discover that all isinglass in Georgian England was imported from the Baltic. But wouldn’t know you, that’s where they got tallow, too. Tallow, of course, was used to make cheap candles and soap. In the Georgian Era, tallow candles were the ones that got everyday use, while wax were fancy-pants stuff you lit up when you got guests and visitors: in other words, wax candles were the Georgian Era’s version of domestic bling-bling, which, well: given that you stood a good chance of being robbed if you actually wore jewelry around, made sense: it …

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Phadaeng Nang Ai, Translated by Wajuppa Tossa

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I came to Wajuppa Tossa’s translation of Phadaeng Nang Ai via Bryan Thao Worra’s Demonstra (discussed here, more info here–and it’s even discounted right now, and $7 is a steal!), where it’s mentioned in passing (in an appendix, I think). What got me curious about it (after I looked it up) was the impression I got that it’s basically an epic about a love triangle involving humans and nagas. Not that Worra’s book was my introduction to nagas, of course. AD&D, Indian movies,  and travel in Southeast Asia had previously exposed me to various versions of nagas, from these: … to this film that the inimitable Ritu Chaudhry showed me during …

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Some (Admittedly Unkind) Words for Henry Thrale

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I mentioned recently that I’d been reading Lee Morgan’s biography of Henry Thrale. I’ve finished it, and collected some material on beer history–what little there was in the book. For the life story of a man whose wealth was gotten in the making of beer, the subject comes up much less than you might imagine… but then, as I mentioned last time, Thrale was always more interested in fox-hunting and clever conversation with upper-class people than the business that gave him such a wealthy lifestyle. Morgan’s text is a funny sort of book: it has lots of things that make it worth reading, including …

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d12 of Divination, d4 of Sheep-Ankle

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You know those ancient d20s they found in Roman and Greco-Egyptian excavations?   Well, this isn’t as cool as that, but I’ve just run across a reference (in Jim Baker’s The Cunning Man’s Handbook, which I posted about recently) to a Renaissance-era d12, and it was used for… divination, of course. (Dice seem to have been used both in divination and gaming, and the line between the two gets fuzzy at certain times in history, of course… like how lots of people today read their horoscopes in the newspaper for fun, but don’t base decisions on what they say.) That makes sense: 12 months of the year, 12 astrological …

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Stephen Hart’s Canting Lexicon, & More

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A very quick post, because I’m running  against several deadlines but wanted to at least add something here… For those interested in the “rogues’ cant” of Georgian England–something that interests me, though it’ll only get a certain amount of use in my ongoing project (since most of the characters aren’t criminals)–Stephen Hart has the best and most accessible canting lexicon index I’ve managed to find online. He has a bunch of pages of canting words and corresponding definitions arranged by topic or theme. The canting word lists are accessible from here. It’s a very useful resource for anyone in a position like mine, who’d like to look …

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The Brewing Industry in England, 1700-1830 by Peter Mathias

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Well, I’ve finally finished studying Peter Mathias’ masterpiece of brewing history, The Brewing Industry in England, 1700-1830. It is regrettable in the extreme that this book is both out of print, and as difficult to obtain as it seems to be. (I was lucky, as I’ve mentioned in the past, to get help from a friend in Germany who aided me in dealing with online bookseller there; apparently the demand of Mathias’ book in Deutschland is less than in the English-speaking world, and I got it for a relative song.) I’ve mentioned the book in many a recent post, so I’m just going …

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My Favorite Painting?

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A former student emailed me, asking–among other things–for advice about things to enjoy during her upcoming visit to Montréal. One of the things I suggested was to visit the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, and I couldn’t help but mention my favorite painting there, which, unsurprisingly, is of a teacher. Here it is: I know, hopelessly old-fashioned of me. I like more modern artists too, believe me! Kandinsky! Dali! Escher! Er… look, among my bundle of posters–now in storage in a warehouse someplace in Koream waiting to be shipped to me eventually–are at least a few prints much more avant-garde and …

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