(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

From thefridayfive:
1. What talent(s) do you have that could make you famous?

Assuming I aspired to fame? Not likely! Writing. Historical research.

2. If you could be famous for one day, what would you do?

Uh, isn't this a paradox? If you are famous at all, surely you are famous for more than one day? or is it just an extension of the "15 minutes of fame" that everyone gets? Well, I suppose if I was famous for a day (or longer) I'd be interviewed, so I could expound on my own ideas of how the world moves and what moves it and what truth is all about.

3. If you were so famous that money was no object, where would you live?

Assuming that fame equals money? I'd have a place to live in Durham (UK), Nova Scotia (Canada) and Tuscany (Italy).

4. If you could meet any famous person, who would it be?

I've been known to say I've met all the famous people I'd want to meet, but that is no longer true. Hmm. I'd like a chance to converse with Brian Michael Bendis, Megan Whalen Turner, Mary Doria Russell, Karin Lowachee and/or Greg Rucka. Not to mention Jonathan Riley-Smith and Bernard Hamilton.

5. What would be your famous catch phrase/quote/motto/last words?

I tend to borrow mottos from others:
1. Stand Fast - the Grant family clan motto
2. Life is an adventure or it is nothing. - Helen Keller
3. Ask the next question. - Ted Sturgeon
4. Forward momentum - Lois McMaster Bujold

If I were to come up with one of my own it would probably be: Think from the heart.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Hm, let's see...
1. Same answer as yourself.
2. One day? That kind of short-term fame isn't worth it.
3. St Andrews, as I know I will never be able to afford to live there again, even though I regard it as my real home; Edinburgh; Strasbourg; Asti.
4. No-one currently living. A few dead people, if I could have a Babel-fish to translate.
5. a) Sod the 'emotional intelligence', let's have some real intelligence.
b) Mas trop suy vengutz... (But I have come too late) - Guiraut Riquier.
c) Life is merely a terminal STD.
d) "...che plor, e vai cantan." (Who weep and go singing) - Dante, introducing Arnaut Daniel.
e) "I know the sharp bitterness of the spirit/Better than the swift joy of the heart" (Sorley MacLean).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Sigh - I messed up the html so I'm posting this comment again. I can't type today.

1. Same answer as yourself.

Heh - two of a kind.

1. Same answer as yourself.

Heh - two of a kind.

That kind of short-term fame isn't worth it.

It's a silly question. Why limit it to a day, when it's hypothetical anyway? I suppose the idea is, then, that it has to be something that can be done in a day.

4. No-one currently living. A few dead people, if

I made myself answer living people; the list of the dead I want to meet would be way, way too long. Starting with Shelley and a few of our Crusaders.

if I could have a Babel-fish to translate.

Most of the people I would want to meet spoke, I think, something I could deal with... well, I could if I had a week or two to get used to the language.... Most of my dead guys spoke English (thinking of Shelley) or Italian or French or Latin - as you point out, many of our Crusaders were impressively polyglot. I couldn't cope with converational Latin right now but if I was going to meet Baldwin or Conrad or Aimery, that would be incentive to become very fluent!


a) Sod the 'emotional intelligence', let's have some real intelligence.

Absolutely!

b) Mas trop suy vengutz... (But I have come too late) - Guiraut Riquier.

Woo. Good one.

c) Life is merely a terminal STD.

Only too true!

"...che plor, e vai cantan." (Who weep and go singing) - Dante, introducing Arnaut Daniel.

Shiver up the back. That Dante... like Shakespeare, he could make magic with words.

Who is Sorley MacLean?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think I'd like the Babel-fish to handle Occitan, as it's C's first language, and I'd like him to feel at ease.

The Dante line is imitating Arnaut Daniel's own style there, and it's in Oc.
Arnaut described himself in one of his best songs as:

Ieu sui Arnautz qu'amas l'aura
e cas la lebre ab lo bueu
e nadi contra suberna

I am Arnaut, who gathers the breeze,
Who hunts the hare on ox-back,
And swims against the current.

Sorley MacLean/Somhairle MacGill-Eain: the greatest 20C Gaelic poet, and one of the great 20C poets, full-stop. I had the privilege of hearing him live and speaking to him. A wonderful, wonderful writer - influenced by Yeats, Pound (although his politics were, thankfully, the opposite), and via Pound, the trobadors. It's fun to find an allusion to Bertran de Born in Gaelic...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think I'd like the Babel-fish to handle Occitan, as it's C's first language, and I'd like him to feel at ease.

Yes, Occitan would be my downfall too. Moreover with that handy Babel-fish I could talk to all sorts of other historical heroes - it would be a nice thing to have, just on principle. Or the Tardis' translation field. Or whatever.

Re Sorley MacLean: cool. I must look him up.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think we could persuade the Doctor to let us borrow the Tardis...

The collection Spring-Tide and Neap-Tide is a good introduction to MacLean. He wrote his own English parallel translations, which work very well (my Gaelic is minimal).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm sure your Gaelic is better than mine. Closest I've come is a smattering of Welsh, which I've mostly forgotten. My father had a Gaelic Bible that I used to like to browse - not understanding a word of it, but enjoying the look of the words.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

A lot of my family were native speakers, but my great-grandfather decided not to teach it to his children because it would hinder them socially and in the job-market (his younger brother used to get into trouble for using it in the school playground).

Dad taught himself to read it. I tried to learn it, but to be honest, only because I felt I ought, rather than from any great desire. It's not a culture that means a great deal to me: I'm damn glad my great-great-great-grandparents moved away from a world of crofting, cutting peats, fishing, and Free Church fundamentalism. (MacLean's poem Highland Woman expresses this precisely for me!) I'm much more at home with the Romance languages and some Russian, and with mainland European culture.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Dad taught himself to read it.

Mine did too; I don't know to what extent he actually mastered it. Languages were (or are) his hobby and there's hardly a language he left untouched. When I was a teen we studied Welsh together with the local Welsh society; his real interest at the time was Sanskrit. He never talked much about Gaelic. He had no family background in it - his family was from Leicester, and thoroughly English, tho' with a few Welsh relatives he'd never met.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Sounds fun! My Dad's the same with languages!

Well, having a strong Highland element in my background, I get very pissed off with the ersatz, Walter Scott-derived pseudo-Highlandism that gets propagated all over the place, even within Scotland. All these US-penned bodice-rippers, Braveheart, and 'noble savage' stereotypes & c... Applying a tartanised parody of the Highlands to the whole of Scotland.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My Scots ancestors came to Canada so long ago (1820) that the connection is more romantic than actual, and I take all the pseudo-Highlander stuff with a grain of salt. Or more. Ignore it mostly. Braveheart, admittedly, was a bit much.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

What depresses me is that so many people here in Scotland have bought into the romanticised nonsense: partly through lack of a decent education in real history, and partly from the old 'if-it-keeps-the-tourists-happy' line of thought.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Nobody gets a decent education in history - at least, not in any school system I know about, not before university level! - and Hollywood doesn't help.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think we could persuade the Doctor to let us borrow the Tardis...

Yes - I wish we could! The places we could go, the people we could meet....

My local library does not have Spring-Tide and Neap-Tide, so it's back to ILL for me.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The places we could go, the people we could meet....

And while changing history is naughty, 'disappearing' people while leaving a cover-story of their deaths seems acceptable, as per Rose's disappearance from her dimension...
(Ponders employing historienne to sweet-talk the Hospitallers into a cover-up...)

Here's another MacLean collection: more poems in it, but the English versions aren't his and there are some typos and glitches:
From the Wood to the Ridge (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0856358444/202-0329186-6723807?v=glance&n=266239&s=gateway&v=glance).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's probably just as well I can't change history, there are lives I would want to save and disasters I would like to prevent.... But meeting people, now that would be terrific.

I'm sure the Hospitallers were very good at cover-ups. No offense intended - said in complete admiration, I assure you!

Thanks for the MacLean link.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

It's probably just as well I can't change history, there are lives I would want to save and disasters I would like to prevent.... But meeting people, now that would be terrific.
I'm sure the Hospitallers were very good at cover-ups. No offense intended - said in complete admiration, I assure you!

Well, they were responsible for the burial... ;-D
I do like the idea of my poor darling rescued and recovering from his wounds...

And here's where to find Spring Tide and Neap Tide (http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=hm4Lj43xpKkg4E74KasbvscK3qo_2001660703_2:19:54)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, they were responsible for the burial...

There you have it!

So if Conrad were rescued - how did he spend the rest of his life? (Pausing to contemplate the notion of Isabella's bigamy.)

Thanks for the link! I've ordered it on ILL, fingers crossed.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

So if Conrad were rescued - how did he spend the rest of his life?

Well, as I haven't managed to borrow the Tardis yet, it's quite theoretical... but I want to see what he felt like once he was well. (He would probably be ill for some time, having suffered deep wounds to his torso, poor darling!) He's an intelligent fellow, so would probably be very interested in learning more about the modern world, and I think, with sympathetic support, could be helped to adjust... He wouldn't lack TLC, that's for sure! ;-D

(Pausing to contemplate the notion of Isabella's bigamy.)

Snurk! She was accused of that anyway! Henri's nephew Thibaut later fought a case against her daughters over the inheritance of Champagne, because her first husband Humfrey of Toron had still been alive until around 1197!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes - and given her history, it would be difficult to imagine a situation where Isabella's marital status (plural or singular!) didn't cause controversy from one side or the other.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Indeed! Mind, I think a lot of the fussing was highly specious. Not sure if you've seen my post to oltramar on marriages in the Champagne and Capet families, but I think the fuss over her marriage to Conrad being 'incestuous' was pretty dubious. Yes, marrying the brother of your deceased sister's deceased husband was 'incest' under canon law - but the brothers Henri I of Champagne and Thibaut of Blois had married a pair of sisters, while their sister married their father-in-law! Similarly, 2 of the Tiberias boys married the Sidon sisters.

I don't think anyone would have blinked over Isabella marrying Conrad if it hadn't ruffled Angevin political feathers.

Conrad's marital status is an interesting one, as his second wife the Caesarissa Theodora was still alive in the mid-late '90s, but my Byzantinist friend Ruth says that under Byzantine law, a marriage could be dissolved after one year's desertion - and he'd been separated from her for over 3 years when he married Isabella, so I suspect Theodora had already annulled him in absentia. His first wife had died c. 1185-86.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Medieval royal marriages were a magnicent scam of legalities and counter-legalities, and I'm sure there weren't any marriages that couldn't be challenged (due to consanguinity ties of one sort or another) unless they went as far as afield as the Cham of China or the Emperor of the Mongols. So - a field day for ecclesiastical lawyers.

I don't think anyone would have blinked over Isabella marrying Conrad if it hadn't ruffled Angevin political feathers.

Well, of course! And as you point out, he and Isabella both had muddles marital pasts... But that was hardly the point. The point was "who gets the crown" and it had to be someone. Volunteers to the front...

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes, essentially it's the Archbishop of Canterbury kicking up a storm because - as Richard was still in Sicily - he was cheerleading for the Angevin team. Conrad was too closely related to the Hohenstaufen and the Capets for his liking.

And I can't think of a better candidate for the crown... ;-D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It was all in the connections, and the political point of view. Of course the Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to be on Richard's good side; he saw what had happened a generation earlier when an Archbishop of Canterbury didn't go along with the wishes of the English king. I'm sure that to him, whether Jerusalem had a good king was irrelevant compared to the question of whether the king was acceptable to Richard.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I find it most amusing that the Archbishop excommunicated everyone before expiring in a fit of pique, 5 days before the wedding! It meant absolutely nothing, since the Papal legate, Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi of Pisa, had approved Isabella's divorce and the wedding!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So much for his impact on history...

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Mind, a lot of historians (especially the popular ones), still rant about what a disgrace/how shameful the whole thing was, and want the reader to agree with Baldwin of Canterbury, and feel sorry for Humfrey and Isabella...

Well, it's not as if Isabella was getting a bad deal out of it, is it...?! ;-D

But then, some of the 'pop' writers will describe C as "grim", "brutish", "grizzled", "ageing", & c.; whereas he comes across from primary sources as a very dynamic and vital 45-yr-old, with a good deal of cosmopolitan sophistication. We also know he was drop-dead gorgeous only 10 years before, and he was still slim of figure at the time of his death. So, he probably had acquired a few more scars (certainly the lance-graze from Vranas on his shoulder), but with all that racing around fighting, he must have been in very good shape.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

a lot of historians (especially the popular ones), still rant about what a disgrace/how shameful the whole thing was, and want the reader to agree with Baldwin of Canterbury, and feel sorry for Humfrey and Isabella...

Well, I do feel sorry for Humphrey and Isabella! That doesn't stop me for feeling a similar sympathy for Conrad. (The jury's still out on Henri de Champagne.)

Well, it's not as if Isabella was getting a bad deal out of it, is it...?! ;-D

Not in my opinion!

some of the 'pop' writers will describe C as "grim", "brutish", "grizzled", "ageing",

Idiots.

That's all editorializing. As husbands go, Conrad was a good match (just as William had been a good match for Sybilla); Isabella's problem was that she was young and had no power to make her own choices at that point. Humphrey's problem was that he didn't want to be king, and wasn't suited to be king, and I think that just shows what good sense he had - compared to his more ambitious relatives.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Isabella's problem was that she was young and had no power to make her own choices at that point.

Probably fortunately. If she'd insisted on hanging on to Humfrey... Everyone had already been through this before with Sibylla and Guy...

Luckily, her Mum and stepfather had their heads screwed on.
I am amused by the Itinerarium berating her for deciding to go along with her mother's advice, and shamelessly "not blushing" to claim "she had followed the marquis freely". Perhaps by then she's been introduced to him properly...? And, of course, the poor dear was wounded in battle about mid-November (about 9 days before the wedding!).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Everyone had already been through this before with Sibylla and Guy...

Luckily, not an option. There was one thing Guy and Humphrey agreed on. Guy wanted to be king. And Humphrey wanted Guy to be king.

am amused by the Itinerarium berating her for deciding to go along with her mother's advice

Well, the Itinerarium has Richard's agenda at heart.

and shamelessly "not blushing" to claim "she had followed the marquis freely".

I like to think she did.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

There's an interesting account of the alleged 'abduction' in the 1213 Champagne inheritance case. Apparently Henri de Champagne was involved in persuading Isabella to leave Humfrey - simply talked her round, and she walked out, and kept her head down even as Humfrey ran after her saying she was going in the wrong direction.
At that point, Henri was one of Conrad's close allies (they were related twice over, through the Capets and the Aquitaines) and very much in the French camp. After Philippe left, he transferred himself to Uncle Richard.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I hadn't known about that. Was Henri single at the time?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes. Isabella was his only wife.

He was in thick with Conrad at first - Conrad had welcomed him when he landed at Tyre in late July '90. When C rejoined the siege at Acre (he had been on his way to Antioch to shepherd Fritz jr when Henry arrived), he and Henri were a double-act in some of the offensives in November. They were both wounded about the same time, too, according to Baha al-Din, in the offensive of 12-15 Nov.

I may copy some of this discussion over to oltramar, as it may be of interest over there.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I may copy some of this discussion over to oltramar

Yes, please do! Since I am intensely curious about their respective timelines.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Done!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I saw...!

Who is famous? *What* is famous?

[maaseru.livejournal.com]

>Brian Michael Bendis, Megan Whalen Turner, Mary Doria Russell,
>Karin Lowachee and/or Greg Rucka. Not to mention
>Jonathan Riley-Smith and Bernard Hamilton.

Please could we have more qualifiers for 'famous'? I know none of these people, and yet I read the papers, occasionally watch tv news, wiki, and all other kinds of news and info providers. Who are they?

Re: Who is famous? *What* is famous?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

"Famous" is a sort of general (and loaded) term. Most people who are famous - or at least, who are celebrities - or at least who are on the covers of the tabloids in the supermarket, are people whose name and faces mean nothing to me. TV stars? Rock stars? Sports stars? I don't even know what they might be famous for.

The above-mentioned people are famous to me, i.e., people I haven't met but whose works have impressed me and haunted me. All are writers.

Brian Michael Bendis is one of the best comic book writers working now, recently writing Daredevil, currently writing The Ultimate Spider-Man (Not to be confused with The Amazing Spider-Man, which J. Michael Straczynski is writing, or The Spectacular Spider-Man, which is written by Paul Jenkins.) Bendis also writes a comic of his own, Powers. I find him a clever, literary, thoughtful writer.

Megan Whalen Turner is a fantasy novelist, whose trilogy about a hero Eugenides I have recently read and loved. She's a Newberry Award winner. Her books are The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia. A beautiful writer of exciting, original stories. I love her style.

Ditto Mary Doria Russell, an American who wrote two related SF novels, The Sparrow and Children of God, about the psychological and moral implications of first contact, and a historical novel about Jews in Italy in World War Two, A Thread of Grace.

Karin Lowachee is the Canadian novelist who wrote those SF novels about children, piracy and warfare with aliens that I read and liked so much in the beginning of the year - Warchild, Burndive and Cagebird.

Greg Rucka is a writer of thrillers I've been enjoying lately, books like Keeper, Finder, Smoker, and Queen and Country: Private Wars. He has also written numerous comic books, including some very good Batman series.

Jonathan Riley-Smith is a senior professor at Cambridge who specialises in Crusading history, author of such works as The Oxford History of the Crusades, Short History of The Crusades and (in a masterpiece of original title-creation), The Crusades: A Short History. He has gained a fair amount of public exposure in the past few years by writing commentary on the current middle-east situation and its former historical context, and in commenting on the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" which he called "Bin Laden's version of the Crusades".

Bernard Hamilton is another English crusade historian, one who wrote the book I like to think I would have written if I had become a professional historian, "The Leper King and His Heirs". I admire his work inestimably. He has also written an excellent monograph about the royal women in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

So, see, while these people may not be household words like David Beckham or Bill Clinton or Colonel Sanders, they are stars in my pantheon, and that makes them 'famous' in my terms. If only in my head. And thank you for giving me a geeky opportunity to explain about them!

You will note that I did not mention some of my other contemporary heroes, people like Dorothy Dunnett and Frank Miller and Guy Gavriel Kay. But I've met them: I was talking about famous people I love but have not met.

On reflection, there are numerous other people I would like to meet I didn't mention - people who are famous on the same general terms - Bill Bryson and Stephen Pinker, for example. I believe you are familiar with them, you've read their books too.