Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?

This is only barely medievalist, but Season 3 of "The Guild" is cracking me up so much I felt like posting it.

Review of Dante's Inferno (2007)

The film Dante's Inferno (2007) is a very interesting project. Shot with little paper puppets and placed in a more modern, gritty urban landscape, the film manages to capture some of what Dante was doing in his original. Though it takes a while to catch its rhythm, the film eventually develops as a dark comedy with wry social commentary, and the occasional history lesson to offer context to some of Dante's original denizens of Hell.

At first I found the paper puppets a little off-putting (and a friend of mine found it unwatchable because of them), but eventually I came to appreciate the medium, and even enjoy a few of the little tricks they would do that emphasized the silly 2-D puppets shot on 3-D miniature sets (such as having a reaction painted on the reverse side of the puppet, and simply turning the puppet around to change how it looks). It also allows it to continue to be a dark comedy. If the Inferno were to be shot as an ultra-modern CGI FX fest, it would run the risk of either being unbearably gory or having to pull too many punches. The puppets allowed a dark depiction of Hell that's not going to put you in therapy. To get a sense of the look of the film, watch the embedded trailer below.

The structure was a little awkward. The film rushes through the first 6 levels of Hell in the first half hour, then meanders about the last 3 levels for an hour. As a result, the first third of the movie isn't nearly as funny and insightful as the last two-thirds, and I'd have wished for a more evenly paced journey.

I found some of the political cheap shots off-putting, and there's a strong anti-Catholic sentiment. The underlying political idea (though it is inconsistent) seems to be that Republicans are politically evil, and Democrats are personally evil. At first it seemed to me that rather than scoring cheap and vapid political points, it would have been better to assign one party to be the Guelphs and one the Ghibellines to bring it in line with the poem. Upon further consideration, though, I wonder if it isn't appropriate to have these political cheap shots, since it strikes me as likely that Dante's audience might have felt that he was being unfair, but we are simply too far removed from the situation to have that sense.

One last potential problem with the contemporary references is that they might be too contemporary. I suspect if I asked my students who Lee Atwater and F. Lee Bailey are, they would neither know nor care. Atwater particularly has been dead nearly 20 years now, and the O.J. Simpson trial (how most people would know Bailey) was even longer ago. Doing rear-guard action on such minor culture war battles all these decades later only makes the film feel dated in a way that historical references of greater magnitude (like Pope John XII or John Wilkes Booth) do not.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

It'll take me a long time to clear out this backlog, so let's get started!

• Start with Carnivalesque LIII.
• A Corner of Tenth-Century Medieval Europe has a CfP for "Problems and Possibilities in Early Medieval Diplomatic."
• Dante blogging continues. I know of at least one student who's reading along and wowing his professor with his insight.
• Got Medieval has In Search of Robin Hood, the September feast day calendar, and a knight on a hobby horse.
• Gypsy Scholar has a post on the problem of free will in medieval philosophy.
• Hammered Out Bits has a neat post on the Norse system of measures for exchange.
• Heavenfield muses about religious conversion as a form of translation.
• The Heroic Age has more than a dozen CfPs and such.
• Heroic Dreams has some updates on The Hobbit film.
• DARC has some images from their Norse camp, sans modern stuff.
• In the Middle announces the inaugural issue of The Glossator, and has a CfP on "Romance Temporalities."
• Here's a newish blog: Medieval Living. Update feeds and blogrolls!

Well, there's much more, but Google Reader just started acting up, so more later.

Dragon*Con 2009 Post-Mortem, Me as Professor Awesome

Dragon*Con this year was unfortunately short for me. I arrived much later than expected Friday night (around 11PM), and then had to leave shortly after lunch on Sunday. Even though it was short, it was still a good time, and we got to do some medieval literary geekery.

Let's start with the medieval lit geekery. The other scholar in my session didn't make it, so I was the star of a one-man show. The session was well-attended; I counted just as I started, and there were forty people at that point, and more than a dozen people came as the session went on, filling the room completely. Prof. Matt Brown did an excellent job of promoting the academic track at the convention. The Q&A session went on for about 45 minutes, which is unbelievably amazing for the session on a Saturday night when the drinking has begun.


The star of this year's Dragon*Con was, without a doubt, Adam Savage of Mythbusters. He was going around in a costume that obscured his face, and so was offering hints through Twitter as to who he was. Everywhere I went, I heard the same conversation: "Do you think that guy over there is Adam? What about that guy over there? Oooh, that guy has a lot of silver buttons ... wasn't that a clue?" Great PR!


On the (sort of) medievalist side, Felicia Day of The Guild and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was the woman everyone wanted to see. For the moment, she's the queen of fandom geekery. Myself, I wouldn't consider The Guild medievalist, but there's an argument to be made for it. Steve from Blue's Clues told one of my minions she looked like Felicia Day, and I have a good friend who's in love with her (Felicia Day, not my minion), so I got an extra dose of the lovely and funny Ms. Day.



I was happy to see Dragon*Con was a lot more family-friendly this year. In past years, I've seen a lot of topless women in public area. This year I saw only one topless woman. I didn't see any concerted effort to keep the Con cleaner, but it was. Perhaps next year I'll take my kids.

One other thing about the Con is that I'm giving up correcting people about Professor Awesome, Ph.D. I invented Prof. Awesome to be an evil alter-ego, the kind of professor whose favorite subjects upon which to pontificate are those he knows nothing about. In Professor Awesome, PhD I've been able to poke fun of the excesses of my profession.



Before Dragon*Con, though, I started to get e-mails and Facebook messages addressing me as "Professor Awesome, PhD."* When I correct people, they seem to get confused and not understand how Prof. Awesome, PhD could both be me and not be me. So, I give up. I'll be Professor Awesome, PhD, and just find some other way to poke fun at my profession.



Finally, I met lots of interesting people at the Con, and regret not being able to stay longer. One of the more interesting people I met was Allegra Torres who is working her way through college as -- get this -- a chainmail model. Yes, an English major chainmail model. Sorry guys, she's already got a boyfriend.

Allegra Torres. Image is a bit blurry, but you get the idea.

*Interestingly enough, the only person to ask for my autograph at the Con did not come to my session, and when I asked if he wanted me to sign it with my real name or as "Prof. Awesome, PhD," he didn't seem to have heard of my alter-ego. One lovely young woman asked for a copy of my paper, which is a much more academic thing to do. I don't mind signing autographs; it just seems weird for a professor.

Back from Dragon*Con

Caring for my elderly dog brought me back from Dragon*Con early -- I'll probably be able to post a report on it tomorrow. A little preview of what's to come:

• I give up. I've fully embraced the idea of being Professor Awesome, Ph.D.
• "Chainmail Model" is an actual job description.
• I'm now searching for a +5 Helm of Sexterity.
• Meat. I like meat.
• One game of Munchkin can lead to immediate addiction.
• It's official -- everyone hates Twilight. Everyone. If you like it, you are not a part of everyone. You're essentially a non-entity. So there.
• Even an übergeek like me finds children endlessly quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail obnoxious.
• I now sympathize with The Monarch having to deal with minion incompetence.
• The only thing that can draw a crowd at Dragon*Con during the drinking hour on a weekend is the promise of hot girl-on-bear action.
• Waxing: Felicia Day, Adam Savage, Steampunk, Anthony Daniels
• Waning: Leia steel bikinis, Boba Fett, public nudity

Dragon*Con 2009

I'll be at Dragon*Con this year, though I've been getting so many messages referring to me as my evil alter-ego (Professor Awesome, PhD), that it might be more appropriate to say that Professor Awesome, PhD will be at Dragon*Con this year presenting under my name.

My session:

D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #2: The Historical Roots of SF & Fantasy Sat 08:30 pm Location: Greenbriar - Hyatt (80 min)

Scholarly presentations on the historical roots of SF and fantasy. Richard Scott Nokes (Troy University) explores the medieval roots of human hybrids---characters such as elves, trolls, and cyborgs that play an important role in SF and fantasy---challenging the notion that such characters arise from distinctively contemporary hopes and anxieties bout the posthuman. Luis Arata (Quinnipiac University) discusses Somnium, a SF/fantasy novel by 17th Century astronomer Johannes Kepler, in which Kepler develops and defends in narrative form elements of Copernican physics that he would later discover through formal mathematics.

I've been telling folks it's an 8:30 AM session, but now I see it's 8:30 PM! Huzzah!

If you'd like to meet me and can't make it to my session, I'll try to keep things updated on my Twitter feed. I won't have a laptop during the conference, so e-mailing me is probably not a good way to contact me.

Also, for those who have asked, I will sign autographs (but I won't have an "autograph signing session" -- what am I, William Shatner?), and no, I don't charge for autographs -- but you have to promise not to forge my signature and steal my identity.

Žižek on Medieval Torture

Via First Things, I found this little quote from an NYT opinion piece entitled "Knight of the Living Dead":

Are we aware that the last time such things [public discussion of torture] were part of public discourse was back in the late Middle Ages, when torture was still a public spectacle, an honorable way to test a captured enemy who might gain the admiration of the crowd if he bore the pain with dignity?

Of course, Žižek has never been one to let the facts get in the way, but come on -- even he should know torture is as much (and perhaps even moreso) a modern phenomenon as a medieval one. I guess in this case it's because the modern torture has mostly been carried out by those Žižek likes.

WikiGrendel

This is interesting -- Wikipedia has a page entitled "List of Artistic Depictions of Grendel." Yet Professor Awesome, PhD still has no Wikipedia entry.

Uncomfortable Medieval Plot Summaries

I can't properly attribute this because of the semi-anonymous nature of the place I got it from but here are "Uncomfortable Plot Summaries." Those of medievalist relevance:

• BEOWULF: Colonists hire assassin to drive natives from land.
• CONAN THE BARBARIAN: Petty thief murders religious leader.
• LABYRINTH: Girl is negligent baby-sitter. [and I would also add is the jailbait love interest of David Bowie]
• LORD OF THE RINGS: Midget destroys stolen property.
• MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL: British comedy troupe inadvertently creates language lab for nerds.
• ROBIN HOOD: Disgruntled veteran protests taxes. [Actually, I'm very comfortable with this plot summary]
• SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS: Layabout stepdaughter shacks up with seven miners.

On the non-medieval front, this reminds me of that horrible film, The American President, in which the President sleeps with a lobbyist and changes policy in exchange for her affections -- and we're supposed to applaud him for it. A film that could only be loved by an audience that is both politically and ethically ignorant.

Why I Sojourn Here

La Belle Dame sans Merci

John Keats

O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.


O what can ail thee, knight at arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.


I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.


I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a fairy's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.


I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.


I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy's song.


She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said-
"I love thee true."


She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild eyes
With kisses four.


And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd - Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.


I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - "La belle dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"


I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And Iawoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.


And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

For this Monday morning:

• The Heptarchy Herald discusses Sherlock Holmes, medievalist.
• Dante blogging continues with Canto X.
• The medieval word of the day is oblate, not to be confused with the medieval history term of the week, which is apse.
• Gearwor presents Beowulf, fitts 28 & 29.
• Hammered Out Bits discusses accessorizing for Vikings.
• Continuing the discussion of gargoyles, Quid Plura presents "A Sonnet from the Boartuguese."
• In the Middle has a CfP on "The Other, the Outsider, and the Outlaw in Medieval Romance," and a report from a really cool screening of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
• Modern Medieval has a CfP on "The Medievalism of Nostalgia."
• Writing a paper on medieval devils? Here's a bibliography on medieval devils -- all the work is done for you!
• Medieval Material Culture Blog points us to an exhibition of gothic art in Magdeburg.
• Muhlberger discusses the big Viking hoard found in Northumbria.
• There'll be a medieval poetry workshop in Lowell, MA on October 17th.
• Beowulf = viral marketing.

That is all. Go forth!

Morning Medieval Miscellany

For this Friday:

• Medieval Research with Joyce has been diligent about the new Medieval Word of the Day feature. The most recent is lawn, which doesn't mean what you think.
• Medieval Cookery has a post on GenCon and Pennsic.
• Gearwor has Beowulf, fits 26 & 27.
• Michael Drout talks about the experience of being a History Channel talking head for the Clash of the Gods series. The one on Lord of the Rings airs Sept. 21st, and the one on Beowulf airs Oct. 5th.
• Steven Till reviews Betsy Tobin's Ice Land.
• Jeff Sypeck's neighborhood has been invaded by gargoyles.
• More casting news for Game of Thrones, h/t PoliScifi.
• News for Medievalists has three new articles: One on a late medieval expedition to Canada, a review of The Bayeux Tapestry: New Interpretations, and one on the search for Leonardo da Vinci's lost "Battle of Anghiari." The later has videos, the first of which calls Leonardo "the greatest mind of the Renaissance." Jerks, always stealing the good late-medieval stuff for the modern era, and dumping all the bad early-modern stuff on the Middle Ages.
• Papa's Secret Voodoo Boot needs help picking a Latin dictionary.
• Linda McCabe has some artist's renderings of what the Ozark medieval fortress will look like. If there's one story of modern medievalism I haven't properly kept up on, it's this one.
• Mony Wylsum Way translates the Earl of Kent's confession.
• Medieval Material Culture Blog has three new links pages: Quintains, sweet bags (which are technically modern), and caparisons, for the well-dressed equine in your life.
• Magistra et Mater has a really excellent post on medieval attitudes in historical novels. If you're writing any medieval (or medieval fantasy) fiction, you really need to read this. I found myself talking aloud back to the post while reading it.
• Speaking of which, Medieval Bookworm reviews Nicole Galland's Crossed.
• Heroic Dreams talks about Renaissance Faire news, and directs us to Renaissance Magazine.
• The Heroic Age has a dozen new CfPs and other announcments.
• The Cranky Professor continues Dante blogging.
• A Commonplace Book has an example of modern manuscript production.
• The Herald has an article on Robert Henryson's The Testament of Cresseid.

Here's a blog with medieval content I'd missed: Spinning Clio. Update your blogrolls & RSS feeds accordingly.

Prepping for Dragon*Con

This morning I am writing a presentation for Dragon*Con that will deal, in part, with bestiality in medieval literature, and the medieval roots of some contemporary anxieties about genetic engineering.

• Medieval Lit -- Check!
• Genetic Engineering -- Check!
• Bestiality -- Check!

Ah, the Dragon*Con triple threat...

The Heptarchy Herald

Here's a brand-new blog that's already in my RSS feed: The Heptarchy Herald. In his second post, Michael discusses cooperation among medieval scholars and disciplines.

Update your blogrolls accordingly.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

I've got some sort of weird problem with my RSS feed (wherein some things don't seem to ever delete, or will randomly pop up again later) leading me to be more aggressive in my deletion policies -- and also leading to this MMM being posted in the afternoon. If you've got an important post that's fallen through the cracks here, please feel free to e-mail me a link.

• Archaeology in Europe has over two dozen new articles.
• A Corner of Tenth Century Medieval Europe has a post on the preoccupations of Lothar I, and a review of historical archaeology. By the way, if you ever entitle a book in lower-case letters, know that I'll never read it, unless your name is e.e. cummings. And probably not then. This goes double for you, bell hooks.
• Dante blogging continues with Cantos III, IV, V, and VI.
• Early Medieval Art sends us to Sacred Destinations.
• Carl Pyrdum has been eaten by Reynard the Fox.
• Henchminion discusses the problems of cleaning gambesons.
• The Heroic Age has a links page and a CfP on "Technology, New Media, and Medieval Art History."
• This isn't strictly-speaking medieval, but much of the academic medieval blog-o-net-o-sphere-thingy has been debating use of jargon and clarity in writing. In the Middle gathers the links to the comment threads here.
• Medieval Bookworm reviews The White Queen and Flint.
• Publication of Tolkien's The Book of Jonah has been pushed back to next year.
• The Lost Fort has images from Scharzfels Castle.
• The Medieval Garden Enclosed features the cucubalas.
• In addition to some new linkspages, Medieval Material Culture Blog uses videos to distinguish between à plaisance and à outrance in tournaments.
• Muhlberger reviews Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe.
• Mony Wylsum Way has a post on how Froissart scapegoats Edward II.
• The Naked Philologist offers some morbid 13th-century poetry.
• News for Medievalists has over a dozen new articles.
• Per Omnia Saecula reviews King Arthur.
• Podictionary offers the origins of the word gun.

OK, that's not quite all of them, but I'll catch up in the next one.

For the Middle-Aged, not the Middle Ages

And now for something completely non-medieval:

The Beloit College Mindset List, class of 2013!

A few comments:

They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
This year a librarian retired, and the invitations to the party looked like card catalog cards. The workstudies in the office wondered why there was a hole punched in them.

The European Union has always existed.
Does it exist now?

Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations.
When I start a story with, "When I lived in the former Soviet Union ..." my students look at me like I'm saying, "When I lived in the Ottoman Empire..."

Vice presidents of the United States have always had real power.
Joe Biden has real power? When did this happen?

They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen. Yet not one ever has.

My Birthday Wish List

Today is my birthday. For those wishing to get me a gift, I'm registered at Medieval News. If you all pitch in together, you should be able to get me one (or all!) of those.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

Let's see how far I can get before the kids' alarm clocks go off:

• Archaeology in Europe has 19 new posts.
• BabelStone has 72 medieval images. h/t Cliopatria.
• Muhlberger's Early History has video of medieval explosives!
• The Cranky Professor is Dante blogging.
• The Heroic Age has over a dozen new posts, CfPs and the like.
• Getting Medieval has images from Guedelon.
• The Medieval Bookworm reviews The Doomsday Book. Back when we were putting together MediEvolution, one of the segments for our test run was a review of the same book.
• Lingwe discusses Tolkien's View: Windows into his World.
• Mearcstapa posted an abstract for a submission to K'zoo.
• The Medieval Garden Enclosed reminds us that it's time for threshing.
• Mony Wylsum Way plays a writers' game with Arthurian characters.
• Steven Till has seven essential fantasy reads, none of which I've read. As a general rule, I find fantasy novels by authors with the first name "Terry" unreadable.
• Popular Culture has posts on two new books: Cinematic Illuminations: The Middle Ages on Film, and Medieval Film.
• Cloregy has a post on hurricanes in the Medieval Warm Period.
• Prof. Rodney Stark defends the Crusaders.
• Think no one is passionate about medieval literature? Some guy stabbed two people to death in an argument over books on medieval lit.

Here's to hoping I don't get stabbed during my Anglo-Saxon poetry lecture today...

King Mindaugus Statuette

Since it's too hot to write anything substantive, I offer here an image of a wooden statuette of King Mindaugus given to me by a friend, crafted by a Lithuanian carver of some local repute (though for the life of me I can't remember his name at the moment).

Though it very obviously evokes Christ (looking depressed and wearing a crown of thorns), it's actually supposed to be Mindaugus in the attitude of Christ -- though I'm not certain what he's go glum about. Maybe it's because there would be no further kings, unless you count Mindaugus II ... which most Lithuanians don't (more on that in the video below). I'm guessing the crown is not supposed to be thorny in this case.

I've photographed him on top of a stack of 8x11 paper, for perspective.

Below is a video of a much larger statue, and a little about the position Mindaugus holds in the Lithuanian culture.

Too Hot to Blog

It's about 80 degrees outside, and a thermostat problem has caused the heat in my building to run. I was going to write a Miscellany and a post about the Lithuanian king Mindaugus, but it's so hot in here I can't recall what I was going to write.

I'm sure it was going to be something brilliant, though. Anyone who has something interesting to say about King Mindaugus, please help me out by contributing it below.