(no subject)

The waters of my boredness flow deeped than the pit wherin lies Great Cthulu. Of course, I also don't have a giant squid-demon sleeping in my brain. Or maybe I do.... You never know.

We went to an art supply store last night, because it's fun. It's like a toystore for really weird adults. Especially with the funny bendy light-up pens they had on display. Tactile display. And they had these gorgeous little blank books bound in leather with handmade paper, but I really wasn't going to pay 8.50 to get one. So instead, I bought paper. And have apparently inhereited some sort of mental creative defect from my mother, who has taken up pretty much any sort of creative-crafty occupation I can think of, just because she got bored or something, or thought it looked like a good idea. Half the things she tries she never does again.... Sound familiar? Hell, she even built a little house for my 10th birthday. Because she could. Of course, it was never actually *finished*.... Another thing I inherited.

So my nicely rounded point is that I have decided to make two little books. Because I was bored. (Bored=creative, get it? I don't either.) Bind them in leather with hand-made paper endpapers, and pseudo-parchment paper pages. It's still nice paper though, and had to be bought by the sheet. Still, it's less than Five for the new supplies, and I have the leather already. And it's not like I've never done this sort of foolish thing before, I made some very nice books in high school, including one that was about an inch thick. I wonder what happened to that one? Bound in green brocade with a black velvet spine, even. Of course, I lack one of the press thingies, to make it actually flat. Perhaps an iron will do. Or maybe it really just doesn't matter. Either way, I think I like my intended version better. And yes. I am insane. And probably full of mental tentacular glory.

Religion and history. Very garbled and confused.

Have to finish the neck corset. The pieces just arrived in the mail, the nifty bones and eyelets and aglettes and whatnot. And the aglettes do not fit through the eyelets. Grrrrr. Also, I am supposed to finish the dress during break, which will be most amusing.

I am surrounded by religion. Specifically, Christianity. I don't mind it, as long as it leaves me alone and stays in its own little corner, over there, not touching me. Which isn't really fair, considering that I have to investigate and poke at it, and try to figure out what the fuck is going on in there. And then try not to put in too much peripheral information, And remember which pieces are periferal. And spell inconsistently, because that is apporopriately medieval. Go with this reasoning, please. I wonder if inconsistent grammar and capitalization counts for anything? **grin** Anyway. I'm not converting, that's not an issue. I have too much of an authority problem. I cannot tolerate someone dictating what I should believe, and why, and what I should do to prove myself worthy of the deity's approval, and generally do little things to subvert it, or simply ask too many questions and get annoyed when the people who have studied the subject and seem to knwo it pretty well can't answer me. And then generally just go with my own interpretations of the texts, since I am reasonably capable of critical thought sometimes. Even if it doesn't go in a straight line. and if the questions are big enough, then I discard everything that depends on it for its truth. The "A-->B. ~A" sort of argument. B might still be true, but it needs more evidence, something that actually proves it. Because of this--no more Christianity for the Cate. It still amuses me, though. The Bible is, objectively, an incredible document. Collection of documents. Though I tend to read it in the same way as I read things like Hereward the Wake--the Norman invasion did, in fact, happen. There may very well have been a Hereward, and said Hereward might even have subverted Norman authority. I doubt that it happened as the stories say, or as the Bible says. There are documents that survive from that time. It wasn't really that long ago, and if we can tell what people were shipping, what the exchange rates were, and what were the laws in a given region over 4,000 years ago (limited, yes, but still oddly fascinating) then I think there might be a few contemporary documents that could pertain to it. It's a peculiar interest, I suppose, at least for simeone of my beliefs and social place. Incidentally, Hieronymous Bosch had the good rye. Or something.

Anyway, yes. Surrounded by Christianity. This is one of the things that happens when studying obscure sections of European history that have been further obscured by prejudiced Vickies. Religion was a huge part of the middle ages. Not the be-all and end-all, but it affected everything around, and so is a good and useful thing to know. And the more I study the religion that was popular then, the more I like it. Not because of its teachings, but because there was still loud, angry arguing over it. Yes, I know there still is, but now it seems to have descended into ad-hominem attackes instead of interesting, well thought out and nicely written rhetoric. And they had heresy! Interesting heresy, and political excommunications! (seriously, reading the excommunion history of Henry III and Edward I is really, really funny. Political squabbles and dysfunctional families. It's like sitcoms, only older.) Now, of course, we have the Gnostic gospels, and those are even more amusing. Of course, you also have to remember which books are cannonical and which are not, and it really doesn't help if you add the Apocrypha. Which was sometimes, partly, cannon. But not all at the same times, as I recall. And some churches use them even when they're not cannon. Actually, I went to one of those in high school, and it was interesting. Mostly because we were breaking somebody's rule, somewhere. I am less and less impressed by the modern translations, beginning with James. I like the one that was taken directly from Jerome's Vulgate. Of all of them, I find it the prettiest. Being not Christian, and having no intention of so being, I go for the pretty over any other virtue. Accuracy is not an issue for me, seeing as the whole thing seems to contradict itself every other page anyway, unless one takes the Augustinian attitude that it's all literal, except for when it's not saying the right thing, and then it's metaphoric for something that does mean the right thing. He is far more eloquent than I, and I want to read the rest of his books. But they would not have had the "accurate" translations in the time periods I have been studying. They would have had Jerome, and whatever vernacular lived in that area. Since I speak English, I'm partial to that translation.

Of course, it all gets terribly confusing sometimes. Everyone, it seems, had the same name, and certain manuscripts come up as questionable in authorship, or doctrinal content, not to mention the contradictions and cut and paste jobs, and Papal decrees on how things are to be interpreted, and hagiographies that were terribly popular but about as accurate as a romance novel.

And it's all over the art. And the literature. Since I'm mainly interested in the culture of the time, I need to know what was going on in the religious world as well. It's interesting, in spite of everything I was raised with. Go watch Eddie Izzard's skit on Church of England. I went to one of those, stateside.

Also, news. I got an A- on my presentation on 12th century English and French culture as it rleates to Marie de France. The one for the graduate class. The one with the creepy guy. I'm so very, very pleased!

Also, they found a Viking burial in Yorkshire. Viking! Not Anglo Saxon! Go <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1149750,00.html>here</a> for the article from the Guardian. At the bottom of the page are three more links, one about Seamus Heaney introducing a new museum at Sutton Hoo.