You be the judge

Good fun is to be had at http://ybtj.justice.gov.uk/, where you can compete with British judges in determining the proper judgement for miscreants who have been convicted and are now up for sentencing.

As a proper medievalist, my habitual sentence for most of them would be something along the lines of toss-'em -in-the-dungeon-and-throw-away-the key, but a couple of the cases proved me a real softy, bestowing justice more leniently than the actual judges.

What surprised me that if the evil-doer says I'm sowwy, the sentence is apparently automatically mitigated--fat chance that would have in this country.

It helps to know that misdemeanors are tried in magistrates' court, and more serious matters in Crown Court, which is robed. The modern judge's costume looks ridiculously unattractive compared with the scarlet robes, white ermine cuffs, buckle shoes and long wigs which His Lordship wore in times gone by. If you're going to make a theater out of the trial system, why not really go for it.

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Saturday Gallimaufry

1) If the T.E. Lawrence era in the Near East excites your interest, check this series of aerial photos published this week by Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. The Germans found themselves in the ridiculous position of defending what was left of the Ottoman Empire in WWI, which gave some fliers from Bavaria an opportunity to photograph a few of the important venues of Near Eastern civilization, still largely stuck in the pre-industrial past.

2) The Pergamon Museum in Berlin opened a major exhibition on the excavations at Tell Halaf (ca. 6100-5400 BCE) in Northern Syria, which is generally recognized as the most important archaeological site from the Neolithic Period. Here are some pictures of the excavation, and here are more pictures from the show at the Pergamon. The Wiki on Tell Halaf explains what one needs to know. Imagine a public lecture on classical archaeology attended as well as this one on the steps of the Pergamon altar last week:

CHIM KLEUKER/© STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN

3) Don't forget the 44th Annual California Bookfair coming up February 11-13 here in San Francisco.

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Saturday Gallimaufry

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1. The big flash this week was the posting of some wonderful early small press publications produced by Leslie Scalapino and presented on Ron Silliman's Blog.


2. Equally exciting was the discovery of three new poems by Kevin Killian at onedit, a terrific online poetry magazine such as I wish there were many more of.


3. Meanwhile Aaron Hostetter is making good progress with his ongoing translation of the Anglo-Saxon narrative of Elene, a  retelling of the legend of St. Helena, the British mother of Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, who is reputed to have found the True Cross.


4. David Mitchell's hurricane-force rant on the foibles of British railways this week I thought was priceless.


5. And I appreciated also the unexpected re-emergence of Theodoric, Medieval Barber of York on hulu tv. Hunchback John Belushi has the best line in the whole sketch. 


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Saturday Gallimaufry

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1. Chez Namastenancy reports of a new and important Thomas Eakins show in Los Angeles.

2. If you've ever been curious what the insides of the ironclad USS Monitor looked like, a tour of the vessel has been arranged for you right here.

3. Take a ride on the Berlin U-Bahn with Flickr photographer Berolino. My favorite is the U-1 line.

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Saturday Gallimaufry

It turns out that a new football is designed and used at each World Cup competition, and there is a neat gallery that pictures all of them right here.

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Saturday Gallimaufry

1. If it's hot where you are, why not cool off at BoingBoing's Antarctica.

2. Good news from Denmark: the site of Harald Bluetooth's palace has been located.

3. Everyone! To the Margins! Flee!

4. Happy Birthday, Peter Orlovsky, wishes the Ginsberg Project.

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Saturday Gallimaufry -- Medieval edition

1. A medieval castle is under construction in Arkansas, of all places.

2. But it will probably not have as fine a tower as Westgate in Canterbury, now to be saved from closure.

3. It’s been confirmed that the remains found in a lead casket in Magdeburg Cathedral last year does indeed contain what’s left of Queen Editha, an Anglo-Saxon princess who became the first wife of Otto the Great. Her body was reinterred in 1510 into a lead coffin, and her skeleton was wrapped in silk cloth dating from the 10th century.

Otto and Editha in happier days, a sculpture in Magdeburg Cathedral from the 13th century. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Saturday Gallimaufry

1. Please have a look at San Francisco gardening writer Richard Schwarzenberger's marvelous blog called In Faro's Garden at http://berrypicking.wordpress.com/.

2. Bay Area photographer Robert Fischer has posted a gallery of his scurrilous work at http://www.robertfischerphoto.com/.

3. Steven Fama's glade of theoric ornithic hermetica has given the once over to Rachel Loden’s “The Hollywood Years,” a slanguage poem from her collection Dick of the Dead, at http://stevenfama.blogspot.com/.

4. If you're old enough to remember how cool the covers of Fortune magazine used to be, you can glut yourself with them at http://www.gono.com/adart/fortune/fortune_magazine_covers.htm.

5. I am still waiting to see if my favorite science project at Lawrence Labs in Livermore will achieve ignition this summer as scheduled. If you have time, watch the trailer here: https://lasers.llnl.gov/.

6. Dodie Bellamy's latest and final contribution to SFMOMA's blog series which she calls One Final Long Tracking Shot is a beautifully written remembrance of arty things past. Let's hope she keeps her own blog well-fertilized from now on at http://dodie-bellamy.blogspot.com/ -- it's really fabulous to read Dodie regularly on the Internet.

7. Aaron Hostatter is making swift progress at The Anglo-Saxon Narrative Project with his translation of Elene, a hagiographic epic written probably by Cynewulf in the 9th c. The story is a dramatic retelling of the legend of St. Helena, the British mother of Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, who is reputed to have found the True Cross.

8. If you have time this weekend, check out the wonderfully atmospheric Polaroids taken by Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovski (thanks Boingboing.net), for example:

Saturday Gallimaufry

1. They sleep with the sloths at http://slothrescue.org/index.html.

2. Got Medieval suggests that Kevin Costner's Robin Hood film may be the absolute worst medieval movie of all time.

3. The British Library has put online the orginal manuscript edition of Alice in Wonderland.

Saturday Gallimaufry

1. Have a look at BoingBoing's presentation this week on Antartica before it all melts away: http://www.boingboing.net/features/antarctica.html. You need to scoll around with your sidebars.

2. Review your knowledge of the Prime Directive at http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Prime_Directive.

3. A post in the Guardian's book blog defines masturbation as the last frontier of literary exploration, although to be honest, a number of San Francisco writers I could mention would seem to have covered the topic rather extensively at least a couple decades ago.

Saturday Gallimaufry

1. A discussion of the Limecat meme plus the Legend of Limecat is offered at  http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/limecat.

2. If you were curious how God created air guitarists, Urban Dictionary has some answers.

3. Lost Fort posted some pictures of the wonderful but generally unknown 12th c.Gospels of Heinrich the Lion this week. Note the colorful long stockings worn by some of the men (Coronation, Burial of Jesus).

Saturday Gallimaufry

1. Dodie Bellamy looks at a work by Jay DeFeo and concludes that pretty is the new ugly.

2. Once the night skies were full of warriors, women and very large animals, as depicted this week at Astropix. Wait till the image loads and then move your cursor on and off it.

3. E-books sales are up 260% this month, says ShelfAwareness.

4. Avoiding a Schrodinger's box of not-funny, Got Medieval has posted the April Feast Calendar (Part 1).

Saturday Gallimaufry

1. If you have a favorite spot anywhere along the coast of California, you will find a photo of it at http://www.californiacoastline.org/.

2. Thanks to the Lost Fort, you are only one click away from examining Britain's smallest house.

3. Piers Perrot Gaveston has photos to show you where Edward III spent much of his downtime. The three gold lions against a red background remind us that Himself was yet a Plantagenet.

Saturday Gallimaufry

1) The best thing I read online this week: Dodie Bellamy’s beautifully written elegy to lost San Francisco neighborhoods, triggered by the contemplation of some artworks that arose within them, now housed in local museums. Go now and read this brilliant piece of writing.

2) Although modern media have seized upon the Tudor period as the prime arena of interest for English history buffs, there are those happy few amongst us who believe that 14th-century England is, at the very least, equally fascinating. You've got your succession of three Edwards, the first being a power-mad Nazi, the second probably gay and according to one report executed per anal implementation of a red-hot poker, followed by Edward III, a military nut who master-minded the Hundred Years' War.

Then you've got your famine of 1315-17, the Black Death around 1358, your Geoffrey Chaucer, your fabulous Peasants’ Revolts of the 1380's, and, to top this astonishing century off, the deposition of Richard II, also possibly a gay person, in 1399. Really, just how exciting can medieval history possibly get?

Thus I was pleased to discover and join a King Edward II group on facebook this week, which referred me to an informative website where that unfortunate monarch still reigns, more specifically at http://edwardthesecond.com/.

[The modest bungalow in Wales where Edward II was born is named Caernarvon Castle. Photo by Daniel Mersey from the Castles of Wales website. Clicking embiggens].

Saturday Gallimaufry

1.  A great resource for San Francisco history with hundreds of photos can be pleasurably rummaged through at FoundSF. Above photograph shows cable car tracks on Market Street running toward the corner of Castro in 1888.

2.  And here at FORA.tv is Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes of San Francisco, a  fascinating ninety-minute video presentation formed from home-made movies of old San Francisco.

Saturday Gallimaufry

1. Wonderful news is presently announced at Slashdot.org: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10.

2. I can't allow myself to get involved with computer games as I'd never get anything done, but Go to Hell is sorely tempting. It has been reviewed in detail at Got Medieval under the title: Dante's Boobferno: The Ballad of Beatrice's Breasts.

3. Jonathan Jarrett has meanwhile discovered startling numismatic evidence of a first-century progenitor and relative of Marc Bolan.