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Month: July 2001

4787967

4787967

Heee….a nice jab at indulgences. Comparison with the state and the church on collecting money. Logical, but I’m not sure the dauphin would say that…

Nice vision of the court…I know nothing about ‘court’ though. So I can’t say whether it seems right or not. It looks busy. Reminds me of Tom Stoppard’s stage directions “The King and Queen, attended” with a huge crowd of people that twitter and and gossip while the King and Queen do their thing.

Would the church appoint a spiritual adviser to the king? Would he not chose his own?

4787845

4787845

St. Catherine of Alexandria
Of noble birth and learned in the sciences, when only eighteen years old, Catherine presented herself to the Emperor Maximinus who was violently persecuting the Christians, upbraided him for his cruelty and endeavoured to prove how iniquitous was the worship of false gods. Astounded at the young girl’s audacity, but incompetent to vie with her in point of learning the tyrant detained her in his palace and summoned numerous scholars whom he commanded to use all their skill in specious reasoning that thereby Catherine might be led to apostatize. But she emerged from the debate victorious. Several of her adversaries, conquered by her eloquence, declared themselves Christians and were at once put to death. Furious at being baffled, Maximinus had Catherine scourged and then imprisoned. Meanwhile the empress, eager to see so extraordinary a young woman, went with Porphyry, the head of the troops, to visit her in her dungeon, when they in turn yielded to Catherine’s exhortations, believed, were baptized, and immediately won the martyr’s crown. Soon afterwards the saint, who far from forsaking her Faith, effected so many conversions, was condemned to die on the wheel, but, at her touch, this instrument of torture was miraculously destroyed. The emperor, enraged beyond control, then had her beheaded and angels carried her body to Mount Sinai where later a church and monastery were built in her honour.

A fitting patron saint for our Joan. As I write this: Joan has just cut off all her hair, and they have been confronted by a band of English knights.

4787730

4787730

Even a quick comment about what noblemen need to learn…a bit of everything, including cooking.

I like that this movie doesn’t try to give Joan other motives other than the ones she said she had…it doesn’t make her mad, it doesn’t make her delusion or just a power-hungry cross-dresser. It believes that she did hear the voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret. And it’s the story of a devout girl, divine intervention, and all that. My Catholic roommate hated that. I like it.

4787650

4787650

Like Moses
There are echoes of ‘Let my people go’ here….we have Joan, attempting to reach the dauphin, stuck under the thumb of a local noble. He won’t let her go…he won’t send her….and so helps out a nun to feed the poor, and comes up with a plan to raise an army. What’s most fun are the ‘plagues’ that are delivered to the Duke….the hens won’t let eggs. So Joan goes back dressed as a man, and the Duke lets her go.

4787561

4787561

War and Famine
What I also like about this film is that it represents the continual war and famine of the early modern period. I find I usually gloss over this, probably because I normally deal with merchant classes and nobles.

They just referred to Joan as a “camp following strumpet’. That’s a nice touch….since armies would be followed by an even larger army of women, tradespeople, and animals. Syphillis, from what we know, seems to have passed so quickly around Europe after 1493 because of the movement of armies.

4787514

4787514

Joan shouts, “Emile! Emile!” as a burning roof collapses on her blind friend. And then drops in front on the burning church and shouts, “WHY? He was your best child! What did he do wrong? What did I do wrong?”

This is a nice scene, but I must say the greatest part of this is that Leelee’s father is actually french, and she speaks french, and therefore pronounces names of people and places properly. Thank God.

4787460

4787460

Fathers and Daughters in early modern France
Now…we do have an interesting father-daughter relationship happening here. From the beginning, her father doesn’t want her…he is about to kill the infant. I wonder what the sources are about that. Now we had her father throw Joan out of the house because she questions her father. They have a very antagonistic relationship. I’m going to go look up some stuff on the info we have about Joan. Certainly there must be a great deal, since there was a full inquisition…

4787360

4787360

I just popped in the mini series Joan of Arc starring Leelee Sobieski. I bought it when I was in the states. I saw in on tv there and just LOVED it. By the second part I knew I had to own it…it has an inquisition in it. Ah….I haven’t seen it in ages.

4786857

4786857

Dumb joke repetition noticed
throughyoureyes.com says: “Ok, what the fuck? I’ve seen that stupid tigger/toilet/poo joke on four blogs now. It’s cute, but not especially funny, and certainly not worth repeating over and over and over again.” Agreed. I agree so much that I won’t even repeat it for the sake of context. 🙂 Bloggers are already losing their minds.

4786003

4786003

button thoughts
[+][beam] jason says, “to be ovrewhelmed by moo is good. ”
[+][beam] jason says, “after my first experience, I put it aside for 5 years to figure out if I was ready fo ri t;-)”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “hmmm”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “I wish I could understand what that’s like”
[+][beam] Hildegarde asks, “is it describable?”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “maybe if I understood it I’d be more patient with people”
[+][beam] jason asks, “what? the overwhelming sense of possibility that paralizes action?”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “no no, moo being overwhelming. :)”
[+][beam] jason says, “or the ‘my brain hurts’ congnitive overwhelming.”
[+][beam] jason says, “that’s what I’m referring to.”
[+][beam] Hildegarde giggles.
[+][beam] Hildegarde asks, “I don’t think most people get possibility out of this….they see chat, don’t they?”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “I don’t think MOO is very obvious about what it can do”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “Like, if I were the designer…”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “I wouldn’t have an ‘objects’ and a ‘my stuff’ button.”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “I would have a ‘my stuff’ button and a ‘create’ button”
[+][beam] jason grins.
[+][beam] jason says, “no shit.”
[+][beam] jason says, “I think you’re on the money.”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “from the point of view of being building focused”
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “like *ahem* I am. :)”
[+][beam] jason says, “but to me, the design needs to be a combination of whim and reflection”
[+][beam] jason says, “I think that the button should be eternally reconfiguarable”
[+][beam] salmon grin.
[+][beam] salmon [to Hildegarde]: love the button thoughts
[+][beam] Hildegarde says, “I’ll blog that”
[+][beam] salmon exclaims, “yay!”
[+][beam] jason goes Woooooohoooooooo! across the channel.’

4785571

4785571

On the phone with mom….talking about funeral stuff and all that. Bah….and the fact that the grass looks awful because it’s been so dry. And so on. You know how it goes…

4785251

4785251

Are You Naughty or Nice? Wanna guess what I am?

You’re a Straight Arrow

You’re all about sweetness, sunshine, and smiles. We’ve never met anyone nicer than you. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised to come across you sitting in a peaceful green meadow, surrounded by adorable baby animals eating out of your hand while your halo shines in the sun. Nah, we’re just kidding. But you are an awfully good person. Sure, you may have dipped your toe in the naughty pool once or twice, but you generally stick to the shallow end, leaving the deep waters to the leather-and-nudie-magazine crowd. It’s all well and good to follow the straight and narrow, but it’s okay to walk on the wild side once in a while, too. Have a drink. Make a crank call. Go to strip club. Trust us � as long as no one gets hurt, it’s fun to be bad!

4785162

4785162

Emode.com: What’s Your Celebrity Look?
Mine:
Who can say what goes on behind that Mysterious Look? No one for sure, because you love to keep them guessing. Your secretive ways are as intriguing as your exotic beauty. Maybe it’s your deep, dreamy eyes, or maybe it’s that elusive smile that hides something more. As a nonconformist by nature, you tend to fuse different fashions into unique combinations that express the real you�marrying the vintage with the modern or the classic with the eclectic. Like your celebrity counterparts, Winona Ryder and Juliette Binoche, you’re always open to intelligent discussion and experimental jewelry and makeup. By playing up your intense features with deep lipsticks and an alluring eye shadow, you’re both captivating and unpredictable.

Uh huh. Yeah, that’s me.

4784918

4784918

The first sign of trouble
I’ve discovered something interesting. I’m capable of being online for…oh, 30 hours straight (been there, done that), and had no problems. (Granted, I was in love at the time. But still.) Now I can barely do 4 hours without getting dreadfully bored. I think partly I’m scared now because I can’t start anything…I’m afraid I’ll forget to blog. So now I’m bored.

Give me permission to code something? I do have work to do, after all.

4784611

4784611

Metafilter opinions on Planet of the Apes
After watching the trailer in the theater, my wife opined that this film should be renamed “Super Jumpin’ Monkeys!” Personally, I think it’s going to suck giant bananas and will possess none of the weird antihero vibe or timeless style of the original version. It’s going to be yet another assembly-line Hollywood action-film regurgitation with a dollop of Tim Burton’s wearisome outsider angst on top. The best we can hope for is some truly hamfisted dialogue from MarkyMark, but he’s no Chuckie Heston.

Wow. I thought it looked way cool from the trailers. Silly me. Then, I’m easily impressed.

4783599

4783599

The cams are fun, and I like seeing jason and salmon on the same page there with me, but if I watch it longer than 5 minutes I bork and have to restart my whole puter. That’s really really annoying.

4783136

4783136

Masculinity revisited
An interesting comment from andrew’s livejournal : “I just saw a commercial for hot dogs. Ball park franks or something like that. Their slogan was “Eat like a man”. What is it about pig snouts, intestines, ears, tails, and whatever else is in hot dogs that makes someone more masculine?”

Jason? Any comments? My adviser (wonderful woman that she is) studies masculinity. I’ll ask her when I see her on Tuesday. 🙂

4783011

4783011

Who were you in your last past life?

Me: I do not know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.
You were born somewhere around territory of modern Southern England approximately on 1425.
Your profession was farmer, weaver, tailor.
————————————————————————
Your brief psychological profile in that past life:
Seeker of truth and wisdom. You could have seen your future lives. Others perceived you as an idealist illuminating path to future.
————————————————————————
Lesson, that your last past life brought to present:
Your lesson — to develop kind attitude to people, to acquire gift of understanding and compassion.

Hmm…well, that’s something to think about. I was an early modern English girl. That seems about right.

4782826

4782826

What kinds of characters did Cat attract with this blogathon idea?
This is interesting: “i work daily in the web and i do quite a bit of research into what’s going on. i recently learned of a few disturbing things that are going on and i want you to know about them. the thing is that i know that i’m being monitored. my pager’s on 24/7, my cell phone is on 24/7, and if i were to divulge my location to you i know i’d be toast. this is serious shit. very serious. i have a reason to believe that the government (BUSH!) is doing some funky shit with the web. everyone talks about napster and censorship and maybe even echelon now and then (only bbc, they know what they’re talking about sometimes puff adder) but they don’t know the half of it. napster ain’t shit. it’s nothing.

you think about this before i get cut loose for the day. you’re using a cell, we know where you are. you’re using a pager we know where you are, you’re using your cadillac with onstar we know where you are. we know where you are. always. you can’t get away.

Uh huh. Yeah. Time for the next button…

4782584

4782584

This page has bugs crawling on it. That kind of makes my skin crawl, but that might have something to do with the fact that I’m cold. Time for pants, finally.

And, for the record: LOL is not an expression. It’s a command. You put it in your ‘text imput window’ or at your command line. Got it? Good.