As with the last Brother Cadfael I read, I found this one slow to get
started but ultimately satisfying. I note that they are both from her
later period; perhaps it’s typical. If you’re starting to read this
series, take note: this book should be read after
A Morbid Taste For Bones.
Monthly Archives: January 2003
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
I originally bought this book when it was first published in paper in
1995. It bored me to tears at the time and went the way of some books–to
the used bookstore for resale. However, sensibilities and interests
change. Recently, I was browsing the books at the local yarn shop, picked
this back up, read a few pages and plopped my money down. Then I took it
home and read it cover to cover in nearly one sitting.
Barber attempts to show the development of cloth and clothing and how it
relates to women and society in general from the Paleolithic up to the
late Iron age. Her first postulation is that clothing and cloth
manufacture have always traditionally been done by women because of the
need for flexible work that can be picked up or put down as the demands
of nursing an infant and toddler require. She then traces the development
of cloth from the simple string skirt of fertility rights to the more
elaborate clothing and tapestries of the Hellenic cultures. However,
since very few fragments of cloth are still extant, she relies quite
heavily on the remaining tools and artwork left behind when the cultures
finally failed. The most interesting discussion in the book concerns the
parallel development of vertical warp weighted looms versus horizontal
peg looms and how they created different weaving techniques and
ultimately different uses for the cloth.
The book isn’t for everyone. I am particularly fond of anything that
relates to fiber and textile development and for that I found it
fascinating. She uses myth as evidence a bit too much for me to buy all
her arguments. I also have a hard time completely accepting that women
did the spinning, weaving and sewing because they were tied to their
nursing children and the men went out to hunt and later to farm because
they were not. It seems too clean and simple.
Umpy Noises
I was just out with my three-year-old, and
one of the songs we listened to in the car was “What Shall We Do With The
Drunken Sailor” as sung by Leonard Warren, an opera singer of the 1950’s
(he died young, poor fellow). Later, while we were walking through a
store I heard James singing to himself: “Yo, Ho, and Umpy Noises, Yo,
Ho, and Umpy Noises, Yo, Ho, and Umpy Noises, Early in the Morning.”
I’ve Just Been Linked To…
…by
Iam Hamet’s new blog, which is mostly
about The Movies. I do believe this is a first, and I hope it leads to
Great Things. 🙂
Ripping Yarns
Or, anyway, ripping CDs. I’ve just gotten a
Nomad Jukebox ‘Zen’ MP3 player, and
now I’m in the process of downloading my CDs onto it. It’s a tedious
process, made more tedious by the fact that all I’ve got here at home is
a dial-up connection.
Why does my Internet connection matter? Because of “CDDB”. If you’re
on-line, you can look up the title and track names and
other data about almost any CD you put into your computer’s CD drive.
Plus, it’s easy; the CD-ripping software that comes with the Nomad
Jukebox gets all of the data it needs automatically. This saves a lot of
typing.
The sequence goes like this: dial-up to my ISP, put the CD in the drive,
wait until the software downloads the track titles, ask the software to
rip the CD, close the ISP connection. And then, ten minutes later, do it
again.
It’s enough to make a guy seriously consider broadband.
Jeeves in the Offing, by P.G. Wodehouse
This is yet another Bertie Wooster and Jeeves novel, featuring (once
again) Bertie’s beloved Aunt Dahlia the battleaxe. It’s the same old
story, naturally–the course of true love doth ne’er run smoothly. What
distinguishes this one from the others is the presence of Roberta
“Bobbie” Wickham. Wodehouse heroines are infamous for leading their men
into danger, but Bobbie Wickham is on a whole ‘nother plane. She is an
active force for chaos. Falling in love with Bobbie Wickham is likely to
lose you your job, your pride, your sanity, and your top hat. I’d not
previously seen Bobbie in a full-length novel, and I was glad to renew
the acquaintance.
If You’ve Ever Thought Of Reading…
Samuel Pepys’ diary, gossipy
document that it is, some clever person is serializing it day by day in
web log form, with hyperlinks and footnotes.
Metroid Prime vs. Baldur’s Gate
I’ve been a video game junky this month. Just after Christmas I
went out and bought two new titles for the GameCube, Metroid
Prime and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. The former is a
first person shooter; you’re a bounty hunter in a really neat suit of
powered armor, and you’re up against the Space Pirates. No, really!
The latter is a Dungeon’s and Dragons (TM) game, the latest in the
Baldur’s Gate series. I’ve been playing them alternately.
Baldur’s Gate is a traditional hack-and-slash dungeon crawl
with really nifty graphics. Playing it was a lot like playing the
other D&D-style games I’ve been playing for years (notably Angband);
and if the graphics are better the game model is considerably less
sophisticated. But it was fun; I finished it this afternoon, killing
the last nasty monster with much less trouble than I expected.
Metroid Prime shows considerably more effort and
imagination, and it’s a lot of fun. In your powered suit you’ve got
(ultimately) four different kinds of ray gun, plus missiles. In
addition, you can turn yourself into a small metal ball and roll
through tight spaces. It’s a kick. There is but one thing I
really dislike about Metroid Prime–they don’t give you nearly
enough opportunities to save your game, which is annoying in several
different ways. I’ve been stuck in the same spot for almost a week;
every time I play I do a little better, and get a little bit
farther…and then die before getting to the next save station. Ugh.
Game designers, take note–if there’s more than twenty minutes of game
play between save stations, you’re doing something seriously
wrong.
Asking for the Moon, by Reginald Hill
This unusual book is a quartet of short novels spanning the careers of
Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe from their first meeting to their last case
together (on the Moon, of all silly things). The final tale is rather
lightweight (if fun, for all that); the rest are quite good. I liked it.
The Wood Beyond, by Reginald Hill
Hill remains true to form in yet another Dalziel/Pascoe mystery.
(Incidentally, I’ve just discovered that the correct pronunciation of the
Yorkshire name Dalziel is “Dee-ell”.)
The novel begins with the funeral of Pascoe’s grandmother Ada, who left a
most unusual request in her will–Pascoe is to take her ashes and scatter
them about the camp of the West Yorkshire Fusiliers (the “Wyfies”),
the regiment in which both her husband and her father fought and died.
The request leads Pascoe to a great many unpleasant discoveries about his
family history; and for us to the odd, nightmare world of the trenches of
the Great War. Hill deftly weaves together the past and present through
Pascoe and his forebear–and also through the forebears of the people
Dalziel and Pascoe meet in the course of their current investigation.
For in World War I it was common in the British Army’s county regiments
to put folk in squads and companies with their neighbors and (in some
cases) brothers and cousins. (Entire families and townships were nearly
wiped out by this practice, which has since been abolished.)
By comparison, the present day investigation isn’t much, but I have to
say I didn’t feel short changed. This is yet another outstanding book
from Mr. Hill.
The View from the Foothills 