Washington National Cathedral damaged by recent earthquake

Since my last post about the 800th anniversary of the Reims Cathedrale in France, a large 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck Virginia and among the structures damaged was the Washington National Cathedral.

My friend Jeff Sypeck lives in Washington, D.C. and he regularly posts pictures on his blog taken from the cathedral. Jeff specializes in showing pictures of gargoyles and pairing them with poems. Last week one of his blog posts discussed the damage to the cathedral and included a link to a fundraising plea to help repair the damages caused by the quake.

Last summer my family visited Washington, D.C. and we were fortunate to spend an hour in that magnificent church. In trying to help raise awareness of the the cathedral's need to raise funds, I decided I should share a few of the pictures I took with my blog readers. I enjoy gargoyles and statues, but after being in many cathedrals during my travels, I have found that my eye is drawn more to stained glass and the colors created within the churches.

Here is one where my flash was employed.


It is nice, but I discovered that stained glass windows look more dramatic when you turn the flash off.




I also like seeing the light as it is observed at an angle.



This next photo was taken in the early afternoon and I love that one stained glass window projects a ray of intense scarlet light in the middle of the nave.



This link shows the damage suffered by the earthquake, and also includes how you can help. The cost is expected to be in the millions, and every donation of any amount will help.

After visiting the cathedral, my family was fortunate to be able to meet and have a delightful dinner with Jeff Sypeck. I had corresponded by email with Jeff for several years about Charlemagne and medievalism, writing, etc., and it was nice to be able to finally meet him.


If you can, please try to help out one of my favorite medievalists whose favorite local medievalist site needs help.

Thanks,

Linda

Kreativ Blogger Award

I have been overdue in making this announcement, but I was given my first ever blogging award last month. It is the Kreativ Blogger Award and it was given to me by Nicole Krueger of Books and Bards. Nicole has a recent post showing a list of some "lesser-known editing and proof-reading marks"which I found amusing. She also won a "flash fiction" contest that my friend and fellow Redwood Writers club member Ann Wilkes posted on her blog.

Nicole discovered my blog through a post I made regarding my thoughts on the Twilight series.

The rules of this award are that the recipient is to list seven things that they love and choose seven other bloggers to honor.

Here are seven things I love:

1. Chocolate. I prefer really good chocolate. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate covered almonds, chocolate covered strawberries, raspberries with chocolate. Mmmmm.

2. Wine. Especially wine that pairs well with chocolate. I also love big, bold red wines that taste of fruit and not filled with tannins. Zinfandel is my favorite varietal and Fred Scherrer is my favorite winemaker.

3. Sunshine and warm weather. I grew up in Michigan which was cold and overcast most of the year, so I appreciate living in the wine country of Northern California and not having to worry about shoveling snow or wondering about wind chill factors.

4. The ocean. I live about a 45 minute drive from the gorgeous Sonoma Coast. I enjoy watching the waves crash on the shore and am reminded of the transitory nature of human existence. Mother Nature is far more powerful than Man's shelters.

5. Traveling. I love seeing new sites as well as taking friends to see some of my favorite places.

6. History. Pair that with my love of traveling and you have a research based trip to historical sites.

7. Entertaining. I love sharing good food and wine with my friends. Especially if it is food that my husband has created. He has earned quite the reputation for his cooking skills.


Now onto sharing the blog award with others. I will admit that I follow a lot of blogs. When I take the time to read blogs, I will come across links to other blogs that look intriguing and then subscribe to them. Subsequently I have approximately over 100 blogs in my Google reader. They are an eclectic mix of agent and author blogs, writing and marketing blogs, medievalist blogs, and well - miscellaneous blogs - to boot.

I am regularly overwhelmed by the number of unread blog posts waiting for me to read and so I wind up scanning the titles of the blog posts before reading or ruthlessly clicking "mark all as read" in my attempt to streamline the process. I dislike unsubscribing thinking that I will miss out on something really cool.

The bloggers that I have chosen to give this award to are bloggers whose work I admire.

1. One of the first Medievalist blogs I came across was Richard Scott Nokes' Unlocked Wordhoard. He is a professor of Medieval Literature at Troy University in Troy Alabama and his blog serves as a clearinghouse for medievalist blogs with his regular feature Morning Medieval Miscellany which provides links to posts he thinks are worthy of attention.

It is due to his blog that I have discovered many other Medievalist blogs, including

2. Jeff Sypeck's Quid Plura? blog. Jeff wrote the book Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad and the Empires of A.D. 800 which I found helpful in my research about the historical Charlemagne for my novel. Jeff's blog also includes helpful links, but his original posts about the nexus of Medievalism and pop culture are quirky and entertaining.



3. Erika Mailman. Erika wrote a wonderful novel The Witch's Trinity set in 16th century Germany focusing on one community's shared hysteria surrounding witch trials. Many of her blog posts deal with the historical aspects of superstition regarding witchcraft (including fabulous woodcuts), but many posts also concern current day persecution of people accused of being witches.

It is not just a horrible nightmare of our past.




4. C.W. Gortner is another historical novelist blogger. Christopher had a recent post "Don't Defame the Dead" where he passionately defended the medium of historical novels against criticism by some historians. I found that post to be thought provoking for me since I had taken some historical methods classes when I was in graduate school. I understand both perspectives, and recognize my own struggles with trying to adhere as closely to historical reality as possible while also having an eye to the needs of storytelling without boring the reader.

His book The Last Queen is about Juana of Castile, the last queen of Spanish blood.

Some late breaking good news for Christopher. His next novel The Confessions of Catherine de Medici is scheduled to be released on May 25, 2010.


5. Lee Lofland's The Graveyard Shift blog covers a wide range of topics related to law enforcement and regularly has guest posts from experts. His blog should be required reading for anyone writing mysteries, using any law enforcement characters or is interested in a career in law enforcement. Lee is a retired police officer/homicide detective, author of the Writer's Digest book Police Procedure and Investigation: A Guide for Writers and is an all around good guy.



Speaking of law enforcement and mysteries...

6. Tess Gerritsen is the New York Times bestselling author of the Jane Rizzoli/Maura Isles series. She writes spine tingling and multi-layered thrillers which resonate with her attentiveness to detail and a knack for taut storytelling. Tess is a warm individual and a generous author willing to "pay it forward" for other writers. Her blog is one aspect of her generosity because she provides insight about what it is like to be a full time author.

I do my best to follow the trades by reading Publisher's Lunch and PW Daily as well as agent blogs, but they cannot provide the same perspective that Tess does on her blog. In particular, she alerted me to the downside of what might be a trend by publishers to cut costs in regard to phasing out printed galleys.

I was astonished to read the tone used in an email from a publisher to her when they were hoping she would provide a blurb for a forthcoming book for one of their authors. They seemed ignorant of concepts put forth by Dale Carnegie years ago in trying to win friends and influence people. I hope that most publishers who are seeking blurbs from famous authors would adopt a "pro-choice" attitude and offer options as to how galleys would be submitted to them: paper or PDF. Eliminating printed versions might lower the publisher's printing and postage costs, but it might also prevent their forthcoming books from getting some coveted blurbs which could help boost sales.

It would be well worth the tine and effort for aspiring writers to poke around through Tess' archives to discover other gems about the publishing industry. By the way, her latest book The Keepsake is due out in paperback August 25th!



7. And lastly is my friend John Granger's The Hogwarts Professor blog.

John takes literary criticism to heart. His analyses of the Harry Potter series is among the best I have read. He looks deeply into the text and recognizes symbols of literary alchemy that I had never known before. I have garnered a new appreciation for the series due to his scholarship.

He has several books exploring many different aspects of the Harry Potter series. One of his most influential books was Looking for God in Harry Potter which rebuts the criticism in some circles that J.K. Rowling's books are promoting witchcraft and are therefore worthy of being banned or burned.

John's most recent book is Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books behind the Hogwarts Adventures.





John has now turned his attention to another series to analyze. It is the Twilight series and his blogging on that subject can be found at the Forks High School Professor blog.



Hopefully these links will help my readers discover and enjoy a few of my favorite blogs.

Carcassonne, The medieval walled city

A year ago at this time I was in France.

I did not think that I would still be reconstructing my trip in my online journal a year later.

However, that means that my recollections will be far more detailed than if I had composed them that same day when I was exhausted and feeling obligated to post something.

The day we traveled to Carcassonne was on a Monday. I had a list of certain sites that I had to visit and several had restrictions as to which day we would be visiting them. For example, Toulouse had English language walking tours only on Saturdays.

I had originally planned on having us travel to Peyrepertuse the Monday after we arrived in the Midi-Pyrenees. The thing is - while this was a research trip for me - we looked at it as a vacation as well.

That meant we did not want to use an alarm clock to wake up. And because we were now on the western edge of a time zone as opposed to being on the eastern edge of the Pacific time zone, the sun rose later in the morning than we are used to in California.

So we woke up later than I would have liked. By the time we finished breakfast, I looked at the clock and realized to travel the distance to get to Peyrepertuse we should have already been on the road at least an hour before.

I instituted Plan B.

We would be going to Carcassonne instead, even though I was aware that the Museum of Chivalry, Arms and Archery was closed on Mondays.

I wanted to visit Carcassonne because it dates back to the time of the Romans and was definitely around in one form or another during the time of Charlemagne.

One thing that would have been a deal breaker was depending on whether there were English language tours available that day. I called and asked. Talking to someone in person using hacked-up French and having them have a tenuous grasp of English is challenging enough, talking to someone over the phone using hacked-up French is entering another level of difficulty.

After being transferred to about three people, I finally spoke to someone who was able to answer my questions. Yes, they had English language tours of the castle every day. No, I did not need a reservation.

I did not realize it at the time, but that phone call and my question about reservations made the difference as to whether or not my husband and I would be allowed to join the tour group.

We set off at about 10:30 and hoped it would not take us too long to get there.

We were still naïve and trusted our GPS to find the best route. We plugged in our destination and followed the directions Garmin gave us.

It drew a convoluted path that defied logic. Rather than cruising at 100 km/hr or so on the autoroute we were driving down narrow country lanes and traversing traffic circles in small villages.

I kept glancing at the Michelin map and wondering when we would finally get at the autoroute and why we were given such a convoluted route. After about 45 minutes, we decided to override the Garmin because we still needed to get past Toulouse which seemed to be taking far too long.

While I enjoyed viewing the picturesque French countryside, I was getting a bit anxious at the time spent traveling. One thing that was inescapable was that ruins were everywhere. Here is a building that may have been a house at one time, but it is beyond even the "fixer upper" moniker in real estate. It also looks as if some of stones have been taken elsewhere.



The idea of recycling used building materials for newer projects happened in the medieval village of Carcassonne itself. That was part of the problem that faced architect Viollet le-Duc when he was put in charge of restoring the medieval walled city. The townspeople of the lower village of Carcassonne had been using the old fortress as their own "stone quarry" for years.

Here are some old pictures that were taken of Carcassonne before its restoration. (These pictures are on display within the castle itself. Therefore these are my pictures of the old photographs.)

As we neared our exit, we could see the ancient walled fortress looming in the distance clearly visible from the autoroute.

The sight was impressive.

The walls, the towers and ramparts project an image of power and strength.




Ah, but as we approached our destination we were given another surprise by our Garmin. It totally butchered the name and we were puzzled when we heard something that sounded like "Sit-tay May Day Vale."

It took a beat before I realized it meant: cité médiéval.

Then I winced.

However, we were happy to have arrived and it only took us about two hours and change to get there. It was crowded and parking was at a premium, but thankfully we were visiting on a weekday and it was not in the high season. I hesitate to think of how large the crowds are during July and August.

Here is a diagram of the medieval city for you to get an idea of the scope of its fortifications.



As we entered into Carcassonne, we were greeted by a statue of their legendary Dame Carcas. (More on that later.)


The medieval city of Carcassonne was featured in the climax of the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Filmmakers can try to dress the set to give the impression of a time long ago, but that would not stop continuity problems from cropping up that might ruin a shot.

Such as airplanes coming into view.


After arriving we walked around a little, then found a quiet spot to eat the picnic lunch we brought with us.

We still had time before the 2 pm English language walking tour of the castle and so we walked around the city. There are numerous gift shops and restaurants lining the streets of the medieval walled city.

Here is one of the streets outside the castle which gives you the feeling of entering the past.



According to the official website there are 120 people who actually reside within that ancient site. I was trying to absorb history as I walked in this ancient place, but I kept being reminded of being in the 21st century when cars would beep in order to pass on the roads.

The biggest incongruity to me was the walled city had a Best Western Hotel, along with seeing their courtesy vehicle repeatedly during the day.

I suppose if it was a bed and breakfast and they had horse drawn carriages that conveyed luggage, I would not have had the same negative reaction.

I enjoyed staying in Paris at an historic hotel that was an active hospital, but I dislike the idea of a Best Western in Carcassonne. I regard it as sacrilegious as champagne in a can.

Here I am posing in the same archway as seen above.





We also visited the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus, but I will save that for another post.

We arrived at the castle gates a few minutes early to buy our tickets. I was taken aback when the ticket attendant told me that the English language tour was full. The next tour would be at 6 pm.

That was unacceptable for it would mean that we would arrive back to our rental cottage late at night and well after dark, plus it would change our dinner plans.

So I argued the point. And this is where my previous phone call and being told that I did not need a reservation saved me.

The woman used her walkie talkie and talking with several people before she reluctantly put our names down on the list and handed me two tickets.

I had not meant to be difficult, but I had been told to buy those tickets as soon as we arrived in the town we would have done so. I followed the directions as best as I could, and was not about to be penalized for it.

Here is the outside of the castle. You can see the moat, two towers and hoardings on the top of the walls.

Check out the numerous arrow slits you would be facing should you be an invader trying to cross the bridge over the moat.




Here was the portion of the castle that belonged to the Trencavels who were in power at the time of the Cathars. The posts in midair demonstrate that there used to be a floor that has long since fallen away.


Here is another image of that large space from a different angle to give you a sense of its size.



According to a marker - this floor has a Roman mosaic under it that dates back to the first century A.D. Then in the twelfth century it was used as a chapel, but was demolished in the 18th century.



Our tour guide regaled us with stories of the history of Carcassonne. She told us that some of the ramparts and a portion of the surrounding wall dates back to the time of the Romans.

The town of Carcassone was also a site of great historical relevance in regard to the persecution of the Cathars (also known as the Albigensian heresy). That religious war was bloody and involved a large swath of southern France in the Languedoc-Rousillon region.

The novel Labyrinth by Kate Mosse is set in Carcassonne and describes the siege by Simon de Montfort's forces that defeated Vicomte Raymond Trencavel and the massacre of the Cathars. Our guide was happy to mention the book during the tour and recommend it.

She also suggested that the name Trencavel literally meant "well cut."

Well, now. Too bad they did not have any images - paintings, statues, whatever - of the Trencavels to allow modern audiences to judge that hypothesis.

Going further we walked on several walls surrounding the castle and were able to look through arrow slits. Consider the people you see serving as potential targets.


Here are two pictures of the castle from the viewpoint of the towers.





As we were walking the walls we were shown what was referred to as "murder holes."




Later we saw a supply of rounded rocks which would have been used as weapons to throw down those holes on potential invaders.


Inside the castle on the second floor there was a mural that had been painted over. At one point someone discovered the hidden mural and great care was taken to remove the layers of paint that had removed it from sight.




Here is another view and supposedly the round shields are to denote the Saracens.



Here is another view of the mural with a statue of the suffering Jesus in the foreground.


I am not sure who these man are supposed to be, but I love the detail in their faces.

Our tour guide, Marie, mentioned the legend regarding the naming of Carcassonne being in honor of a woman named Dame Carcas having outwitted Charlemagne. Here I am standing next to Marie.




I challenged her on the legend as not being based on history. She then shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

If you look around Carcassonne you can find the legend and the real history.

Here's the legend:


Here is the old sculpture that was replaced. You can see why since it is unrecognizable.


There is even a road named after Dame Carcas in Carcassonne.



I mentioned that there is some discussion of the history without the legend of resisting Charles the Great.


Here you can see a marker which states that the name dates back to 70 B.C. Centuries before Charlemagne was a twinkle in Pepin le Bref's eye.


Even the official website for Carcassonne admits to the origins of the town's name.

The oldest traces of man - 6th century B.C.- were found on the promontory where the Cité lies. Around 300 B.C., the Volques Tectosages brought the Iberians of Languedoc to submission. In 122 B.C., the Romans conquered the Provence and the Languedoc. They fortified the oppidum which took the name of Carcaso, and occupied our region until the middle of the 5th century. The Visigoths then became the masters of Spain and the Languedoc. The Cité remained in their hands from 460 to 725 A.D. In the spring of 725, the Saracens took the Cité. They were driven away in 759 by Pépin le Bref, king of the Franks.

Yes. They admit that Charlemagne's daddy was the one at the gates, and that he conquered Carcassonne. At that point, if Charles was outside the gates he was not "the Great" but simply Prince Charles - or Karl for those who prefer the Germanic variant.

I had blogged about my thoughts on the subject of where history ended and legend began and how it relates to the naming of Carcassonne about five months before I went there.

I do not blame the people of Carcassonne for trying to claim some connection with Charlemagne and that the idea that they heroically stood up to this great historical figure, but I wish that people realized it was just a lovely tale but not history.

The townspeople claiming and celebrating such a legend surrounding Charlemagne stands in stark contrast with the city of Montauban. They could lay claim to a literary character that is in the legends of Charlemagne, but unfortunately they do not.

More on that when I discuss my visit to Montauban.

Oh and speaking of the legends of Charlemagne, Matthew Gabriele's book The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages: Power, Faith and Crusade will soon be published.

Next time I shall show pictures of the basilica.

Linda

Demon Sex, Mummies, Literary Alchemy and more...

Yes, I am experimenting with catchy titles, but I will cover all those topics in the headline I promise.

First off: Demon Sex.

Erika Mailman updated her blog with a post discussing the sexual demons known as Incubi and Succubi and includes passages from the Malleus Maleficarum.

Her book The Witch's Trinity will be out in paperback in October, so if you have not read it yet - be sure to pre-order a copy today while you are thinking about it. Her novel was a Bram Stoker Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Book of Note of 2007.



Tess Gerritsen has a forthcoming novel The Keepsake that deals with murder and mummies. I had the pleasure of talking with Tess at the San Francisco Writers Conference this past February along with my friend Cindy Pavlinac. We chatted about her fascination with Egypt and archaeology as well as the process of mummification.

Tess decided to commission a book trailer to be made for The Keepsake and it is fabulous. Check it out:



She discusses some hidden benefits of book trailers on a guest post at the blog Murderati as well as how she went about commissioning the trailer to be made. Tess mentions that as a consequence of this filming she now has shrunken heads and rubber corpses occupying space in her garage. Hey, she will be all set for Halloween this year.

Onto a forthcoming book from another big time author is Katherine Neville's long awaited sequel to her classic novel The Eight. If you have never read that book first published in 1988, then you are in for a treat.

As described on her website:

Katherine Neville’s groundbreaking novel, The Eight, dazzled audiences more than twenty years ago and set the literary stage for the epic thriller. A quest for a mystical chess service that once belonged to Charlemagne, it spans two centuries and three continents, and intertwines historic and modern plots, archaeological treasure hunts, esoteric riddles, and puzzles encrypted with clues from the ancient past. Now the electrifying global adventure continues, in Neville’s long anticipated sequel: The Fire.

It is more than that, The Eight is a novel about the complex game of chess and she weaves in the historical figures of Charlemagne, Talleyrand, Robespierre, David, Sarat, Napoleon, and Moammar Qaddafi. There are two parallel stories being told. One takes place in the 1970s in New York City and later in Algeria, the other timeline is during the French Revolution. In both time periods, there is a deadly game being played in order to secure the pieces of a chess set that once belonged to Charlemagne. The novel combines murder, chess, Charlemagne, the French Revolution, literary alchemy, and Fibonacci Numbers. I mean, what's not to like?

Katherine has updated her website and it looks all bright and shiny. I am excited to see the list of signings to promote her forthcoming novel The Fire due out in October because she will be coming to my area. I look forward to meeting her and getting a signed copy.

Now to go from the sublime to the absurd.

John Goodman has returned to filming the adaptation of the novel Pope Joan. It took a lawsuit to accomplish this feat. You see, he decided that a supporting role in the movie Speed Racer might be better for his career than playing Pope Sergius in an epic historical move.

Speed Racer.

He chose to be in Speed Racer. Over Pope Joan.

Wow.

Of course hindsight is 20/20 and Speed Racer was a clunker, so I cannot help but think he made a boneheaded choice to back out of a signed contractual agreement to be involved in what turned out to be a lousy movie.

(I am grateful that my father-in-law sacrificed a few hours time to take my son to see Speed Racer because I did not want to suffer in the movie theater like I did a few years ago when I endured having to watch Home on the Range. Things you do for a child or a grandchild.)

Back to discussing Pope Joan the movie. I met Donna Woolfolk Cross, the author of Pope Joan, ten years ago when she was gracious enough to do a benefit book signing for an organization I headed at the time. She told me then that there were plans of a movie being made and she was given the opportunity to adapt her novel into a screenplay and she had just started working on the script. I gave a few suggestions of condensing early events into montages to get to the heart of the story, then I told her to be prepared that it might take longer than she expected. I had previously been interested in writing screenplays and so I had learned a lot about the movie industry and knew that it was a fickle business. I warned her that it could be a long drawn out process, and unfortunately for her, I was right.

I hope that the project is completed before long and that the film lives up to all her expectations.

Speaking of film delays...I am wondering about the status of the movie Love and Virtue. The production company's website has not been updated in a long time, and my Google Alert on the subject does not turn up much new information. I have seen some mention in regard to articles written about various actors associated with the production and it seems as if they had filmed the movie, however, I do not see any specific date as to when it will be released.

I did find an ominous posting on a message board for IMDb which does not seem all that hopeful to see the release of this movie anytime soon. That's a shame, because there are not many movies based on the legends of Charlemagne and even though in my humble opinion I think some of the actors are too old to play the part of specific characters...I still would like the movie be a success if only to spur interest in the epic poems of Orlando Furioso and Orlando Innamorato which inspired the storyline.

There are a few operas based on this luxurious source material and at least one play, but the legends of Charlemagne are woefully underserved in comparison to the legends of King Arthur.

For the record those operas are:

Alcina by Handel
Ariodante by Handel
Orlando Furioso by Vivaldi

and the play is Bradamante by Robert Garnier.

In other news, several of my friends have done interviews recently. Here are some links to those:

Agent Nathan Bransford was interviewed for a podcast by Bleak House as was as retired homicide detective Lee Lofland. Here is a link to Lee's interview.

Jeff Sypeck was interviewed by Julie K. Rose about songs he listened to which inspired his writing the book Becoming Charlemagne. The transcript of the interview is here and a podcast of Julie discussing the interview is here.

Then in somewhat old news, there is the controversy about Random House canceling the publication of the novel The Jewel of Medina. For those interested in reading a sample of the book for yourself, the blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books contacted the author Sherry Jones and has posted the Prologue online.

For those interested in reading a Muslim's perspective on the controversy, here is a post by blogger Mike Ghouse entitled Self-Censoring Muslims in which he responds to an editorial published in the Washington Post on the subject.

And lastly for now...the blog War and Game posted a review of the book The Moral Treatment of Returning Warriors in Early Medieval and Modern Times. I had never heard of this book before, has anyone else read this book?

Go ahead and leave your thoughts about any of these disparate subjects. Hopefully you found something intriguing.

Linda

Medievalism, Writing, Triumph, Love and Loss

I have some miscellaneous items about medievalism and writing that I wanted to share today.

I picked up a copy of Time Magazine this week and laughed when I saw this quote:

"Even the patience of the brothers was being tested by our slow Internet."

-- Father Daniel Van Santvoort, Cistercian monk, on his Welsh monastery's decision to get broadband access.

The image of monks in my mind's eye is one of balding men wearing robes and diligently copying sacred texts with quills and parchment in candlelight or possibly tending gardens and making wine, all the while being subjected to periodic or extended vows of silence.

I did not imagine them surfing the net, sending email or complaining about the slowness of dial-up internet connections. I guess even the habits of monks evolve over time.



Gabriele Campbell has shared pictures of the Regenstein castle in Germany that shows a castle different from traditional stone fortresses because it is partially sculpted from the mountainside. She has two posts on that subject. Post one and Post two.

Her pictures of Regenstein castle remind me of the ruined fortress at Les Baux-de-Provence. I have to continue with my travelogue posts, and my day at Les Baux will be the subject for a future post, but in the meantime here are a few pictures of that site to illustrate my point.



You can see smooth portions of the mountain as well as bricks that are attached in order to achieve the shape of the fortress. Well, what is left of the fortress for it now stands in ruins.





Below we can see why this location was chosen besides having the natural resources of rock. Namely it has a strategic vantage point.




For those who are a part of the medieval blogosphere, you have probably already read Jeff Sypeck's analysis of the military conflict going on in Ossetia between the nations of Georgia and Russia. If you are one of my readers who is not a medievalist, I recommend you take a few minutes to read his post for it puts the current conflict into an historical perspective that spans more than a few centuries and actually goes back to the time of the Romans.

On other news, I discovered the other day that my friend Erika Mailman's book The Witch's Trinity is due to be released in paperback on October 7th, just in time for Halloween.

It is an historical novel that deals with the hysteria surrounding witch trials in Europe and uses the Malleus Maleficarum as inspiration of the various "tests" used to determine guilt or innocence of accused witches.

Erika's blog includes several different posts including woodcuts from that era along with passages from texts as "extras." Here are two that I think are well worth examining:

Precursor to the broom where shapeshifters are in animal forms on a stick while flying through the air and trampling the cross where witchcraft is seen as a reversal of Christian traditions.

And for some unknown reason, the reviews for her hardcover version no longer appear on Amazon.com.

Here is what I had posted before as my review which has somehow been "disappeared" by Amazonmort:

Human nature can be strange. The mentality of a mob for example, shows how brutal people can become when surrounded by others who are filled with passionate anger.

Erika Mailman shows us through the eyes of an elderly woman what it would have been like to live in the Middle Ages when witchcraft was thought to be the cause of any misfortune.

The famine described in this small village of Tierkinddorf, Germany is haunting. It made me feel strange reading the novel while having my lunch. I began to feel guilty knowing that the characters were willing to accuse others of witchcraft just to get a bite to eat.

A scapegoat was needed to place all the blame of the village's misfortune. It was thought that then, all things would revert back to days of plenty. That the famine would end.

The paranoia, the suspicion, the opportunity to point the finger of blame at someone whom you bear a grudge.

An accusation of milk spoiling was enough to damn someone to being burned to death, and you didn't even have to bring forth the spoiled milk as evidence. Your word was enough, if coupled with other such scurrilous complaints, to condemn someone to death.

Given today's sensibilities the thought of public execution is abhorrent. However, it is a gruesome part of our history that drawing and quarterings, beheadings, hangings, and burning at the stake were all done in the village square to serve as a lesson to all.

Beware or it may happen to you.

The Witch's Trinity is a potent tale whose ending surprised me.

I highly recommend it.

You can pre-order a copy here.

Speaking of friends and books...Lee Lofland, author of Police Procedure and Investigation: A Guide for Writers, alerted me to an interview this past week where he was a guest on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. The subject was about ethics in police interrogations and its genesis was due to the accusation that the intense and/or obsessive scrutiny by the F.B.I. in regards to the Anthrax murders led to the suicide of Dr. Bruce Ivins.

Gus Van Zandt was also on that show and you can listen to that interview here.

Closer to my home, Gil Mansergh reviews the movie Bottle Shock which is a Hollywoodized version of the events in Paris in 1976 when a California wine shocked the wine world when it beat the French wines in a competition. Gil then created a list of movies which includes mentions of wine. He even included the Muppet Movie's mention of a fine Idaho wine.

Another item of local (and national) interest is Sonoma County's own Levi Leipheimer winning a bronze medal in the Summer Olympics in the Men's Cycling Time Trials.

I was unhappy with the organizers of the Tour de France disqualifying the Astana team from participating in this year's tour. They were punishing Astana for the actions of former riders who were caught doping, but by not allowing that team to compete it penalized Levi and Alberto Contador who had just signed with the team and had never been linked to cheating.

Sonoma County will be looking forward to having another grand celebration to welcome Levi home as we did in 2007 when he place third in the Tour de France.

Santa Rosa loves cycling and it shows. We have been a part of the Amgen Tour of California since it started three years ago, and have had the largest crowds of any city in the tour. So we will once again be included in that race and will root for our Favorite Son Levi to win the stage and stand at the winner's podium.


Life in the cosmic sense delivers good news and bad news sometimes close together. So while I am celebrating on behalf of Levi's success in life, I am also honoring the life of someone who passed away recently.

Joan Price is a writer in my community who was a guest speaker for my writers club and brought along her husband Robert to the meeting. He did not say much, but it was evident there was a strong love between them. Joan recently posted notice on her blog of Robert's death from cancer.

They had seven years together as a couple.

It was a love that she waited years for. She had other relationships, but none like the one she had with Robert. In her time of mourning, people are telling her that they envy her for having had such a powerful love relationship because they have never experienced such a thing.

Her reply? It is never too late for love.

She also posted in her comment trail how the gift of poetry can help in such a time of profound loss.

For example, a man I barely knew recited from memory a 12th century poem about love and loss that starts:

Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.

I wish everyone the ability to love with their full heart and have that joy unconditionally returned by another. Even if the time with your beloved does not last for your entire life, the love will.

Be well,

Linda

Wine in a can? And I thought wine in a box was bad.

Jeff Sypeck was amused by my last post where I showed consternation to find wine in boxes for sale in France. So he shared with me an article from the Economist which suggests that wine in a box is eco-friendlier than traditional bottles with corks.

Then it went a step further and mentioned something I had heretofore been blissfully ignorant about.

Wine in a can.

Specifically champagne in a can.

:massages temples at the thought of such sacrilege:

Champagne is a wonderful thing. It is a wine used for celebrations and whose heritage dates back to the 17th century monk by the name of Dom Perignon who discovered the art of secondary fermentation and its wonderful byproduct of sparkling wine.

The second fermentation by tradition is done in the bottle, and is referred to as methode champenoise. The best sparkling wines are all done by this method and then there is another process to rid the bottle of the dead yeast that would otherwise be present as sediment in the bottle.

This old fashioned method involved turning the bottles in a rack a quarter turn or so each day as the angle of the bottles was slowly increased until the sediment settled in the neck of the bottle. The person who turned these bottles was given the title of "the Riddler."

No kidding. (Think about that this summer during the Batman media craze.)

Then they froze the neck of the bottles to make a solid plug of the dregs to remove it without spilling too much wine. After that extraction was completed, a cork was put in the bottle after refilling the bottle of spilled wine.

Today with the wonders of automation there isn't the need for hand riddlers, (and good thing too since I am sure they were prone to repetitive stress injuries).

With our modern technology there is also the ability for the secondary fermentation to be done not in the bottle, but in a stainless steel vat.

That is the method of choice for cheap sparkling wines such as Tott's or Ballatore.

Read your label. If it does not say "fermented in this bottle" or methode champenoise then it was probably created by methode champen-vat. Be especially suspicious if the price tag is less than $5 a bottle.

And now, thanks to film director-turned-winemaker Francis Ford Coppola who has purchased wineries in Sonoma County I now have in my vocabulary: methode champen-can.

Ugh.

I have not seen that in the stores, but then again, I have not been on the lookout for champagne in bright red cans.

It not only comes in a can, it comes with its own straw.

Pop open a flip top, then slurp sparking wine through a straw in a can. How utterly sophisticated.

That is not how you should imbibe champagne. This noble wine should be properly chilled and the sound of the cork popping helps set off your celebration. Then it is to be poured into fluted glasses to discern the size of the bubbles (they should be small and with a rapid stream and not like frogs eyes) and the shape of the glass also helps concentrate the wine properly on your tongue.

That is how it should be done.

I do not buy this excuse that wine in a box or wine in a can is more eco-friendly. I am sorry, but good wine needs to be treated with care.

If all you want is to have something to quaff with spaghetti on a Tuesday night and you do not want to spend a lot of money, go ahead and buy wine in a box. You certainly do not want to store it. Only buy wine in polystyrene if you are going to age the wine on the car seat on your way home.

Wine is a living, breathing entity that changes with time and with its surroundings. No two bottles of wine will ever taste exactly the same.

Wine reacts to fluctuations in temperatures, and it can age prematurely and/or "cook" the wine, sometimes ruining it.

The best example I know of this comes from my favorite wine columnist, Dan Berger. One of his columns was about how tanins in Cabernet Sauvignon can make the wine unapproachable when it is young and that it needs to age for several years before drinking. He then did an experiment and bought two bottles of Cab. One he treated properly by promptly placing it in his wine cellar, the other he left in the back of his station wagon and let it roll around for a week or so in the summertime.

Later he did a blind tasting with some of his friends who were not wine connoisseurs. They preferred the wine that had been abused over the one that was stored properly. Why? Because the abuse had tamed the tanins in the wine and made it drinkable younger than it ordinarily would have been.

I love that story and it reinforces why I am not that big of a Cabernet Sauvignon fan. I am not that patient to wait years to drink wine. Give me a glass of hearty Zinfandel any day over Cab. (And for those unfamiliar with Zin, I do not mean White Zinfandel which is a blush wine, I am talking about the hearty red wine that is a California heritage wine.)

Moving on to corks.

Corks can rot over time if bottles are stored upright. Therefore, watch out when you buy bottles of wine at your grocery store that are standing on a shelf for too long. If there's a layer of dust, you might want to pass on buying it.

To store wine properly in your home you do not have to have a special wine cellar or anything like that. All you need is an area where the temperature is constant and there isn't much commotion. Preferably without contact to an outside wall. We use the closet under our stairs to store our wine. Store the bottles on their side or in a case, but with the bottles upside down to keep the cork wet.

The Economist article also mentions a movement to get away from traditional cork and using of new synthetic corks as well as screw caps.

It depends on the wine whether or not you can really get away with that.

My favorite winemaker is Fred Scherrer and we have had several long conversations about the differences in these types of corks. He has experimented with them and found that for certain wines that do not age well, such as his Vin Gris or Dry Rosé that it is fine to use them. However, when a synthetic cork is used on bottles of wine that have a longer shelf life, it starts out fine but they do not age well. That is because the synthetic nature of the cork does not allow for the slow exchange of gases that is one of the functions of a traditional cork.

So he feels you can use synthetic corks for those types of wine which are thought of as the "chill it and kill it" wines, but not for wines that have any staying power.

By the way, I feel as if I should mention that I did not have any appreciation of wine when I grew up in the Midwest. Wine drinking around my family's table was usually Gallo jug wine with 7-Up.

Later after college, my girlfriends and I drank Bartles and Jaymes while the guys drank fizzy yellow beer.

My knowledge and appreciation of wine comes from touring and tasting at wineries, secondly from learning from friends who love wine, and thirdly from my own independent research that comes from supporting my local economy. We moved to Sonoma County in part so that we would be closer to the source of fine wine. That translates to better selection and lower prices since you do not have to pay for the long distance transport of wine.

Dan Berger once placed wine into three categories:

1) Wine he would buy.
2) Wine he would drink if someone else was buying.
3) Wine he would not drink even if someone else bought it.

Wine in a box is for me, category 3.

So is wine in a can.

Life is too short to drink bad wine.

Until next time,

Cheers!


Edited to add:

The Economist article appeared in the editorial page of my local paper this morning. Since we are in "the Wine Country" anything that has to do with the wine industry is fair game for news coverage in our paper that other papers might ignore. I shall be interested to see if there are any letters to the editor in response, especially from winemakers.

Thursday afternoon in Paris: armor, weapons, and a tomb

Once my husband and I had been dropped off by a shuttle van to our hotel in the heart of Paris we walked everywhere. Our legs and feet were sore from all of our walking. Part of that was intentional on my part so that I could get a sense of exactly the size of medieval Paris.

That meant that we had walked solidly for three days in Paris. On Thursday I wanted to expand our horizons and visit a museum that was well outside the circumscribed areas once delineated by the fortifications of Philippe Auguste. I wanted to visit the Musée de l’Armée and see their collection of weapons and armor. Looking at the map, it did not appear to be all that far, but I knew how exhausted I would be if we tried walking there and back in one day.

Instead we used the Métro for the first time. We had read all about the reputation of the
Métro as being a haven for pickpockets and were therefore a little wary. We wanted to blend in as much as possible and not seem like we had the word "Tourists" emblazoned across our foreheads. That included talking as little as possible, and when we did speak we used as much French as we could.

We snuck peaks at our map lest we get lost, but we stashed it away quickly.

The museum is in a large complex of the Hôtel des Invalides which includes an active hospital and Napoleon's tomb. It is near the Eiffel Tower and this is as close as we came to seeing that landmark.





The buildings are surrounded by a large dry moat which means you are forced to use the marked entrances and cannot just cut across the lawn as a shortcut. You have to walk the loooong way around without exception.

Here is the courtyard and you can see the dome over Napoleon's tomb.



The museum holding the armor was on one of the wings and while I knew it probably would not hold much ancient armor, I wanted to see what they had. They have hundreds of suits of armor and once you get accustomed to viewing them, you start gravitating to the unusual ones. Such as this armor decked out with imagery of lions. Notice the helmet and the shoulders.



They also had armor for children. Or as I like to call it: "cub armor."


It is hard to imagine the expense of this kind of armor to begin with and then to contemplate how quickly children outgrow their clothes. It seems downright foolhardy to purchase such things. You cannot simply let down a hemline or such when they grow an inch or two. Here is another example of cub armor.




I would assume that they were created for important ceremonies, because otherwise it would seem totally impractical and cost prohibitive. I also doubt they were ever used in combat or tournaments. Please correct me if you know I am wrong.

Then we come to helmets. They evolved over the ages, but the ones I found most amusing were the ones which were obviously custom made.

This one's profile reminds me a little of Jamie Farr from M*A*S*H.



Being reminiscent of an actor is one thing, but this helmet reminds me of Mr. Potato Head. I do not know why anyone would want to sport that particular look.


Beyond aesthetics, it does not appear that there is much ventilation provided in that helmet nor would you have much ability to see. I guess the purpose would be to stand there, look stupid, and take a beating while wearing an iron helmet. How wonderful.

There was one shield that I really liked, because it reminds me of Athena who placed the gorgon's severed head upon her shield.



Here's a close up on Medusa's face. Whether or not it would help defend yourself in battle, you will look good in the process.



The museum also had display cases filled with swords and knives. A weapon that gave me pause was one that I could imagine being carried by a clergyman whilst on a pilgrimage. If you look carefully you will notice that the top of the crucifix is actually a concealed dagger.





It is kind of like the old decorative hat pins which could serve for more than one purpose.


Then there was a small room dedicated to ancient weapons. Here are some old rusted Francisca axes that some historians credit as being the source of the name Franks and therefore France. They were lethal axes which were thrown in battle and almost impossible to defend against.



There was also an ancient bronze cuirass. It looks uncomfortable, but if it could protect chest cavities from being penetrated by a Francisca axe...any thoughts of personal comfort would become secondary.


Some of the larger weapons in the museum included canons. The one that impressed me the most was one that had the bizarre adornment of two pairs of lovers.


Here are two close ups of the lovers.


Love and war juxtaposed on a weapon. Amazing.




We also came across a case that included figurines depicting warriors through the ages. The attention to detail is wonderful. According to the description, these were made by Baron Fernand Vidal de Lery starting in 1888 and later ceded to Bernard Franck.

The first figure has the caption "Guerrier franc - Charlemagne 768"

The second is labeled as "Guerrier Carolingian 768."



They were definitely not mass produced toys such as ones made today by Playmobil.


After finishing with that museum, we visited Napoleon's tomb.

Here is the inside of the dome.



Here is his sarcophagus.

There are also incredibly large pillars of black marble encrusted with gold.

This ostentatious display of wealth was created after the French revolution. It was a bit too much for my liking.



After that, we found our way back to our hotel and rested before going out for dinner.

The events of that night will be the subject of another post as I think I have reached the maximum number of pictures for one Blogger post.



Linda

(edited on 3/20/13 to remove obsolete references and make this post a little more timeless)