May. 12th, 2009

tafeanorn: (Gil-Galad)
I wound up not sleeping late. I woke up on my own right at 6:00 am. I blogged and got coffee and made it up the hill to my 8:30 session, “Dress and Textiles III: Heroes, Ladies and Fools”. I never posted about it, but after the first session, the one about French romance, I started keeping track of the male-to-female ratio at the sessions. That first one was 5:15, which was pretty noticeable and why I started paying attention. This one on clothes and fashion, was even more extreme -- 5:44. Men or women though, that was a fabulous turnout for a Sunday morning session.

The first paper was about descriptions of clothing the in the Dietrich Cycle. It was very surprising that there are very few descriptions of clothing in that work. That contracted quite spectacularly with Jean Renart’s _Roman de la Rose_ where gowns and linings,dying, embroidery, furs and slippers are all described in loving detail.

The last paper of that session was an examination of a small ivory chest, perhaps the size to hold a knight’s spurs, that had scenes of dressing and undressing from Chretien de Ttroyes’ _Perceval_. I really hope that my photos of the powerpoint turned out for that one.

The final session of the Congress was on Urban Culture in Medieval France and consisted of two really interesting papers about the emergence of towns. For whatever reason, both of these lectures inspired questions in me that I spoke up with and had answers given to me.

The first one looked at royal charters to towns (communes) by Louis VI & VII in the 12th Century. There were a lot of details given about the kings’ and the communes’ financial situation. For example, the estimate of the Louis VII’s entire royal budget was 60,000 pounds (Parisien) per year. So when the king was able to squeeze another £100-200/yr out of a town, it was fairly significant. And he either granted or confirmed 18-20 charters during his reign.

The other paper was about the emergence of Paris as the capital of France, both as the administrative center, but also as the cultural center in the eyes of French authors and poets. It’s earliest self-identity seems to be as an educational hub, with the University of Paris called “The Daughter of France”. The discussion to follow was quite lively and really brought into focus the late adoption of a “nation-wide” acceptance of Paris’ centrality.

That brought the Congress to an end. I got lunch and a nap, then spent the rest of the afternoon writing (on my secret novel project) and reading. Near 6:00 I walked back over to my pub and had dinner there again, while continuing to make my way through one of the books I had bought the day before, _Carolingian Economy_. I had two tall glasses of Strongbow Cider which was very good.

I came home very relaxed and found it impossible to concentrate on reading or writing. I really wanted to veg in front of the television, but I didn’t have one, and while I had internet, it was slow and intermittent. So I called home, surfed wikipedia and lol-ed until 10:00 pm when I turned out the lights.
tafeanorn: (Gil-Galad)
The morning was quiet. I had unsettling dreams, the first one about trying to rebuild my beloved Saturn SW2 and the other one I can barely remember, something about the economy and job insecurity. By the time I was out of the shower though, I was feeling quite optimistic and had several ideas about how to pull myself out the career funk I’ve been in for the last few weeks/months.

I collected up my clothes, re-folding them as tightly as I could and carefully packed them in my suitcase. I needed space for everything I brought, plus 6 books and presents for Becca. It was an extremely tight fit and I think I broke the zipper on one of the side pockets of the case.

I sat down with a warm soda and wrote Saturday’s blog post, while listening to Death Cab for Cutie. Thanks to my sister Kathy and my daughter, I’ve been hooked on _Plans_ for entire trip (once I got Becca’s Skull Mountain song out of my head). I should give that CD that [livejournal.com profile] raffenshiv gave me last summer another try.

I tried calling a cab several times to set up a pickup time, but kept getting sent to voice mail. Since they never called be back, I figured I’d better try something else. I wandered out to the front of the building to try and hail one of the dozens of cabs that had been just waiting out there in the previous days, but it was empty.

A friendly pair of German-speakers (one was from Frankfurt and the other from Vienna) invited me to share their taxi and we had a nice chat. I admitted that I was a game designer and they were quite interested in that. Our cab driver was quite the character and his questions about the conference at least showed an interest in learning . . .

I am now on the train to Chicago, where I will meet with my Aunt Nancy and spend a few hours with her before navigating the L back to O’Hare. My plane gets into Seattle at 10:05 pm, which is 1:05 am my time, so it’s going to be a long day.

And remember that heavy computer bag that I complained about on the trip out here? The one I said must weigh 15 pounds? I weighed it while I was with my parents. 23 pounds. I’ll blame the Illuminati for my back ache . . .

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