Mission

I actually own an episode of Zatoichi - the one with the wonderful Toshiro Mifune in it. (Toshiro Mifune is the Patrick Hand of samuri flicks.) I also saw an episode of Lone Wolf and Cub somewhere along they way which I liked. I don't mind subtitles a bit - half the movies I watch seem to have them.

Aw shucks. Now if only I wouldn't fall each time I trip over new info. I would think if you're buying it, the waistcoat would be your most expensive purchase. I got a great pair of shoes from Robert Land for $100 or so (I got them at a show so they were cheaper than the ones in the link). Very, very comfortable and I'm picky on that front. Add buckles and you're probably looking at $140 or so. Decent waistcoats I've seen for sale at events run $200+. Of course, the nice thing is you don't really need a waistcoat to be a common sailor. You can add that as you go along. I think this is one of my favorite shots of a group of fairly period-looking sailors in various types of garb. (I'd post it here, but the forum doesn't like the Facebook extensions on it. You should be able to see it via that link as it's on my Surgeon's Journal public Facebook page.) I should note that Kenneth - the guy with the tennis shoes - was not re-enacting at this point so his garb is modern. But we still like him. Well, sort of.

I think it sort of depends on what you're going for. Since you said "boots" instead of "shoes" I'm guessing you're going for fantasy/Hollywood pirate. Flash is big part of that for a lot of people, so if that's your goal, you probably do need to focus on the bucket boots, coat and hat. (Alas, none of those things are cheap. You could plunk down your whole thou' on those three things alone if you spent a bit lavishly.) Now if you're going period correct, you can get by with just a shirt, slops, rope sandals and perhaps a kerchief or two and still have quite a chunk of change left at the end of it. Then you could add a waistcoat, hat, socks and buckle shoes over time. (Actually, you could buy all of that for under a grand if you shopped prudently.)

I just checked Go Daddy and www.mae-snake.net is still available. $9.99 for a year's ownership. You should look into that.

I guess I'm a modern child - I prefer realization to interpretation. Give me Sharpe and Patrick scaling a fortress wall over speeches in front of curtains and columns any day. I see on eBay that you can find seasons of By the Sword Divided for Region 4. They're kind of pricey, tho'.

The Arizona comment predated the Wiki estimated dates, so I thought it was the earliest example in this discussion. This is the sort of thing that was probably an invention of convenience and thus the first person to do it/place it was done may forever be unknown. (That and most people probably don't care enough to try and track the original source of the idea down.)

Harrington? What happened to Crucibelle?

Is "I, Claudius" the one where everything is shot in front of curtains? As I recall the one I saw, yes.

Ah, the King's medicine for indigestion. (Sounds like dessert.) "I will not here recite all the Remedies which ought to be us'd against indigestion, and consequently against the Proclivity to the Tympany (gas-filled abdomen): the Medicinal Art furnishes us with an Infinite number, of which I shall mention only one called the King's Ros-Solis, by reason his Majesty [Louis XV of France] has for a considerable time used, and very well approved it: 'Tis thus prepared, in a Pint of Brandy drawn from Spanish Wine are infus'd for the Space of three Months, Anise, Fennel, Skirret, Carrot and Coriander Seeds, each an Ounce; to which is added after the Infusion half a Pound of Sugar-Candy dissolved in Camomile-Water and boil'd to the consistence of a Julep, and passed thro' a Strainer: The Dose of this is a Spoonful to be taken every Night when going to Bed. 'Tis an excellent remedy against the Crudities and Colicks of the Stomach, for it dissipates all indigested Matter and Wind, and fortifies the Nutritive Organs." (Dionis, A Course of Chirurgical Operations, p. 71)

After watching the wonderful Derek Jacobi in the Cadfael series I tried I Claudius but could not get into it. There were no real sets on the one I saw, so I kept losing the feeling of immersion. Thanks for the others, Daniel. I'll check them out.

The notion that they were made from unused cannonballs seems as likely as any explanation - you need something to make it tough for someone to escape, but still allow them to to have some mobility. A heavy spherical object is ideal. So it could easily have been someone had a problem, looked at a stack of currently unused cannonballs and decided to weld a chain on one and see how it worked. Once an idea is successfully used, word-of-mouth spreads. Soon the concept outgrows the initial inspiration and the thing is being tailored to the need rather than being cobbled together from spare parts. That may be how how they wound up in Arizona if they didn't originally come from there. We can't really date the first one, so we can't say the first one did or didn't come from Arizona. (I'm just guessing without doing any research, but the pattern of successful idea adoption has a definite pattern which is seen repeatedly throughout history.)

I'd take an interesting name (like Auro) over a generic one (like the fistful of recurring surnames that name-bots produce) any day. Still, it can be fun to play with the name-bots, I 'spose. My name is a misspelling, which is actually the second time this has happened to me when establishing a name on a forum. (And that, if nothing else, seems highly appropriate. Read one of my Pirate Surgeon's Event Journals to see why. ) I should note that I'm not one for re-enacting backstories, which may color my comments here. I prefer the on-going re-enacting stories, most of which are much more entertaining if you dive in and try new stuff whilst at an event. (Such as milking a goat, for example. )

"That was for the smell."

No prob. I always share my sources. I don't believe in hoarding info that is publicly available just so I can create the pretense of being an expert. In fact, if you want to find out how to get period resources that are not yet available online, I have a whole webpage explaining how to do it: Finding and Obtaining Period Docs It says it's for surgical references (my particular interest), but it applies to anything. There are a lot (and I mean tens or hundreds of thousands) of period books on all sorts of topics available out there.

While I didn't have anything to do with being given the title, it seems to me that if you go digging in the archives and find something interesting to dredge up you can be a Thread Necromancer Associate. (That 'See full list' link which is located next to the on-line user info near the bottom of the forum on the index page can be instrumental in finding old threads. Just see what guest users are looking at - some of them have the strangest tastes.)

Here's a book that indicates the author read it in a description dated 1712. Actually, that first book is sort of an interesting read all the way around...

Actually, it's sort of addicting. Guests seem to dig up the weirdest threads to read. I clicked through to one last week that received its last post in 2004. I'm guessing they found it through Google.

You're asking the wrong person. I have seen and smelled it on sailing ships, but have never even thought to purchase it.

You could wrap yourself in oakum before an event. Besides smelling shippy, it sounds funny. Oakum...oakum...oakum. Plus I don't think it smells as bad as regular old pine tar. (I don't know why, but it doesn't.) Gollum...gollum.

How very admirable. (From afar, that is.) I think hanging around a campfire for a day or two is probably close enough for most of the public, myself. (More than enough. Way more than enough.)

Ah, yes, I forgot Holmes. I enjoy the Jeremy Britt Holmes series so much that I bought the entire set. I completely agree with you about Britt - he's one of my favorite Holmes characterizations. (I think he's better than any of the movies I've seen, past or present.) In fact, it was thanks to that show that I went out and got the books. I've read them several times, I enjoy them so much. I watched three or four Robin Hood episodes and it seemed off to me so I stopped. While we're on that, I do enjoy the BBC Merlin series. (Now why I like that and not the similarly modern take on Robin Hood, I couldn't explain.) And I enjoyed the similarly modernized Robinson Crusoe they did a few years ago as well. I've never heard of Young Blades. I'll have to see if I can find it.

If you have a car, there are usually a lot of events on the weekend nearest TLaPD. Some are at museums, some are weekend things, plenty of them are at bars and such. Check out the September forum.

So come to the event and practice what I preach. (Besides, your outings are always good for a section in the Journal. )

I've seen (and enjoyed) the Sharpe's, Horatio Hornblower and Brother Cadfael series. What else is there out there like those?

Aha! Leave it to the estimable Patrick Hand to present a solution to the concrete-like substance of hard tack. I was reading about Ship's biscuits at Brigand's Grove and I learned that the closer you get the biscuit to the actual cooking time, the softer it is. They get harder and harder as they spend more time drying out. This may explain why Coastie said that the CG cook biscuit made without oil was "...not nearly as flakey, but was still rather palatable, about as salty as saltine crackers, but more substantial." Learned a lot this past weekend, I did. For example, I also read that people did not just take a chaw off the biscuit, they cut slivers of it off or smashed it with something hard and put the tiny pieces into their soup.