Hester

[besides, I'm a Gen-Xer, child of the first wave of punk -- half the guys in my high school wore eyeliner!]

The other day my boomer-era sister asked, "How come when Johnny Depp puts on eyeliner he looks really cool, but when any other guys try it, they just look gay?" My answer was ... "Because he's Johnny Depp". But perhaps it's just that the other guys haven't found the right eyeliner yet. I suggest they try mine. Annabelle makes a kohl pencil in a shade called "Black Pearl", which is a lustrous, shimmery dark grey. Subtle enough even for the male gender. Cheers, Hester

Fresh local peaches -- so ripe you could get drunk on them! Cheers, Hester

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Hey, Lady Seahawke: Sounds like it's time for you to recruit a new first mate! Friends of mine went on an English canal-boat cruise for their honeymoon. They definitely needed both of them to crew the boat, and they found it quite tricky to manouver. But, they had a great time. I hope you get another chance at such a trip. Cheers, Hester

Hi, Duchess: Thanks for those tips! The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park sounds just my speed! I love wilderness parks, nature reserves, etc. Some of my favourite such places here in Canada are Lake Superior Provincial Park (the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee): http://www.ontarioparks.com/English/lakes.html ... and Five Fathoms Marine Park and Bruce Peninsula National Park at Tobermory (on Lake Huron): http://www.divermag.com/archives/sept2001/fathom.html http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/on/bruce/index_e.asp ... and Pacific Rim National Park near Tofino, B.C.: http://www.longbeachmaps.com/parks.html Cheers, Hester

Hi, Patrick: Oh, yes, I know the song you mean -- "The Last Saskatchewan River Pirate" performed by Captain Tractor and written by the comedy troupe the Arrogant Worms. However, the Saskatchewan River doesn't actually connect into the Great Lakes. It does connect to Lake Winnepeg, which is pretty big ... but it would be a helluva portage from there to Lake Superior. Cheers, Hester

Oh, and here's another one -- Roaring Dan Seavey, known as the "lone" pirate of Lake Michigan: http://www.escanaba.org/History/hispeople4.htm Too bad that picture link's broken on that page. I would have liked to have seen what he looked like. Here's another account of his exploits: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?amme...bum08574div63)) Cheers, Hester

Hi, Royaliste: Oh, terrific ... I hadn't heard of any of those pirate/privateers before. I've done Google searches on each of them, but haven't been able to come up with any info about their activities on the Great Lakes. Could you point me towards sources for further reading? Also, in my searches, I came up with this interesting article on the Canadian-built steamship the Georgian which, during the American Civil War, was intended to be used as a "commercial raider" by the Confederate side (although this strategy apparently never came to pass): http://greatlakeshistory.homestead.com/fil...es/georgian.htm Cheers, Hester

Hi, Clambeard: Oh, good point! Smuggling is certainly an ongoing feature of Great Lakes shipping, and that activity has piratical overtones. In Hamilton, the steel town port where I grew up, the dockworkers have been heavily infiltrated by the Hell's Angels and other organized crime, who are on hand to receive illegal shipments of drugs, weapons, and other contraband coming into port in containers. And I even had a great-uncle who was a part-time bootlegger during the Great Depression. We didn't have Prohibition here in Canada (hence the smuggling to the States that you mentioned), but we did have taxes on liquor that people wanted to avoid. I assume this modern smuggling on the Great Lakes is nothing new, and must have also taken place during the age of sail. Cheers, Hester

Hi, Rinalda: Can you reveal who you real-life Scottish pirate protagonist is, or do you need to keep that info a trade secret for now? I love the expression "There be bupkus". I have a friend who is a historian in a field where there are often great gaps in the extant documentation. I think she'd enjoy using that phrase as a description of some of her exhaustive yet frustratingly unproductive reviews of the primary sources. Cheers, Hester

BTW: Does it have any plot?

Hi, Mike: POC? I'm not familiar with that abbreviation. What does it stand for? Cheers, Hester

Thanks, Capt. Jim: That's a great thread. And the models you've made are quite impressive! Cheers, Hester

Hi, William: Yes, customizing a regular sailing ship into pirate vessel sounds like it would be a fun project -- and an echo of what real pirates did with the vessels they captured. Cheers, Hester

Wow! Cool thread. The answer to my question in Pirate Pop. I'm surprised how large all of these models are -- over 3 feet long! Geez, I was thinking of something scaled more for the bathtub. Cheers, Hester

Does anyone know if there are remote-controlled model pirate ships available on the market? I've seen an RC Cutty Sark on eBay but that's as close as I've come in my Google searches. It would be such fun to have mock battles with a couple (or a fleet) of such ships at the beach at my cottage. The ships could have water-cannons to sink each other! Hmmm... I seem to recall there's an artificial lagoon at one of the parks in my area for sailing model boats. [i've only been there at night, for moonlight picnics on the beach, watching the Hunter's Moon rise.] I'll have to go down there sometime during daylight and talk to the RC boat owners and see what they know about pirate ship models. Cheers, Hester

Amazon sells it: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B000FMGTNU...&s=dvd&v=glance ...and it will arrive in a plain brown wrapper looking just like some scholarly tome. The postman will never twig. Cheers, Hester

Hi, all: This summer, I've been reading lots of pirate-themed novels. I started with Daphne DuMaurier’s classic Frenchman’s Creek. I enjoyed it quite a bit, although I was emotionally unsatisfied with the ending. After finishing the book, I ordered the newly-released DVD of the PBS “Masterpiece Theatre” production. The costumes and setting were glorious, as was the actor playing the French pirate. However, I was horrified at what PBS had done to the story. They had “historicized” it, setting it during the ‘Glorious’ Revolution of 1688, giving the main characters ‘serious’ motivations of religious persecution, political loyalty, and family vengence for their acts of piracy. [“Cromwell murdered your mother? Oh, snap – he killed my father too!”] Poor old Daphne must be rolling in her grave!!! She had set her novel in a deliberately vague, romaticized and a-political ‘Restoration’ past. Her characters took to piracy for the sheer thrill of it, in a defiant attempt to “escape” the social conventions, restrictions, and vacuity of their aristocratic class. Their motivations were purely personal, emotional ones, unconnected to wider political events. Yet, the PBS version sought to “ennoble” the characters’ misdeeds, having the leads act out of political/religious conviction, rather than a sense of mischief and roguery. [As an aside, DuMaurier has her novel begin at Midsummer – with its connotations of festive misrule and suspended “time out of time”.] Indeed, that sense of light-hearted fun was almost entirely missing from the PBS version. Where the pirates in the novel had simply knocked crew unconscious while stealing a ship, or tied them up and sent them drifting back into the harbour in a rowboat, their counterparts in the PBS production engaged in deadly combat, killing and being killed, as part of the “war” they were fighting. Worst of all, the PBS presenter talked about the historical context of the 1688 revolution as if it were actually part of the original novel. Oh, sigh! One wonders why they felt they had to rewrite DuMaurier’s “masterpiece”. Anyway, I'm going to watch the DVD again. Maybe I'll enjoy it more the second time, now that I'm over the shock of the inexplicable changes made to the original story. [And besides, that French pirate was hot!] Cheers, Hester

Hey, JMR: Thanks! Now I understand where the Cape Breton band "The Barra MacNeils" got their name (and what connotations they were implying with it). Here's their website: http://www.barramacneils.com/ Apparently, one of the leaders of this pirate clan went by the wonderful sobriquet "Rory the Turbulent"! Source: http://clanmacneil.ca/history1.htm Cheers, Hester ... whose ancestors came from Aberdeenshire on the opposite side of Scotland, including one line that I've traced back to 1680 in the little fishing village of Rosehearty on the north coast. I wonder if any of them were pirates?

Hi, Mike: Thanks for that clarification. Ah, so this article was from the campus newspaper -- written by a student journalist (likely an undergrad, as grad students rarely have time to be involved with such extra-curricular activities), and based on her interview with Acosta. Anyone who's ever been interviewed by a journalist (whether student or supposedly 'professional') will realize that the quotes used in such "news" stories rarely reflect the subject's full and accurate thoughts on the matter. [One of my research interests is the Robin Hood legend, and I'm consistently flabbergasted by how the popular press misrepresents and sensationalizes scholarly research in this field.] And certainly, the rule in academic research is always to go back to the original source -- which in this case would be Acosta's thesis. You may disagree with his findings -- but you need to look at what he's actually written before criticizing his work as having no scholarly merit. Basing your assessment of his work on an interview article in a campus newspaper amounts to creating a "Straw Man" argument. Cheers, Hester

Hi, Mike: Well, the article you posted appears to be a journalist's report on Mr. Acosta's thesis, and journalists are notoriously inaccurate when describing academic research. [indeed, the article doesn't even indicate what level of thesis this is: PhD, Master's, Honours Undergrad?] So, I think we'd need to read Acosta's actual thesis, rather than this second-hand source, to judge its true academic merit. Cheers, Hester

Hi, Capt. Pete: That would be the recent Pirates of Treasure Island, then? I haven't seen it, but I'm thinking of ordering the DVD from Amazon. Could you give us a brief review of the movie? Thanks, Hester

Hi, Duchess & Lady Seahawk: The earliest I could likely go to the Bahamas would be in the spring of 2007. So, any info in the meantime would be greatly appreciated. Duchess, you mentioned that the outer islands are much less developed, and that the main activities there are scuba diving and fishing. I'm not a big fishing enthusiast (although my dad is), and I don't know how to scuba dive. However, I love to swim, and I like snorkelling. What are the beaches like? (I'm looking for ones that are deserted) Anywhere I could likely rent a romantic little cabana for two right on the beach? Is there somewhere in the Bahamas that one could view a shallow-water shipwreck by snorkelling? (Preferably a GAoP era one, if such would still be intact.) Night-life and clubs don't really interest me -- but some good restaurants serving local seafood would be appreciated. Any recommendations? Cheers, Hester

Hi, all: I'm wondering what sort of food would typically have been eaten on a pirate ship in the GAoP? I assume salted meats, such as salt pork or corned beef would have been a staple, as well as hard biscuits. But, would the food on pirate ships have included luxuries and delicacies that would not have been availabe to Navy or merchant crews? Would pirates have stolen such luxury foods from the officers and wealthy passengers of the ships they boarded? Would they have spent some of their booty on such luxuries while in port, and brought the delux foodstuffs aboard with them? And would pirates have been more likely to fish while at sea than other sailors, as they would not be on a strict timetable? Looking forward to any information people might have on this topic. Cheers, Hester