Will Fiddle

Stupid Leather question, Does leather color fade over time as most colors do? If the museum pieces look "really dark brown" now, might they have looked black back in their hey day? Or at least close to black?

Same thing I do every night, try to take over the world" East India company investments and international espionage. [action]Wrings hands--menacingly[/action] "Excellent! Excellent!"

Thanks to Hurricane, I will be spending more money on myself in the holiday season

I want to provide my students with a good general primer on pirates. I am thinking of something by Cordingly, but he has written so many books that are so similar... Recommendations? Or should I lecture the basics and have them focus their readings on primary texts? Thinking about it I am leaning that way now, though input on a general primer (perhaps like Jennifer Marx's book) would be welcome.

One of the few things that can be said with certainty of the Golden Age is that very few things can be said with certainty. Though we have some articles, it is clear that this is not a universal practise. But it is clear that every crew had to wrestle with the problems of self governance. What intrigues me is how these crews become autonomous experiments in political theory. The best man rules, the best men rule, all men rule, the tyrant rules, pick your flavor, these are the same issues Aristotle plays with in his Ethics, if memory serves me true.

I'd miss saying all of the smart ass smack that jumps out of my mouth. Either I would be in the pillory or over the railing, or maybe just beaten. I like the freedom to say stupid stuph. But reenactment has taught me that I can do without a lot of modern amenities, but not toilet paper...

All the cabins and hold areas have 8 to 10 foot ceilings. But when you cut to stock footage exteior shots the ship is clearly tiny. Then Deck shots get big again, and people fight with no gear to obstruct them. When they cut ropes, nothing happens to the canvas or rigging, but they can swing to ANY place on the ship or a nearby ship.

I find the survival stuff interersting, but what really got my attention was the way that Bear was working through the terrain that Morgan and others traversed 300+years ago. That is some nasty terrain today, and I don't imagine it was better then. Having read Wafer and others, it was neat to see what they were talking about. Reading period pieces, it always amazed me (though it is so logical as to not surprise for long) how much of the maritime narratives were dedicated to survival.

Probably being naive here, but that pic of the red hat, as unfocused as it is, immediately struck me as a simple workman's cap, rather like this from the Townsend catalog: http://jas-townsend.com/product_info.php?c...products_id=254 This is just based on the way it seems to sit on the head.

The HMCA site has some great weapons information, as to Gentleman of Fortune. The lads usually for the the sharp killing things, and I think they could do some good powerpoint presentation of what was used for killing and why it was used. Some not fun time though as we will have to discuss (and enforce) rules about using images, quotes, and ideas from websites. But that is part of academics, Stealing from others is OK as long as you tell everyone what and from whom you have stolen your goods. Kind of like the bragging rights of getting anything from the Manila Treasure fleet. I do like the image of freshmen fighting with cutlasses on the spiral stairs in Lentz Hall, but the president of the college might object to the practice of putting students in lethal hazards.

Thanks to Ransom for Bumping this up, I would have missed this thread otherwise. Patrick, sir, your sketches were a delight and brightened an otherwise gloomy day. And your lettering is grand!

There are some rather affordable copies of the book on Amazon. Rumba Rue, could you give an idea of what the book covers and what you found engaging about it?

Mr. Hand, I don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but try to obtain a copy of Lionel Wafer's "A New Voyage to America". It was rather tricky to find, but there seems to be a new paperback edition: http://www.amazon.com/New-Voyage-Description-Isthmus- America/dp/1417923253/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196129441&sr=8-2 By comparing the online copy to a 1903 edition, it seems that the paperback is an exacting facsimile of that edition. Though the maps attached to the original were not reproduced in the online sample version, they may appear in the actual text. Wafer travelled with some of the biggest names at the end of the buccaneer era. It is a reall good read, and It only became available again in 2004, what a wonderful centennial present to our community. Maybe we should all order copies and start a reading club discussing the book chapter by chapter.

Thanks to Monteray Jack and the crew at the HMCA. I am not sure how to integrate combat as a group activity, though I am thinking... But I will list the site on the Blackboard resource list for the course. It would be a good topic for an individual report, perhaps several reports for different weapons. And even if they don't report, they can explore the site, as I am doing presently.

I was thinking of buying amazing grace. The person I want to watch it with is no longer Christian, and I don't like to impose my religion on others, especially when their own faith structure seems to be working well. Is the movie too preachy?

That WaRRRR grand. Grand, like the SEA!

Those of us frozen in port look forward to pictures of the adventures had by others this year.

As I recollect, Captain Swan lost his command by losing a vote of confidence by the crew. Memory is fuzzy here, as my Ringrose was a library edition from the late 19th C in which R. was appended to Exquemelin. Swan stayed on the ship, presumably pissed off, and when the wounded came straggling back, I think he was put back in position--Davis being dead. The matter seems to have been amicable to a degree, real democracy in action. The prophetic warning doesn't seem to have come into being until all were safe in England. There is no record of it in any of the first person journals, and it only appears in the ManuScript in a hand that is not Ringrose's. It should be highlighted that this raid was in 1679. At this time the buccaneers were still close to defacto militia groups asserting an English presence in the Western Hemisphere. The raids required the Spanish to maintain the expense of militia units everywhere, and this may have preserved Port Royal. As mercenary units enjoying a fair measure of legality, their command structure needed to maintain a semblance of legal order. It is not clear if such a transition could take place in a GAoP crew in which there were no legal consequences to killing an unpopular captain if he were already a pirate. Certainly, I am unfamiliar with such a trasition later in the period.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-schedules/seri...0.25268.32074.x Bear Grylls travels through Panamanian jungle to find the Camino Real. He moves through some real crap. I was reminded of Lionel Wafer immediately. When Bear is in the Mangroves as the tide comes in, we get to see how deadly the challenges were that faced sea raiders when they went ashore.

My favorite line is: It isn't specified who is demonstrating, but the wording is open enough that no one can do anything until all employees and volunteers, including, one presumes, the people running concession stands, have been trained in guns and blades. Sorry, but the event can't go on, we don't have the budget to get Buffy and old man Farnsworth training for something they aren't involved in. Sounds like a set of rules laid out by someone bent and determined to create obstructions and roadblocks.

Great pillaging is done by happy pirates. Happy pirates come from WISCONSIN CHEEEEEEEEEESE!!

I got a lot of grief for being too clean, and I still get grief for being to neat. I am shooting for the look of one who cares about appearance and yet wears the same clothes all the time by necessity. I like cooking in garb, its a great way to pick up stains that never come out completely, plus you get to stretch fabric reaching for things and soak up more precious smoke. Walk around in lakes and rivers on hot days. I also store my tobacco with my kit, so I tend to smell of the weed.

While rectangular buckles would be the style in GAoP, surely there would have been holdovers from the past, either by the age of the buckle or the age of the bucklemaker who makes what he prefers? Stirring the pot...

Avoiding Grading Papers, now in my third week of avoidance. Yarr, I be screwed, but I am cruisings the backwaters of the pub in search of treasure instead of careening as I ought to be.

You know you think too much like a pirate when you start talking like one to people and they don't look at you strange because they are used to you being that way. "Wall, that be grand, says I. Grand, like the SEA!"