Matty Bottles

So, I have been thinking about putting together a buccaneerings kit, and a spanish kit, and I've noticed some images in Buccaneers of America that show "hanging sleeves" - sleeves that are sort of option, I guess, attached at the top and back of the shoulder but with a wide enough space for you arms to completely miss them.

Does anyone have any info of surviving artifacts, or how long this style persisted in Spanish dress?

Not to keep flogging a dead horse, but we have a list of about 2000 pirates by name, sorted by nationality in this thread. (Nobody loves my thread. Even Foxe bitches about it despite the fact that he was instrumental in creating it.)

Whoa - I've never seen that before. That's a great thread! Good job!

*hands Mission a cookie*

I think blades are worse than flintlocks. I mean, a loaded flintlock - even with just powder to burn - is idiotic beyond description, but an unloaded one is merely an ornate club.

A few more kids might do it, although probably not for good. The closest I have ever come was after a private, full-immersion event for a different time period that I organized. I have never been pushed back so hard: people trying to throw off the dynamic of the event, refusing to participate or stay in character (for a private, invitation-only event, mind you!), or using modern concessions to safety and cleanliness to secure more status or advantage for what amounted to two days of camping. It was so frustrating that I almost sold everything I had on craigslist for $500 - thousands of dollars of stuff - just to be rid of any temptation to go back to any kind fo reenacting at all. My wife was pregnant at the time, it was a hard pregnancy, and I very much resented taking time away from her if the event was just going to devolve into me playing governess to a bunch of adults who should have known better acting like socipathic children. It made me appreciate event organizers a lot more, believe me.

Ivan, could you please post some close-ups of the shirt alone? Those blue checks became something of a quixotic quest for me a few years ago, and though I have since found material that satisfies my standards, I am always interested in how other people interpret it.

Oh, I dig those little channels to get your thumb under to replace the glass. Yeah, I dig that a lot.

But William, didn't you score a sweet bowl? Also, can I call you "Billy Brand"?

Oh, and I forget the Swedes, anyway. And the Spanish, of course, OBVIOUSLY the Spanish.

William, did you get the hemp fibers from here? Do you know if there is a certain kind that keeps its smell longer?

William, did you get the hemp fibers from here? Do you know if there is a certain kind that keeps it's smell longer?

Don't forget the other nations present in North America, too - the French, Spanish, Dutch, Basque and Huguenot. When I decided to keep my totally rad mustache, I decided on a French impression. In my character bio, 'Matty Bottles" isn't my given name - that is Jacques Bataille*. "Matty Bottles" is just what my English, Scottish and Irish shipmates call me, because I signed the articles as Matelot Bataille (Seaman Bataille), and they couldn't read French. I would also accept 'Matty Batty', 'Jack Batty', and 'Jock Batty'. Looking back, it's sort of too cute a story than I prefer, but I found there was a Bataille in Lousiana in 1719 and one in Michilimackinac a generation later, so I am reluctant to change it now, even if no one knows that is why I go as Matty Bottles.

And don't forget a good nickname, too. You could choose a non-descript name like "John Smith" and spice it up by calling yourself Scabby Jack, for example. I'd hang out with a pirate name Scabby Jack for sure, dude. Ot, if your first name is Matt, and you drink too much, you could call yourself Matty Bottles, for example.

*Although I tend to find transgressive literature tedious and reactionary, but I suppose that is not pertinent to the discussion.

Yo, mad haps on your b-day.

Yeah...

Symptoms of living in the 17th century with Type 1 diabetes:

• Agonizing Death
  

I think I'll stick with pretending to be a pirate surgeon and not wishing I had actually lived then.

I know, right?!? It all comes down to this: if you want to reenact, then it seems to me you will try to be as historically accurate as you can be within reason. It's reasonable to wear evidence-backed clothing, wield evidence-backed weapons, don evidence-based hats and sport evidence-based footwear particularly when the evidence is not too hard to find*. It isn't reasonable to subject oneself to the horrors - yes, truly the horrors - of 17th and 18th century life.

*To tell the truth, I've barely done a lick of research. I just read the research that Foxe, GoF, and the fellas in the Pirate Brethren did. Honestly, how hard is that?

I thought I would post an update to this project. I have another baby now, so I haven't been to an event in a while. And so my clothes have gotten to marinade in their hyperbaric (tupperware with a small crack in it) Scent Chamber for quite a while. I started with the smell of pine tar, tea leaves, and rum - I did wash the clothes in an unsuccessful lye bath once, because I wanted to see if I could recreate the smell on clean clothes, just for cleanliness. After a while I added the wood chips - a whole variety of them, a mixture of old world and new world woods. I added a measure of dried hemp twine, but that had no odor at all, unfortunately. Then I tried to add cargo items - tea leaves, coffee, and tobacco. Then I started to look up rations, but opted not to use moldering pork fat. However, I did get some skunky lite beer to use in place of rancid small beer, as well as some port wine.

This brings the entire ingredient list to:

Wood chips, oak

Wood chips, cedar

Wood chips, pine

Wood chips, apple

Wood chips, hickory

Hardwood lump charcoal

Hemp twine

Pine tar

tea leaves

coffee

rancid small beer

dark beer

rum

port wine

tobacco

Next will probably be brandy or blackpowder. Any other suggestions?

Oh, I've also started a second chamber for my French impression. Less beer and rum, more spices such as lavendar, fennel, etc. If anyone has suggestions for the french smells (other than B.O. har har har) let me know, please.

I'm sorry about the crohn's disease, but experiencing the same symptoms would give you an empathetic edge when describing scurvy at events. How many of the symptoms had you experienced prior to diagnosis?

Many of them:

tiredness

loss of appetite

irritability

inability to gain weight

muscle weakness or pseudoparalysis

joint and muscle aches and stiffness

corkscrew hair (only in non-infantile scurvy), particularly noticeable on your arms and legs

fever

diarrhea

vomiting

lethargy

scar tissue will break down and you’ll begin bleeding again from these formerly healed areas

slow wound healing

anemia

depression

unusual paleness

bleeding under the skin and from hair follicles

These are atypical symptoms, for the most part. It was sort of a perfect storm of bad health management. I had a fairly minor outpatient surgery to repair an abcess (for which my uninsured self declined the $500 shots of local anethetic - that's another interesting experience that lends itself to 18th century medicine interpretation) which never healed, because the abcess was caused by the crohn's and the crohn's was untreated and undiagnosed. It would start to heal, and then it would open up again. Since it didn't heal properly, the surgeon kept me on a course of antibiotics for far longer than is recommended, killing off most of the flora in my gut except for C. Diff - which produces toxins. Meanwhile, the undiagnosed crohn's ulcerated my intestines, interfering with my ability to absorb nutrients. After a few weeks, whatever food I did eat was vomited up because of the C.Diff poisoning. All told, I lost about 70 pounds over six months. It was pretty unpleasant, but things are much better controlled today. I know you were bringing up a ridiculous canard from years past to illustrate the banality of the original three questions, but it has made me well aware of how good I have it, and I like to reenact to remind myself how lucky I am to live in the 21st century, along with shooting awesome guns and fighting with swords and rocking my totally bitching 17th century gear.

Also, I am Matt, and I smell like a pirate.

I went to the FTPI once, the year before I had babies*. It was wonderful, and I look forward to going again someday. Maybe with my babies.

*Okay, yeah, my wife had the babies.

[tangent]

I have crohn's disease. When it wasn't well managed, I experienced:

tiredness

loss of appetite

irritability

inability to gain weight

muscle weakness or pseudoparalysis

joint and muscle aches and stiffness

rashes, particularly on your legs; generally looking like tiny red blisters and eventually large purple blotches (in my case, as a side effect of inappropriate medication)

bleeding gums which turn blue-ish purple and feel spongy but I have had ulcers in my mouth

bulging eye balls

corkscrew hair (only in non-infantile scurvy), particularly noticeable on your arms and legs

loosened teeth which will eventually fall out in the advanced stages of scurvy

fever

swollen legs, particularly swelling over the long bones of your body (again, from inappropriate medication)

diarrhea

vomiting

lethargy

scar tissue will break down and you’ll begin bleeding again from these formerly healed areas

slow wound healing

anemia

depression

unusual paleness

bleeding under the skin and from hair follicles

eventual death due to cardiac failure

I never realized how authentic I was! From herein I shall refer to my meds as my 'limes.'

[/tangent]

Happy birthday!

I asked because part of step 3 should include trying what we can and using that info to inform our logic. In this case, I have tried to hold a knife in my mouth by the blade, on more than one occasion. It absolutely sucks.

I can't remember - Swashbuckler, did you say you had tried it?

I'd love to go again, but drive down in a car and show off all the woodwork. I never realized until I flew to an event how much of my impression was supported by my period luggage.

Alas, I can't leave my wife to wrangle a two and a half year old and an eight month old all by herself for a week. I mean, I could, but then I wouldn't need to bother coming home...

The writers on Cracked often don't name the articles. The editor Jack O'Brien does. It's sort of become a running joke that the titles are overblown and inaccurate.

If these truly were the most terrifying, I would expect a few more entries from Esquemelings rogue's gallery.

Do those etsy repainted Nerf guns have orange tips?

Ah, I meant the boarding knife.