#jacobian art

[sjbattleangel]

Portrait of a girl holding a cat attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1616)

@catsofyore

[anciental]

I have been finishing a bunch of projects recently! And by "a bunch" I mean this one and two last minute projects. I had been working on this Jacobian Jumble for a while, and I really can tell the difference between my early lattice work and my late lattice work.

I followed Mary Corbet's pattern for the most part, making changes where the impulse took me. For one, I found it much more difficult to get a nice shape by doing the latticework first and the outline second, as her original pattern suggested. But this project definitely benefits from feeling out the shapes you want and making changes on the fly. Very fun, 10/10 would do again.

[argentasterdisaster]

Design Lore- Wedding Gowns of Inquisitor Evanui Lavellan and Ambassador Josephine Montilyet*

*this is all related to my headcanons concerning these characters, please don't take anything I write here as actual canon*

I do not agree that these ladies waited over a decade to get engaged. they were quietly married as soon as Eva's arm healed. This is their blow- out vow renewal ceremony.

This is a very long post. Strap in.

As someone with a background in fashion and design, the fashion choices of characters is always an extremely important facet to me when it comes to understanding who those characters are at their core.

Games are no different, in fact they're probably one of the mediums where fashion design shines the most. You can usually tell exactly what sort of person a character is at a glance based on the design choices made and how every piece of their outfit is styled.

I love Dragon Age, so I figured I'd have fun with this little project and go ham.

Josephine and Eva deserve that much after so much time.

Style of Gowns:

The simple sheath- style dress we see in Cullen and Sera's wedding scenes would not work for these two, Josie in particular.

I was originally designing something from scratch, with hints of Italian Renaissance styles, a little Jacobian, metallics, etc. but then this fabulous 80s Mugler caught my eye.

It's perfection.

Swap the colour, tweak the sleeves, fuller skirt, some bows on the neckline, and done!

Eva's I wanted to keep more in line with what was in-game, but fancier. Adding sleeves to this 60s Valentino did the trick, as did the bodice shape of Lady Sibyl's harem pants frock from Series 1 of Downton Abbey.

Colour Palettes and Materials:

Historically women married in their best dresses. For people of means that meant very elaborate, costly things. They rarely wore white wedding gowns, preferring bright or deep colours for their gowns, or most expensively, metallic fabric.

Cloth of gold and cloth of silver were preferred by noblility, and those with the coin for it often made full outfits from these fabrics.

Examples include the wedding gown of Empress Ekaterina II of Russia, and the coronation gown of Queen Maude of Norway (yes, I know it's actually gold lamé, but there are almost no examples of actual cloth of gold left and old style lamé is a good approximation to the look of the OG).

As the head of a now-prosperous noble family who dealt with trade, Josie would be familiar with these and many other fine fabrics. Now that she can afford to splurge a little, she'd have a choice of the best. The skirt is cloth of silver with gold coloured silk satin for her bodice and sleeves.

I took inspiration for the bodice from the the colour of Artemesia Gentileschi's Ester Before Ahasuenus, and the texture of the silks in Vittorio Reggianini's La Soireé.

Eva's gown, while simpler in shape and style, was no less elaborate in construction. The pleats on the Valentino gown remind me so much of Mariano Fortuny's Delphos gowns that were all the rage during the early part of the 20th century. She chose a fine light linen for it's construction, in a colour she liked over whatever was more fashionable. In this case a light rosy pink with darker pink as a base for the embroidery panels.

The embroidery is where things get deep in my headcanon (and my feelings), as traditional embroidery patterns are something that I've always been particularly interested in. Both as a hobby, and the historical and cultural traditions and motifs that are tied into embroidery as an art form.

It's an artform historically practiced by women, an industry made and defined by women. Stories, techniques, designs, patterns: passed from mother to daughter, sister to sister, friend to friend, from generation to generation for centuries. The textile tradition of a culture tell the stories the men wouldn't commit to memories, the stories few will ever commit to words. Stories of love and history, changing trends, aesthtics, personal style. Stories of the individuals who wore the clothes.

Historically women of the family came together to work on the embroidered items in a bride's trosseau. It's the case with the heirloom embroidery that still exists within my family, and I'm sure many other families as well. I'd like to believe the Dalish do something similar to this.

I chose heavy embroidery for Evanui's gown because as the First to the Keeper, she would know the importance of traditions like these within families and clans. And Clan Lavellan has lost so much. This is her way of represent her traditions, and her personal story on her body on what would be one of the happiest days of her life.

And it's also a way for the women of Clan Lavellan- Evanui's sisters, cousins, aunts, and friends- to come together and show a most cherished member of the Clan all their love and support during this happy occasion.

Poppies for beauty and remembrance, and twining stems and leaves reminiscent of the elfroot icons you see in game. They're done in the style of Hungarian style red work embroidery, a personal favourite of mine.

Veils and Headdresses:

I lifted a blue version of the flower crown Queen Guinevere wore for her wedding in Excalibur for Josie. With everything else going on in the outfit, a simple mesh veil works.

Eva wears a short veil of dark pink linen with some simple embroidery along the scalloped edge. It's a shortened, simplifed version of historical headwear in the vein of wimples and henins. She wears it with a flower band in the popular face-framing style of the mid-1800s.

It's a look that's perfect for elves!

Shoes:

These aren't shown, but I did think of them!

Josie wears Roccoco-style heels like those depicted in François Boucher's Marquise de Pompadour, coloured gold of course. Eva wears something more Romantic, Jacques-Louis David's Mlle Ducreux in pale pink and red would work.

And yes, her shoes are full shoes. She got tired of having her feet cold and wet in traditional Dalish footwear.

Final Thoughts:

While I'm nowhere on her level, the biggest inspo for this little exercise came from one of my favourite illustrators, Beverlie Manson. In particular the paintings she did for Cinderella and Snow White and Rose Red.

In all, this has been far too much fashion, and even more headcanoning for one measley piece of fanart. Like I said, I went ham on this. Maybe too much ham, but that's but besides the point.

These are designs I will be definitely be returning to sooner rather than later.

So...how did I do?

[damienweighill]

[stitchingsanity]

ktcg39  Last few bits...

[mercurys-hatta]

Lately I’ve been wanting to illustrate a few ideas that came to mind, although they’re pretty much stolen, but still, I wanted to draw them.

Since I prefer Jervis’ TAS design but love the TNBA one, I thought I’d use it to represent the Impostor Mad Hatter so that I also draw him more often lol

Concept stolen from: https://www.deviantart.com/the--jacobian/art/Imposter-Mad-Hatter-750049019

Cream hair Hatter

[thecrownnet]

Congratulations to Adriano Goldman , ASC, BSC, ABC, Director Of Photography, for his Creative Arts Emmy win OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A SINGLE-CAMERA SERIES (ONE HOUR) for season 4 episode 3 ‘Fairytale’ on September 11, 2021. Here are his insights on filming the episode with director Benjamin Caron.

‘The Crown’ Used Lighting and Composition to Trap Its Characters Inside a ‘Fairytale’

Director Benjamin Caron and cinematographer Adriano Goldman discuss how they destroyed Diana and Charles’ marriage before it even began.

Behind the Scenes of “The Crown” Season 4, Episode 3 Photo: Netflix

Over “The Crown’s” four seasons, the halls of Buckingham Palace have become familiar visual signifiers for both the grandeur and the pressure placed upon the royal family. But in the third episode of this most recent season, “Fairytale,” cinematographer Adriano Goldman and director Benjamin Caron stretched the limits of the show’s visual language to create — and then to destroy — Princess Diana’s (Emma Corrin) fairytale fantasies.

Much of the episode is given over to Diana slowly realizing that, like many princesses stuck in a castle before her, she has fallen into a trap. But Goldman and Caron opened up the ways they shoot their Buckingham Palace sets to show how the demands of the Crown consume everyone on the eve of the fateful marriage.

They force the jaws of the trap open wide with a pre-credits sequence of Diana’s night out with her friends after Charles (Josh O’Connor) proposes to her. The scene is a departure in every sense, not just to the swank ’80s members’ club that Diana frequents.

��You try to deliver something that is more romantic, a little bit more colorful, fun to start,” Goldman said of the sequence in an interview with IndieWire. “We wanted to not change the style too much, but there should be a transition from a very colorful pre-title sequence, a very interesting and more romantic beginning.”

That romance is on full display, most noticeably in the brighter, guadier colors of the club and much warmer tones of Diana’s Earl’s Court flat. But Goldman’s camera also interposes itself almost as a fourth (slightly intoxicated) friend, swinging around inside the girls’ cab to get a look at both Diana and Buckingham Palace, or flinging itself down onto the bed with the girls at the end of the night. The look of the sequence stands in contrast to the stately shots and slow tracks which are the show’s normal rhythm for everyone in the royal family. Well, for everyone in the royal family except maybe Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham-Carter), who gets to dance by a pool every now and again.

“We really considered how we could reverse [that fairytale opening] and be very present with her, and [how we could] make her feel young, actually. Part of this is she’s a young girl going into the palace,” Caron said.

Caron and Goldman gave the audience several visual signifiers that are easy to clock in this sequence, as well as Diana’s goodbyes to her friends that follows: the gold and neon hues of the night out, the warm, eye-level close-ups of Diana dancing in the club, and a signature spiral staircase Diana descends to begin her life as a princess.

Over the course of the episode, these colors will fade. The close-ups inch slightly above Diana’s eyeline, so that it feels like the camera, along with the rest of the Royals, is looking down on her. And when a spiral staircase reappears, it will lead to Diana’s lowest point.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

With Diana ushered inside Buckingham Palace to shield her from the press in the run-up to her and Charles’ wedding, Caron and Goldman emphasized how small and vulnerable Diana looks inside the palace walls. The opening of “Fairytale” had a long shot of the club, and Diana fit snugly within it. Once inside Buckingham Palace, the negative space often overwhelms Diana, and the camera backs away to show just how alone she truly is, perhaps best exemplified in the scene of her grandmother (Georgie Glen) physically tying her up while instructing her in how to speak like a royal.

Caron and Goldman deliberately call back to the romance of the opening to twist the knife, having Diana dance ballet inside the palace and then try to break out of the regimented structure of it as the pressure on her mounts. “I remember sort of holding the frame and I remember the camera operator was trying to follow us, but [I said no,] just hold the frame static and let her move in and around it,” Caron said. “So it really felt like someone trying to break out [of] somewhere.”

But of course, the camera never does let her leave the frame. Unlike the quick, fun cuts of Diana dancing in the club, there is no pressure release here. There is nowhere for Diana to go.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

Caron wanted to use visual features that would feel right at home in a Disney princess story to their most punishing effect and perhaps the most powerful one of these motifs reoccurs when “The Crown” has Diana descend another spiral staircase. “[Ben] was very specific about this spiral because she’s going down on a spiral emotionally,” Goldman said of the shot that leads Diana down to the kitchen, a moment of late night desperation that kicks off her eating disorder. “He didn’t want to follow her on the steps, like on a steadicam. He wanted [the camera to be] facing down and going down with her to the very bottom of her feelings and her emotions.”

Caron described it as going to the “bottom of a well,” once Diana enters the kitchens and becomes enveloped in darkness — except for the fluorescent blues of the refrigerator lights, which makes the space feel like a morgue. This strong use of color, like all the changes in the episode, is grounded in the reality of whatever space Diana finds herself in. But the emotion and, indeed, the foreshadowing that Caron and Goldman are able to imbue those spaces with give Diana’s spiral real visual potency and a visceral sadness.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

What is so thrilling about “Fairytale” is that it spares no one. Two striking scenes toward the end of the episode don’t have Diana in them at all, and yet push the series’ visual language to show how the palace and this marriage will swallow the characters who have been there all along.

In the first of these, Margaret tries to persuade Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (Marion Bailey), and Philip (Tobias Menzies) to call off the wedding. Caron wanted the scene to have a “conspiratorial, almost a Jacobian feel” to highlight the cold, businesslike calculations these four people are making for the happiness of two others.

“I remember saying to Adriano,’no no no, let’s go darker,” Caron said of this sequence and the next one. Goldman also recalled the desire to push the scene even further visually, lighting characters at harsh, dynamic angles or in almost complete shadow, so that the scene would feel spiritually closer to “The Godfather” than to the show’s usual style. The comparison is apt, given the mahogany browns and greens of the sitting room and the firelight that Goldman and Caron used to emphasize shadows falling into the crags on the characters’ faces. Vito Corleone could easily be sitting in a corner of one of those frames.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

The next scene — when Elizabeth goes to find Charles and offer him a final few words on his marriage — Caron and Goldman viewed as a way to visually crystalize their relationship and how it is marred by their obligations to the monarchy. “Wouldn’t it be painful if you had Charles looking out the window and he felt the reflections of the fireworks and the noise and the celebrations outside?” Caron said about how he started conceiving of the blocking and framing of the exchange between mother and son. Each cinematic choice builds from a sense of what would be more painful, what would put more strain on the relationship.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

The filmmakers created this visual strain between Queen and Crown Prince not just by keeping them at opposite sides in the composition, but by keeping one of the pair always just out of focus in the shots with the two of them — they can’t even occupy the same level of detail in the frame. Color plays a role, too, with bright blues and reds from the fireworks, reflections of the Union Jack, always being part of the light through which the audience sees the resigned sadness on Colman’s face and the abject misery on O’Connor’s. Goldman said this is the scene where he realizes he will never escape the system of the monarchy. “He realizes it’s too late. It’s a trap. He’s been trapped.”

“It always comes back to the Crown,” Caron said, and it is really from the perspective of the Crown itself that we watch the characters prepare to head to church on the day of the wedding. When the audience finally sees Diana in her dress, she faces away from the camera and moves into that oppressive cavernous space which has put so much pressure on her throughout the episode. It’s a slow, almost funereal march toward the fate the audience already knows awaits her. Charles, on the other hand, gets the close-up this time. But the camera, with equal grimness, tracks slightly down and in, so that his face begins to loom over the frame, making him look monstrous.

“The Crown” Season 4, Ep. 3 “The Fairytale” Screenshot

Of course by now, the visual choices that Caron and Goldman made for “Fairytale” have taught the viewer that there is another monster, a much more powerful one, looming over the episode’s final frame: The Crown is the monster that always gets you in the end.

[highqueenseleni]

So, I have a neat new toy in my collection of furniture that I don’t need that no really I swear I do need it. As I write this from my corner filled with three separate desks. 

Anyway, I was at the thrift store the other day looking for sweaters because winter will soon be here and I found the coolest piece of furniture. It is an antique (from the 1920) combination secretary desk and curio cabinet, a curio desk if you will. It was a little dinged up, missing the usual ridiculous ornate backsplash these things tend to have, which was fine because I probably would have not wanted it there to take up valuable wall space. At the time I didn’t get it and have been sad about it since then. 

This morning after I woke up my partner told me to put on shoes and my mask because we were going on an adventure. Specifically to go to the bin store to see if that curio desk was still there. It was! No one wanted it because no one could figure out what the hell the weird thing was, even the person who wrote up our purchase had no idea what it was and struggled to label it. Was it a desk, was it  a cabinet?

Once it was claimed and hauled up my stairs I got to really give it a good look. And I love old ass furniture, back when I lived in a place where I had more room (I miss small towns and their dirt cheap apartments) almost every piece of furniture I owned was antique scavenged from thrift stores and yard sales. Before bringing home this curio desk all I had that was old was a Jacobian era chair that lives in my closet safe from my cats that had been in my partner’s family for a VERY LONG TIME. The desk has wheels made from carved wood, there is not a single screw anywhere since I am almost certain it is Amish made, it looks a lot like Amish furniture I used to work with in Pennsylvania. The cabinet has a lock and if I can find a key I could keep my treasures safe, the handles are gorgeous wrought iron with floral motifs. And remember how I said this was from the 20s? The front of the desk is etched with beautiful classic Art Nouveau motifs. 

It really is quite pretty, dirty as all hell and in need of some love, but it is solid oak wood and will make a wonderful home for some of my art and supplies because now my desk corner has four desks and ok maybe I have a problem. 

[diverse-writing]

Book Review: “Queer City” by Peter Ackroyd

Thanks to @kyliebean-editing​ for the review request! I have a list of books I’ve read recently here that I’m considering reviewing, so let me know if you’re looking for my thoughts on a specific book and I’ll be sure to give it a go!

2.5 ⭐/5

Hey all! I’m back with another book review and this time we’re taking a dip into nonfiction with Peter Ackroyd’s Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day. Let’s dive right in.

The good: Peter Ackroyd is a hugely prolific writer and a historian clearly trained for digging through huge archives of history and his expertise shows. This particular volume--his 37th nonfiction book and 55th overall published work--provides a startlingly comprehensive timeline of London’s gay history, just as promised. Arguably, the book’s subtitle short sells the book’s content; Queer City actually rewinds the clock all the way back to the city’s origins as a Celtic town before it became Roman Londinium. From there, Ackroyd’s utilizes his extensive historical experience to trace proof of gay activity through the ages. From the high courts of medieval times to the monks of the Tudor era, the gaslit back alleys of Victorian London to the raging club scene of the 1980s--gay people have lived and even thrived in London for literal millennia, and Ackroyd has the receipts to back it up. If you need proof that homosexuality has been a staple of civilization since the Romans--and the homophobia has often recycled the same arguments for the same period of time--then look no further.

The mediocre: All that being said, Ackroyd’s “receipts” often tend towards the salacious, the scandalous, and often the explicit. It seems that legal edicts and court cases made up the foundation of his research, so us readers get to hear in full detail the punishments levied against historical queer individuals, from exile to the pillory to the gallows. Occasionally, Ackroyd dips into the written pornagraphic accounts of the time to describe salacious sexual encounters, which add little to the overarching narrative except proof that gay people do, in fact, have sex. Later down the historical record, once newspapers became more common, we also receive extensive account of the gossip pages of the day, complete with rants about the indecency of “buggery” and the moral decay of “the homosexual.” Throughout the book, ass puns and phallic wordplay run rampant, so much so that it occasionally feels like it’s only added for shock value.

While I’m not a professional historian, as a queer person I can’t help but feel that there must be more to the historical record than these beatings, back alley hookups, etc. In focus on the concrete evidence of gay activity--that is, gay sex and all the official documents surrounding the subject--it feels like Ackroyd neglects the emotional side of queerness in favor of the physical side. Even the queer poetry excerpts or diary entries of the time (which I’m nearly positive exist throughout the historical record, though once again I’m not a professional) sampled in this book are all focused on the physical act of sex. No queer person wants a pastel tinted, desexed version of our history--but we also don’t need to hear a dozen explicit accounts of gay park sex. Queer love and queer sex go hand in hand and to focus on one without the other is disingenuous, not to mention dangerous in promoting the idea that queer people are hypersexual and predatory. Admittedly, I do think the omission of queer love is an unintentional byproduct of Ackroyd’s fact-checking and editorial process. He may not have intended to leave out tenderness, but his intentional choice to focus on impersonal records--court cases, royal decrees, newspapers, etc.--rather than personal ones--diaries, poetry, art, etc.--meant that emotion was largely excluded anyway. 

The bad: Though Queer City does a good job of following queer history through the ages, Ackroyd fails to connect his cited historical examples with larger sociocultural movements of the time. He discusses queer coding in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales but not the larger (oft homoromantic/homoerotic) courtly love traditions that Chaucer drew on. He describes the cult followings around boy actors playing female parts in Elizabethan and Jacobian London but neglects to put those theaters and the public reaction to them within the context of the ongoing Renaissance. Similarly, Ackroyd omits explicit connections to the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Neoclassicism, free love, and countless other cultural movements that undoubtedly shaped both the social and legal responses to the queer community. This exclusion, unlike the exclusion of queer love, had to be intentional on Ackroyd’s part; it’s hugely unlikely that a historian with his bibliography accidentally forgot to mention the last millennium’s worth of Western civilization cultural movements. It’s a massive oversight that utterly fails to place London’s queer history within the context of wider history.

And finally, last but definitely not least, oh boy does Ackroyd have some learning to do when it comes to gender, gender presentation, and gender identity. From the very first chapter, it’s apparent that Ackroyd’s research and writing focused largely on MLM cisgender men, with WLW cisgender women as a far secondary priority. While there are chapters on chapters dedicated to detangling homosexual men’s dealings, homosexual women are often pushed to the fringes of London’s queer history. They receive paragraphs, here and there, and occasionally the closing sentence of a chapter, but overall they’re clearly downgraded to a secondary priority within Ackroyd’s historical narrative. Some of this can once again be blamed on the type of records Ackroyd uses; sex between women was never criminalized or discussed in the public sphere in the same way that sex between men was, so it was a less common topic in London’s courts and newspapers. (And, once again, I have the sneaking suspicion that turning to less traditional sources would’ve helped resolve this issue, though in part the omission can likely be pinned on Ackroyd’s demonstrable preference towards male history.)

Additionally, Ackroyd tends to treat crossdressing as undeniable proof of homosexuality. While it’s true that historically queer individuals found freedom or relief in dressing as the opposite sex, the latter didn’t necessarily equal the former. Additionally, if the crossdressing individual in question was female, dressing as a man was often a way for a woman to secure more freedoms than she would receive while wearing traditional feminine outfits. (Also, he tended to use “transvestite” over “crossdressing,” and while I tend to think of the latter as more preferred, the former may be more in use among queer studies circles or British slang). Though Ackroyd briefly acknowledges that women could and may have crossdressed to more easily navigate a misogynistic world, he nevertheless continually dredges out records of crossdressing women as concrete proof of historical sapphics.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room; in clearly identifying crossdressers as homosexuals, Ackroyd entirely overlooks the existence of transgender and nonbinary people in London’s historical record. This omission, arguably unlike the others, seems definitively intentional and malicious. In the entire book, I could probably count on one hand the number of times Ackroyd mentions the concept of gender identity, and I could use even fewer fingers for the number of times he does so respectfully and thoughtfully. Though he largely neglects to discuss transgender history as a subset of queer history, when he does bring up historical non-cisgender identities it’s often as a component of his salacious narratives rather than a vibrant and storied history all on its own. In the final chapter on modern gay London, Ackroyd’s casual dismissal of the concept of myriad gender identities felt dangerously close to modern day British “gender criticism,” which is likely more familiar to queer readers as TERFism masquerading under the guise of concern for women and gay rights (JK Rowling is a very public example of a textbook gender critical Brit, if you’re wondering). By the end of the book, Ackroyd’s skepticism of so-called “nontraditional gender identities” is so glaringly evident that he might as well proclaim it outright. 

The verdict:  For a book supposedly focused on queerness, the focus on male cisgender homosexuality is both disappointing and honestly not surprising. This book is a portrait of gay London, yes--but it’s also a portrait of Peter Ackroyd as a historian and a professional. It’s clear from early on that he’s writing from the perspective of an older white gay man (I think queer WOC know what I’m talking about when I say that that POV is very distinct, and his clear idolation of 1960s-1980s gay culture makes his age quite evident as well). As you progress through the book, his blindspot in regards to gender and gender politics become increasingly clear, as does his simultaneous obsession and criticism with transgender identities. Overall, Queer City is a clear example of how “nonfiction” doesn’t necessarily mean unvarnished truth--or at least not all of it--and how individual historian’s methods and biases bleed into their research. 

A dear London friend suggested Matt Houlbrook’s Queer London: Perils and Pleasures of the Sexual Metropolis as a more gender inclusive review of the famous city’s queer history. While I take a break from London for a bit, I would welcome any and all thoughts on either Queer City or Queer London, the latter which I fully intend to get to eventually so I can properly compare the two.

[eggysimblr]

Welcome to Brettonia!

Greetings Traveler! Behold, the noble kingdom of Brettonia is welcoming thou, let us meet the fine citizens of this land o’plenty:

Here we have The valiant ruler of Brettonia, Emperor Lambert Griffin, and his co-ruler and lovely spouse, Empress Beatrix.

These two lovebirds here are the Commander of Brettonian Army, Sir Godric Lionheart, and his wife, Rowena.

This Man is Anzelm De Gothia, Eye of Jacob, and the head of Jacobian Church’s Inquisition in Brettonia.

Even though Jacobianism is Brettonia’s dominant religion, the Peterans also have their convent, led by Abbot Bernard Abelard:

Brettonia is also the center of arts and crafts, represented by Rhapsodist Percival of Hamshire...

...And Master Blacksmith, Bartholomew “Bart” Gearsworrth:

The commerce is in charge of the head of Traders Guild, Master Merchant Silvio Amarald.

Silvio’s Brother, Horatio Amarald, has left Brettonia, and founded his own Kingdom:

Maybe I’ll talk about the Opulent Kingdom of Amaraldia later, but now, back to Brettonia. The Kingdom is well guarded by the Military, but it also has an intricate web of Intelligence, lead by  Spymaster Akbar Ibn Hussein, known as “The Devil of Aarbyville”:

Last but not Least, we have the resident scientists of the Kingdom, the Archmage Balthazzar Merasmus with his wife Kristine the Witch:

And Master Chirurgeon Gwendolyn Von Charlatain (Ebenezer’s Great-Great-Great-....-Great-Grandmother):

[transgenderer]

hmm, so what i was trying to get at with the idea of "great prose but not great writing" is that like...there's techne and there's art, yknow? and great techne is a great thing! making pleasurable sounds, pleasurable word combinations, pleasurable feelings, whatever. but theres another thing, on top of that, theres expression, theres communication. and i guess im interested in great communication. and im not sure whether great communication requires some great...wrestling, in the jacobian sense

can writing be great without being...about something, yknow? writing can surely be competent, very competent, without being About Something, Expressing Something. and certainly prose can be very good, going nowhere. just describing things, fun ways.

to try to express what i mean: saw a tweet about how they liked how disco elysium had great writing, but didnt really like the subject matter, or that it was "grimy", and would have preferred if it was about "a young witch trying to solve the disappearance of her neighbors cat in a small village in the alps", but still had "wonderful writing". and it made me wonder if that description has a referent, in possibility, for the sense i use of "wonderful writing". it seems to me wonderful writing must confront something, or express something, novel and potential hostile. that great writing is not just an analgesic (not that theres anything wrong with killing pain! i love analgesics) but that its yknow. if not medical treatment, medicine as a field of study. exploring ailment

[mia-decorative]

Chest, early 18th century, Minneapolis Institute of Art: Decorative Arts, Textiles and Sculpture

Chest, oak, English (Jacobian), XVIIc cat. card dims 28-7/8 x 47-1/4 x 23' Size: 29 x 48 x 23 in. (73.7 x 121.9 x 58.4 cm) Medium: Oak

https://collections.artsmia.org/art/12263/

[madamemerola]

Meet my next guest on Live A Phenomenal Life Show with Madame Merola kicking off the lineup of guests for August 2020 on Season 3, Episode 44. Regarded as one of the most brilliant minds in the world, Victor Prince Dickson is the Inventor of Kommon Sense, Founder of MRT Academy. He is the leading proponent of Organic Intelligence: A Human Singularity programme and Master of the Knowledge Economy from Nigeria. Victor is also the Author of Thinking Field Trilogy and Anatomy of Entrepreneurship. Other books in view include: Anatomy of God, The Art of Silence in a Noisy World, Emotional Cloning, Interview with the Lucifer, Penis Conference (a play) and The Fifth Economy. A Venture Capitalist, Founder, Author, Speaker, an astute Thinker, consummate Teacher. He is the creator of various Thinking tools, Innovations models and Business Maps such as 60 SECONDS, SPANIS WEB, ACTs Ribbon, A.N.T.S, GENESIS, SOVI Law, Vemometer, Innovation Crib Sheet, JACOBIAN CODE 1 and 2. TFQ Series and more. Executive Director of El-spice Media Limited. President, Trainers, Coaches and Consultants Consortium (TCC). He is the Nigerian Ambassador and Coordinating Ambassador for World Creativity and Innovation Week Africa (WCIW AFRICA). Victor is the Co-Founder, Synergy Agroallied Multipurpose Cooperative, Co-Founder, Green Mart Express, Co-Founder Hadassah Schools Integrated. Fondly called the Man from the Future, He is most regarded as a Disruptor, Innovator and Transformation Consultant. Join us as we discuss THE ESSENTIALS OF COMMON SENSE! XoXo from madamemerola #bangcreator #liveaphenomenallifeshow #newguestalert #commonsense #kommonsense #personalmastery #inspire #empower #transform (at Abuja, Nigeria) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDRdjEzlInI/?igshid=frgle1kfgicj

[eurekakinginc]

"[R] Invertible Residual Networks Paper + Code (ICML19 Long Oral)"- Detail: Paper: http://bit.ly/2WMH6SB http://bit.ly/2QPVxA5 show that standard ResNet architectures can be made invertible, allowing the same model to be used for classification, density estimation, and generation. Typically, enforcing invertibility requires partitioning dimensions or restricting network architectures. In contrast, our approach only requires adding a simple normalization step during training, already available in standard frameworks. Invertible ResNets define a generative model which can be trained by maximum likelihood on unlabeled data. To compute likelihoods, we introduce a tractable approximation to the Jacobian log-determinant of a residual block. Our empirical evaluation shows that invertible ResNets perform competitively with both state-of-the-art image classifiers and flow-based generative models, something that has not been previously achieved with a single architecture.. Caption by jhjac. Posted By: www.eurekaking.com

[litbites-blog]

1858 Charter Lecture: Eliot in the Wartime Classroom (1916-1919)

Lecture by Professor Ronald Schuchard

Victorian liberalism - embodied in the women’s suffrage movement 

In terms of education, there was sympathy for working people and female students in nearly all classes - women were considered equals to men 

In 1959, at Beveridge Hall, Eliot shared memories of his extension teaching, giving tutorial classes at Southall - he taught during wartime and therefore his classes consisted of mostly women and older railway men. 

Eliot arrived in the UK in mid-1914, and did a fellowship at Oxford  - He taught in a grammar school, and also did university-level extension teaching - He had immersed himself in French literature in his years at the Sorbonne from 1910-11, and was also struck by T.E. Hume’s anti-religious moral philosophy, this influenced Eliot’s developing vision of moral reality - classical and religious sensibilities, anti-humanitarian and anti-religious 

His English students were eager to improve themselves, whether or not it advanced their income, they were humble - Eliot compared this to the American working class - but they also faced problems of illnesses, family problems and the distractions of war 

1st Year Syllabus - Referenced Tennyson, Browning, Ruskin and George Borrow  - Completed French poems eg. Le Directeur, Mélange adultere de tout  - Assimilating readings into his own theories  - French and Victorian literature reading list 

Eliot wrote his first journal “Proof Rock and Other Observations” and applied to give 25 lectures on Victorian literature in Sydenham 

2nd Year Syllabus - Emerson, William Morris - Pre-Raphaelites, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson 

3rd Year Syllabus - Elizabethan literature and dramatists, Jacobian literature  - Kidd, Marlow, Shakespeare, Johnston, Webster - Webster’s skill in dealing with horror 

Eliot wrote his second volume “The Art of Poetry” but the book proposal failed He wrote a review of “The New Elizabethans” - “Mr Apollinax” was a reference to his wife having a three year affair - “The Sweeney Poems” alluded to the illicit behaviour and betrayal - “Sweeney Among the Nightingales”  - Dissolved the marriage and began drafting “The Wasteland” 

1919 - “Poems” by T.S. Eliot - “Ara Vas Prax”  - “Tradition and the Individual Talent” - his most famous essay  - Eliot’s critical leap was from 1919-1920, where he wrote reviews of Elizabethan works previously in his syllabus  - “The Sacred Wood”  - Believed humanism wasn’t always beneficial - particularly Norman Foerster and American humanists who advocated humanism in replacement of religion - “The Book of the Governor”, John Locke, etc. 

 Eliot’s “Four Quartets” - relations with the divine and time