elanya

I dreamed that it was the last day of SHA, and that there was a final forum: a talent show. Someone had entered me to sing 'twinkle twinkle little star', the full version, but I didn't find this out until it was almost supposed to be my turn. I still had a bit of a cold, too, which sucked, though I wouldn't have dreamed of backing out. Instead I sat around in the auditorium watching a series of other acts (including Timothy Sullivan playing the sax, even though I've never met him - he just wrote one of the books I read for my thesis). Anyway, they kept switching the order of the acts, putting mine off more and more. I was siting with some friends (I honestly don't remember if there was anyone I actually know, or if they were just generic 'dream' friends). Like a real forum, people kept drifting in and out. They waited until the place was almost empty before they let me get up, after the organizer put on a bad bordello act with her sister, and then her sister did one alone. It would have been okay, I think (sister did a sort of silly striptease to Paula Abdule) but there were some pretty major wardrobe malfunctions (not with nudity, just with thinks like breaking garters and sagging stockings and such). By that point it was clear that it was fairly informal, and that I didn't have to really sing Twinkle: I could sing something else as long as I didn't expect accompaniment. First I took my inhaler, and or some reason, people were fascinated by it and I had to leave the room. As I was heading up on stage on my return, I racked my brains for a song I knew the lyrics too. Now, I know a ton of songs by heart - probably well over a hundred. I can never remember them all at once. The first one that came to mind was Martinmas, which is a cute folksong about how a lady tricks some soldiers who want to have sex with her by dressing like a man (at Martinmas, *obviously*), getting them to give her money instead, and then riding away before they could catch her because she is just That Awesome. However, it is a long song, and the tune is repetitive, and I wasn't sure it would fly. I also get some of the lyrics confused in the middle sometimes. Anyway, I gave this spiel abut being unprepared, how I wasn't going to sing twinkle, and they should bear with me and judge me accordingly. More people had come in at this point, too, whether for me, or because they were bored, or because they'd wanted to catch the bordello tragedy, I can't say. And I was about to start when my conscious brain interjected that this would be a good time to sing my interpretation of Leonard Cohen's 'Came so far for beauty'. So I of course woke up. I bet It would have been awesome. In fact, I did sing it though with my sleep-crackly voice, and it was cool... there are even dramatic hand movements! But of course, it was just me, and I have no idea how the SHA dream-audience would have received it ;) In another random detail - the woman playing the SHA president in my dream looked like Cuddy and had hair nearly down to her knees. I was supremely jealous.

Ahh well, I guess I'd better get up now, hmm?

I forgot to do one of these yesterday, or at least an official one.

I read one anf a half articles on Byzantine trade, did my required reading for today's class (although I need to catch up on the reading from Tuesday). I have a presentation to give next Thursday, see. I also read some material on folk groups. I went through my first chapter and fixed the references to meet Chicago style, as opposed to Carl style. I then mailed it to Dr. Ewen. I also read about folk groups, which was more than I needed to read, but interesting nonetheless. I did some other sundry things as well.
This morning I did dishes, after I got up, and had food, and eventually made myself do some work, which has mostly meant reading through my paper on pirate life ashore and figuring out what I will need to adapt to make it fit in to my thesis. I really like it as it stands, save that I need a better transition to the conclusion, so I'm not sure what I want to do. I just need to make sure it will actually fit with how I want my thesis to go, I suppose. So far I haven't dealt with the issue of determining whether pirates were a different social group/sub culture, or what. Maybe it would be best to investigate that at the end of this chapter, though I plan to introduce the question in my introduction. Still, I like the idea that I could have two chapters finished before the end of January.

I think I am going to go into school early today to do more readings, or just hang out if the books aren't available... I do need some form of lunch though. Buy or make, hmm?

ETA: Heard back form Dr T, listened to some french things, took (probably useless) notes.

Worked some on my 'shore life' bit, reorganizing intro, and so forth, and starting in on csub-culture-ness... Man, it is complicated! I don't want to write a whole other essay :/ I worked out a lot of what I need to do, now I just need to do it :p

I just listened to a presentation from a French conference on the imagery of pirates in litterature from 2002, archived online at the site for Le Centre de recherches sur la Littérature des Voyages on negative images of seamen 9in France) in the 18th century.

It basically said that during the 16th and 17th centuries, France was very focused on the land - wine and bread, the country's staples (pain et vin!) were both the products of agriculture, so the few people who went to sea (he gave figures... a notably small percentage of the population) were seen as being desperate people: in the public perception, you only went to sea if you had no other choice. From this perception came the negative image of sailors as hard drinking, rough speaking, violent people. I am not sure how they become pirates. It is hard for me to muddle through a recording of a live presentation in academic French. But I think it that desperate men who went to sea were also opportunists and thus turned to piracy when they could.

In the early 17th C Richilieu (or maybe Rochefort, or both?) set up the French naval academy, to train officers. However, people really preferred more hardcore seamen - pirates and corsairs(Privateers of a sort, in this context I think) who had experience fighting the English and Dutch, to captain naval vessels. All the king's captains were ex-pirates and corsairs. however they still had this negative image attached to them, that they had no social graces, etc. The captains, once they had the status, tried to learn to live up to it, so as time went on, there was less visible distinction between the hardcore old guard and the new officers being put out by the academy, and in the end the French navy ended up with a bunch of pussies - trained gentlemen, as opposed to people who knew how to and were willing to fight well at sea. Thus the French navy began to suck ass, and this was especially true by the end of the 18th C.

So yeah, I'm paraphrasing, and I'm not always sure about what periods he is talking about, because oif the recording and my lack of practice listening to French mean sometime it is hard for me to distinguish 'dixseptième' from 'dixhuitième' and I get confused as to what periods people are operating in. Anyway, it was an interesting listen, if not (especially* useful. What I really need is information on how the French used Buccaneers operating out of Tortuga. Hmmm... I've seen some somewhere, I'll have to go back and look at my sources. Bah.

Well, I hope some of you found my summary interesting, in any case ;) It is really mostly for my own use.