Today, as I was brewing the green tea I generally drink at lunch, my thoughts wandered to Sir Thomas Lipton the tea magnate (although I was drinking a different brand). I remembered something that irritated me long, long ago, and I still remember it well enough to vent about it now.

In the early 20th Century, Thomas Lipton was among the most famous people in the world. He was one of the original “self-made men,” a Scotsman who spent time in America and learned American business ideas, which he put into practice in building a grocery empire in Great Britain. Then he shifted to the tea business, with even more success.

He was a prominent philanthropist and sportsman, and it was as a sportsman that he became a true celebrity. He loved yacht racing, and made repeated, expensive attempts to win the America’s Cup, failing each time. But his sunny good sportsmanship won him the affection of the American public, which did his tea sales no harm at all.

I wish I could remember the book or article about Lipton that got my dander up. I was pretty young at the time. I have the idea it was a biographical book I read a review of, but I can’t find the book listed anywhere. Maybe it was an article in Smithsonian or something. Continue reading "Be less authentic, if you don't mind." →

This is a good place to share things I don’t dare say in class, isn’t it?

Sure.

Part of the process of studying for your master’s degree online is discussions in forums on the school’s site. I’ve already established my reputation as a contrarian there, asking questions where other students just agree on how wonderful the assigned reading was. But I don’t say all I think, because it soon became clear that there’s something like a religious element to the course. We’re being taught the doctrines of the Church of the Enlightenment, Library diocese, and my plan is to mostly keep my head low when we touch on matters of dogma.

Anyway, one of our recent readings was a study whose author questioned whether it’s factually true that we’ve entered into an Information Age, as everybody keeps saying. He analyzes the studies usually appealed to in arguing for this societal change, and finds in them a lot of mushiness and fuzzy categories. Fair enough. He makes some excellent points. But I posed the question, could any real-world evidence actually satisfy his criteria? It seemed to me we could all be assimilated by the Borg, and this guy would still insist there wasn’t enough hard evidence to prove there’d been significant change.

What I didn’t say (though I may say it yet, if pushed), is that some time ago I spoke to a young missionary who’s involved with a project to provide open-source educational materials to Third World people in various cultures. The project faces many challenges, but distribution is not one of them. He said to me, “We’d been in all kinds of cultures – with cattle herders in the veldt, and jungle villages, and we noticed that wherever we went, everybody [that was the word he used, as I recall] has a cell phone, and they access the internet through it.”

My methodology may be sloppy, but that suggests to me that a major change has occurred in the world.

I mentioned that I’d be doing a Nordic Music Festival this past Saturday. This I did, along with other members of the Viking Age Club & Society. The day was perversely hot for September, perhaps to make up for the perversely cold days we had in spring. We ended up doing two, rather than three, fight shows, and I didn’t wear my armor. They tell me I won a couple fights, but I actually have no memory of it. I remember the losses, of course. At one point I grew concerned that I’d dehydrated myself, in spite of drinking water pretty steadily all day. I went and got some french fries from a vendor, just for the salt.

But what I remember most of all is a gift I was given, a delayed birthday present. It (or they) came from Kelsey Patton, proprietress of Spindle, Shuttle, & Needle, your best source for historical costumes of any era (You think free gifts don’t buy a plug from me? Try me. I’m for sale).

The gift was the pair of socks shown above. These are no common socks, not in our century. They’re made by an ancient process called nålebinding, which goes back to the misty dawn of antiquity. It’s a method of knitting that uses only one needle, and it was how the Vikings made their socks.

I’ve yearned for a pair of nålebinding socks for years now. They’re an important part of a really authentic Viking costume, but not the sort of thing I was in a position to spend money on (they don’t come cheap, and let’s face it, they’re socks. I can sneak by with dark ankle socks, if no one looks too close). So this gift delighted me beyond all decent proportion. My Viking costume would now be almost entirely passable in a fairly tolerant reenactors’ encampment, except for my underwear, which I tend to keep to myself anyway.

So thanks, Kelsey (and Philip, her husband). You have the blessing of an ancient sage.