Armour for the soul

It's been a beautiful day in London-- sunny and warm. As I write, there's the thinnest sliver of a new moon setting in the west, with Venus above. Even with the London light pollution, I can make out the outline of the old moon glowing redly: a phenomenon rather poetically known as Earthshine.

And now clouds have hidden all. I was supposed to be rehearsing today, but I have a cold and had to stay home and be silent. An opportunity for a recital this weekend came up, but I had to decline, since no voice means no ability to prepare. All this is good news for readers of gawain_project, however.

Today's two stanzas were goddamned hard -- lots of technical terms for various pieces of armour, and since I know some of my readers are armour geeks, I had to get it right. Luckily the poet seems to have known what he/she was talking about, even if everything is overlaid with impossible amounts of gold, gems and silk (this is a medieval romance, after all.)
Amusingly, I discovered what I think are a couple of errors in the "scholarly" editions I'm referring to. Clearly, more English academics should hang out with armour geeks.

I don't know about you, but I sure could use two minutes' worth of inspiration.

Armour for the soul

It's been a beautiful day in London-- sunny and warm. As I write, there's the thinnest sliver of a new moon setting in the west, with Venus above. Even with the London light pollution, I can make out the outline of the old moon glowing redly: a phenomenon rather poetically known as Earthshine.

And now clouds have hidden all. I was supposed to be rehearsing today, but I have a cold and had to stay home and be silent. An opportunity for a recital this weekend came up, but I had to decline, since no voice means no ability to prepare. All this is good news for readers of gawain_project, however.

Today's two stanzas were goddamned hard -- lots of technical terms for various pieces of armour, and since I know some of my readers are armour geeks, I had to get it right. Luckily the poet seems to have known what he/she was talking about, even if everything is overlaid with impossible amounts of gold, gems and silk (this is a medieval romance, after all.)
Amusingly, I discovered what I think are a couple of errors in the "scholarly" editions I'm referring to. Clearly, more English academics should hang out with armour geeks.

I don't know about you, but I sure could use two minutes' worth of inspiration.