#experimental archaeology; or whatever

[whartonists]

1896 Ginger Punch

Happy first anniversary of 1.03 airing! Though I didn’t make anything last week because I was ill (story of my January, unfortunately) I am back this week with a recipe for Ginger Punch, from the 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, better known simply under its author’s name, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

This was, I think it is not too much of an exaggeration to say, the most influential cookbook of the early twentieth century; Farmer is credited with standardizing measurements and introducing the “modern” cookbook format (a list of ingredients in precise measurements, followed by specific instructions for how to create the dish). In reading a bunch of late 19th century cookbooks, as I’ve been doing lately, it’s interesting to note the ways in which these innovations had already started to be implemented by other authors; indeed Farmer’s cookbook was actually a significant update and expansion of the 1884 Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book. (Which sports the amazingly straightforward subtitle, What To Do and What Not To Do in Cooking.) But Farmer used this standardized formatting and measurements systematically and lucidly in a way that clearly spoke to American cooks, and it has never gone out of print.

Ginger Punch.

1 quart cold water. 1 cup sugar. 1/2 lb. Canton ginger. 1/2 cup orange juice. 1/2 cup lemon juice.

Chop ginger, add to water and sugar, boil fifteen minutes; add fruit juice, cool, strain, and dilute with crushed ice.

Still much more terse than we’d expect from a modern recipe, but look at those exact measurements! Look at that precise time! It doesn’t give specifics about how to chop the ginger--but also, it doesn’t really matter, since it will be strained out anyway. The detail is selective, but there’s enough of it that the recipe is straightforward to follow.

(Some further ramblings about how I made it below the cut.)

This seemed like way more punch than I wanted (she doesn’t give a serving estimate, though the recipe above this one on the page, for “Fruit Punch II,” ends with the note that “This quantity will serve fifty,” which unnerved me)--so I ended up quartering the recipe. I only got what is in my glass in the photo, though, so while that worked out perfectly for me, only halving it or making up the full recipe wouldn’t have been overwhelming.

Canton ginger is evidently just another name for culinary ginger; I got roughly the proper amount by weighing it on my co-op’s bulk foods scale, and peeled as well as chopped it before boiling it with the water and sugar. The lemon and orange juice I squeezed fresh, though if I’d had open containers of juice for either I’d have just used those; the sugar was regular white sugar. I made crushed ice using the expedient method of putting some ice cubes in a dishtowel and then whacking them with my cast-iron skillet a few times.

I think it is extremely tasty; I cooled it down in the fridge, so it’s extra chilled and very refreshing. It is also very gingery--think ginger beer levels of ginger as opposed to ginger ale. The ice to dilute it was a good call, Ms. Farmer.

(Sources are once again the wonderful Food in the American Gilded Age, edited by Helen Zoe Veit, and this belated obituary by the New York Times, from 2018; the image of the recipe is from a scan of the original 1896 cookbook hosted at the Michigan State University’s Feeding America project, which I can’t recommend highly enough.)

[specialagentartemis]

@thefoxthief said in response to this post:

I have a question. I vaguely remember learning in an anthro class that there is little/poor evidence of mammoth hunting and most likely the bones used to built huts were collected from already dead mammoths. Teach me.

Pretty much accurate! Mostly, Ice Age people didn’t hunt mammoths, but it varied by region. It was very rare in most of Europe, a little more common in the Russian steppes, and a surprisingly regular occurrence in southwestern North America.

For the most part, in the Ice Age, people hunted animals like deer, caribou, wild sheep/goats, and wild horses (which were the size of modern ponies mostly). That was the size that it seems people preferred—that’s a lot of meat, but like, that’s a manageable-sized animal. The hide is thin and the vital organs are within a spear’s range and also it will have a much harder time trampling you to death if you miss. Killing and butchering a mammoth with stone and bone tools would have been possible, but very difficult and energy consuming (archaeologists LOVE doing experimental archaeology by taking stone tool replicas to the bodies of dead zoo elephants). Generally the belief is that bones from the mammoth bone huts of Ukraine and Russia were scavenged from dead animals��still no small feat, but the mammoths weren’t regularly hunted for them.

As my archaeology professor likes to describe it, hunting a mammoth is something that you might do once and then brag about for the rest of your life. It isn’t unheard of, but it was definitely rare.

… except in the US Southwest and the northern half of Mexico where there seem to be a bunch of really dramatic mammoth kill sites (and gomphotheres, another Ice Age elephant-like animal). The Naco Mammoth Kill Site and El Fin del Mundo site are particularly striking but there are several known ones in southern Arizona/northern Mexico. Those people were hunting mammoths 11-13,000 years ago for whatever reason!

However my story is set around the Black Sea 30,000 years ago, and hunting mammoths was rare and definitely not preferred. And important worldbuilding context is that the clan spends its winters upriver on the steppes to meet the caribou herds migrating south for the winter… but this winter has been harsh, with early freezes and cold winds (and advancing glaciers because we are slowly approaching the Last Glacial Maximum, though they don’t know that), and the normal caribou herds… aren’t here. The clan’s normal winter food source is nowhere to be found. And they are deeply DEEPLY concerned and also starving.

So when the herd of mammoths pass through, this isn’t business as usual, it’s a climactic move of desperation to try to take down a whole damn mammoth to save them all.

[heartshapedgreen]

i feel like many of you would enjoy writing or whatever form of creation if there wasn't too much emphasis on... the creation itself. maybe this is personal to me but everything i do - making playlists, writing, drawing, whatever - is an extension of my maladaptive daydreams and various complex worlds inside my head.

i have a document full of notes for a high fantasy world with a magic system, and i already learned from experimentation that i just cannot ever enjoy writing something that complex so there is like. 0.0001% chance i'll actually turn it into something tangible. is it still fun to think about all by myself? yes!!! and it's kind of difficult to put into... any medium, really, because what my brain can do, reality (+ my body) just can't. i would need to learn to read cuneiform + french & german for archaeology records (cause the worldbuilding has a lot to do with ancient near east history, one of my special interests) and maybe even write the story in three different languages, for all the intricate concepts that can only exist within those languages, to truly get what's in my mind across.

but instead i'm just going to talk to my multilingual/history nerd friends about it, make playlists i can listen to so i can think about it alone while listening to a song. not even think about the story itself but just drown myself in linguistics and the idea that what exists in one language doesn't in another. and folk magic. and formation of spirituality. like... it doesn't have to be about the story itself, and it doesn't need to have a concrete form to exist as a story too. sometimes a world or storyline you create in your head is less about the story itself and more about what it emerged from.

[sixam-skies]

Playin' ALL The Packs

So, I typed this up the other day for myself and a friend who gets bored once her sims have offsprings. It's basically a lepacy, which has of course been done before, but this is the version I'm using. I thought I'd share it here in case it's handy for someone else, you can play it legacy style like I am, play it in order or at random, or if you're like my friend Jess you can start over with a new sim for every pack. Skip the ones you don't have, add the ones I don't have. Do whatever you want. Live your best life. This is a damn long post, so it's under the cut to save time for those scrolling past.

BASE GAME & Get To Work Aspiration: Nerd Brain, Renaissance Sim Active Careers: Detective, Doctor, or Scientist (STRONGLY RECOMMEND) Career: Astronaut, Athlete - Bodybuilder, Business, Criminal – Chief of Mischief/Public Enemy, Culinary – Master Chef, Entertainer – Musical Genius, Painter, Secret Agent, Skills: Baking, Gourmet Cooking, Rocket Science Collections: Aliens, Experimental Food Photos (Dine Out), Geodes

Live in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, or Newcrest

Explore Sylvan Glade in Willow Creek and/or Forgotten Grotto in Oasis Springs

Host a Dinner Party and/or Incognito Costume Party

Get abducted by Aliens

Have an Alien baby AND/OR Marry an Alien

Travel to Sixam

Woohoo in a Rocket

Do not marry or have children with a townie from any Game or Expansion pack

Get Together Traits: Dance Machine, Insider Aspiration: Friend of the World, Leader of the Pack, Party Animal Career: Style Influencer Skills: Dancing, DJ Mixing

Live in Windenburg

Form or join a club and max it out

Throw at least one House Party and one Dance Party

Throw or attend a party at the special lots – Ancient Ruins, The Bluffs, Von Haunt Estate

Marry/have children with someone you meet at a nightclub or café

Woohoo in a Closet

City Living & Spa day Traits: High Maintenance, Unflirty Aspiration: City Native, Inner Peace, Self-Care Specialist, Zen Guru Careers: Politician, Social Media, or Critic Skills: Singing, Wellness Collections: City Posters, Snow Globes

Live in San Myshuno

Attend every festival

Go to the spa once a week

Woohoo in a sauna

Leave a Sim at the altar

Vampires Aspiration: Good Vampire, Master Vampire, OR Vampire Family, AND Bestselling Author Career: Writer Skills: Mixology, Pipe Organ, Vampire Lore, Writing

Live in Forgotten Hollow

Become a Vampire

Befriend Caleb & Lilith Vatore (Good Vampire, Vampire Family) OR Vlad (Master Vampire)

Woohoo in a coffin

Make and drink the cure for Vampirism

Cats and Dogs Traits: Cat Lover, Dog Lover Aspiration: Friend of the Animals. Skills: Pet Training, Veterinarian Collections: Feathers

Live in Brindleton Bay

Run a successful Vet Clinic

Always have at least one dog and one cat in the household

Have a cat or dog that has a litter before you have children

Woohoo in the Brindleton Bay lighthouse

Jungle Adventure Aspiration: Archaeology Scholar, Jungle Explorer, Computer Whiz Career: Tech Guru Skills: Archaeology, Selvadorian Culture Collections: Ancient Omiscan Artefacts, Omiscan Treasures

Explore the temple

Spend all your time off in Selvadorada

Marry/have children with a Selvadorada native

Woohoo in a bush

Seasons & Outdoor Retreat Aspiration: Angling Ace, The Curator, Freelance Botanist, Outdoor Enthusiast Career: Gardener Skills: Flower Arranging, Herbalism Collections: Insect, Fish, Frogs, Gardening

Become a Scout as a child/teen.

Celebrate every holiday

Host a Weenie Roast and Spooky Party (Spooky Stuff)

Woohoo in a tent and/or a pile of leaves

Buy and max upgrade the weather machine

Get Famous Traits: Self-Absorbed Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy, Mansion Baron, Master Actor/Actress, World-Famous Celebrity Career: Actor/Actress Skills: Acting, Media Production

Live in Del Sol Valley

Join Drama Club as a child/teen

Hire a personal butler (Vintage Fashion)

Host a Black & White Bash, Meet & Greet, and Charity Benefit OR Lampoon Party

Have either a Pristine or Atrocious reputation

Become a 5-Star Celebrity

Have children with/marry another celebrity

Woohoo in a money vault

StrangerVille Traits: Paranoid Aspirations: Serial Romantic, StrangerVille Mystery Career: Military

Live in StrangerVille

Solve the StrangerVille Mystery

Never marry

Island Living Traits: Child of the Islands and/or Child of the Ocean Aspirations:  Beach Life Career: Conservationist, Diver, Lifeguard Collection: Buried Treasure, Seashells

Live in Sulani

Become a Mermaid

Host a Kava Party

Marry/have children with Sulani native

Clean up Mua Pel’am

Woohoo in Mua Pel’am’s waterfall

Realm of Magic Aspirations: Spellcraft & Sorcery, Purveyor of Potions

Live in Glimmerbrook

Become a Spellcaster

Reach level 5 Spellcaster

Visit the Magic Realm

Learn all spells and/or all potions

High School Years & Discover University Traits: Overachiever and Party Animal OR Overachiever and Socially Awkward Skills: Entrepreneur, Research & Debate, Robotics ~ Teen Years ~ Aspiration: Admired Icon, Drama Llama, Goal Oriented, Live Fast Activity/Part Time Job: Cheer, Chess, Computer, Football, Simfluencer, Video Game Streamer

Grow up in Copperdale

Attend a prom

Celebrate graduation

Sneak out after dark

Have a High School sweetheart

~ Adulthood ~ Aspiration: Academic Career: E-Sports, Secret Society, or Soccer in University, Education, Engineer or Law after graduation.

Enrol in university – Distinguished Degree

Live in university housing for at least one semester

Host a Keg Party

Get a job with your degree

Move back to Copperdale

Marry/have children with High School OR University sweetheart

Woohoo in the shower

Eco Lifestyle Traits: Freegan, Green Fiend, Maker, Recycle Disciple (Pick 3) Aspiration: Eco Innovator, Master Maker Career: Civil Designer Skills: Fabrication, Juice Fizzing

Live in Evergreen Harbour

Vote every time you can for Neighbourhood Action Plans

Have your neighbourhood reach Green OR Industrial Eco Status

Woohoo in a Dumpster

Snowy Escape Traits: Adventurous, Proper Aspiration: Extreme Sports Enthusiast, Mt. Komoreb Sightseer Career: Salaryperson Skills: Rock Climbing, Skiing, Snowboarding

Reach the top of Mt Komorebi

Host a Mountain Climb Excursion

Living in Mt Komorebi is optinal due to the addition of rental properties.

Go to each Mt Komorebi festival at least once

Woohoo in a Hot Spring OR Ice Cave

Visit an Onsen Bathhouse

Paranormal & My Wedding Stories Aspiration: Soulmate Career: Paranormal Investigator Skill: Medium Collections: Messages in a Bottle

Live in a Haunted House

Host a Bach Party and Engagement Dinner

Have the perfect Wedding

Host a Reception

Host a Vow Renewal as Elders

Dream Home Decorator, Tiny Living, Nifty Knitting Aspirations: Lord/Lady of the Knits Career: Interior Decorator Skills: Knitting

Live in a Tiny Home

Own a Murphy bed and a rocking chair

Knit at least one item per day

Sell knitted items on Plopsy (or keep them for latter generations)

Romance a client

Cottage Living Traits: Animal Enthusiast, Lactose Intolerant Aspirations: Country Caretaker Skills: Cross Stitch

Move to Henford-on-Bagley

Have at least 1 cow, 1 llama, and 4 chickens

Participate in all Finchwick Fairs

Befriend at least 1 rabbit and 1 flock of birds

Play Simple Living lot challenge OR Wild Foxes lot challenge

Woohoo in an Animal Shed

Werewolves Aspirations: Werewolf Initiate followed by Cure Seeker, Emissary of the Collective, Lone Wolf, or Wildfang Renegade Collection: Moonwood Collectibles

Lose any previous occult status and become a werewolf

Move to Moonwood Mill

Romance another werewolf

Take the cure

Growing Together & Parenthood Childhood: Creative Genius, Mind and Body, Playtime Captain, OR Slumber Party Animal Aspiration: Big Happy Family, Successful Lineage, Super Parent Skills: Parenting

Move to San Sequoia

Have at least 4 kids (at least one adopted and at least one through having a science baby)

Host a Slumber Party, Baby Shower, Toddler Play Date, and Family Reunion

Woohoo in a treehouse

Horse Ranch Traits: Rancher, Horse Lover Aspiration: Champion Horse Rider or Expert Nectar Maker. Skills: Horse Riding, Nectar Making Horse Skills: Agility, Endurance, Jumping, Temperament

Move to Chestnut Ridge

Compete with your horse(s)

Always have at least one horse, one mini goat, and one mini sheep.

Ta-Da!

[minorhoursmagazine]

Issue 29, containing: Housekeeping (Nondiagetic), An Interesting Method for Skimming Wax, Some Advice for Those Seeking the Northwest Passage, A Partial Guide to Avoiding Casual Poisonings, Letters, Commonplaces, &c.

------------------------------

SOME EDITORIAL NOTES

A new year, and here we are. Welcome. There's fresh bread from the oven, with which I have just eaten a slathering of local maple butter, and with which I will later make a deeply hedonistic grilled cheese.

I will attempt to keep my concentration on the writing of these articles, rather than the promise of dairy yet to come.

------------------------------

HOUSEKEEPING (NONDIAGETIC)

I sometimes think about the inaccuracy of the subtitle of this microzine-- which, if you'd rather not stare too closely at the miniature text in the header, reads in part:

"a newsletter of miscellany, fiction, and art"

(I am omitting my name from the subtitle, as, if I had my druthers, I would not list a name at all, but rather credit this whole venture to an anonymous collective of Editors bravely trying to rein in an errant essayist who seems hellbent on style over substance.)

(Also I have been reliably informed that I should, quote, "get over it.")

Of the numerous things currently annoying me about the subtitle, above and beyond naming conventions, there is also the use of the terms "newsletter," "fiction," and "art."

("Miscellany" may survive the cull, because it is both accurate and also a pleasant word to say.)

(Miscellany. Mys-cell-aye-nie. It looks like Arkham might loom behind it while the scent of salt and cold brine inexorably rises in a grey and creeping mist.)

"Newsletter" is doesn't feel right, though I haven't quite determined what might be closer. "Fiction," regardless of the actual content of some of these articles, doesn't feel accurate either. And "art," even assuming a gentle reader might deem my photographs as such, was always a stretch.

And so while the header remains as it is for the moment, a change is on the wind. I've been spending an even greater amount of time than usual reading through the older magazines and publications that The Minor Hours seeks to emulate, and, to the Editors' horror, I must confess that the feral urge to use the word "diuerse" grows stronger by the day.

------------------------------

AN INTERESTING METHOD FOR SKIMMING WAX

As long-time readers may recall, part of my overall journey toward kitchen witchery and experimental archaeology has involved finding and working out the recipes behind historical foods, cosmetics, and home goods.

The most recent of these that exist within the "fairly complete now, thank you" category is the recipe I've worked out for a pomatum suitable for the lips, variants of which I've found in several old scanned and OCR'd texts, with the mid-1600s being the earliest occurrence so far (and somehow involving-- grapes?) and the latest appearing in and around the 1710s.

I would share that recipe but, sadly, I have done so elsewhere; instead, let me share a stranger revelation: the matter of wax, and its cleanup.

One batch of this pomatum requires an ounce of beeswax. I have lately been made aware that beeswax is not a grease, and therefore dish soap has no power over it; it is also not a fat, but woe be to those who seek to pour it down a drain, lest it solidify just as much as a fat might when cooled.

Following the recommendations of those who have come before me in the modern age, I have instead tried to boil the wax off of whatever objects they come in contact with. This works-- to a degree. Since the wax does not magically disappear, I can at best only transfer the wax from one object (my pomatum-making tools) to another (the large pot I found at the thrift store and am sacrificing for the greater good to the wax gods).

There is, however, an intermediary step: skimming.

As the wax melts in the boiling pot, it leaves its moorings and floats to the top of the heated water. From there, a small mesh strainer, as one would use to hoist out a dumpling or, indeed, skim the top of some liquid creation, can be used in a nice repetitive manner to remove the majority of the melted wax.

--Or.

I found, as I skimmed, that I wasn't truly gathering everything. I knew this to be the case because using the strainer was actually my second attempt at collecting wax. The first was the slow but incredibly effective method I found while hunting around to begin with: that of the Cold Metal Spoon.

Take a metal spoon and, in its bowl, set an ice cube (or however many should fit in it). The metal now instantly chilled, draw the back of the spoon across the top of the hot, waxy water. The wax, hitting the cold spoon, will immediately cool and cling to the metal, allowing you to collect far more wax that the mesh strainer managed.

As a demonstration, behold:

Fig. 1. The back of an as-yet-unwaxed spoon.

Fig. 2. Spoon avec ice.

Fig. 3. Besmirched!

Fig. 4. The lady, half revealed.

I am, overall, extremely pleased with this method, and only seek now to find a significantly larger metal ladle.

------------------------------

SOME ADVICE FOR THOSE SEEKING THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

Pack a compass.*

* While the pointing Hand of Franklin† has been listed under "Preferred Equipment," it will not be available for the foreseeable future.‡

† No note was made of the properties of the non-capitalized hand of Franklin, and it is therefore excluded from these pages.

‡ This is largely because the body of John Franklin§ is also not available for the foreseeable future.

§ Further, it should be made clear that the Hand of Franklin, regardless of its present location, would be contaminated with lead, botulism, and possibly toothmarks, none of which have been found to be reliable aids to navigation.

------------------------------

A PARTIAL GUIDE TO AVOIDING CASUAL POISONINGS

With the success of the lip pomatum, I've found myself eager to explore historical recipes further. This leads, unfortunately, to two additional concerns: (1) determining the modern-day equivalent of various ingredients, and (2) ensuring that those same ingredients are not, in fact, poisonous.

[Interestingly, the tertiary concern of "is it legal to seek out or possess these ingredients" does not appear to have made this list. -Eds.]

Even the pomatum itself required some of this research.

Fig. 5. A recipe containing two bad ideas and one very good way to explode a fine mist of wax over one's entire kitchen.

Of the bad ideas, let it be said that:

Fresh butter was an English addition to this receipt. The original French listed sweet almond oil, which contains significantly less likelihood of poisoning the users of the pomatum through molds, bacteria, and the general horror of applying butter to one's face.

Orcanet required some study, but revealed itself to be an older spelling of alkanet, or what we now might purchase under the name alkanet root, Alkanna tinctoria, or ratan jot. While it is a popular colorant for the makers of "natural" cosmetics, there is some concern regarding what happens to the livers of people who ingest it, and it therefore seems unwise to include in a lip balm.

(Hilariously, the receipt itself only lists orcanet as necessary for thickening-- and assuming that that was the case, I replaced it with powdered arrowroot and went about my business. However, in researching alkanet, I didn't see any particular mention of thickening properties... but I did see that while in alkaline solutions, alkanet turns blue, in acidic solutions -- such as any that might contain orange-flower water and sweet almond oil -- it turns a lovely shade of crimson.)

(But it was included in this receipt only, of course, for thickening.)

Of the good way to explode one's kitchen, let it be said:

An important lesson can be learned regarding the application of room-temperature hydrosols to a wax-and-oil mix heated to somewhere above 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

The lesson is "don't."

------------------------------

LETTERS

Received by the Magazine via a Dream, Probably, "On the Subject of Mountains":

To the Editors:

While we acknowledge your appropriate appreciation of our regality [Issue 28, "Regarding Mountains" - Eds.], we wish you to know that we of course hold a deep interest in the termination of human lives. We merely do not feel the need to be as obvious about it as our young neighbors to the east. Murder is folded into our orogeny. We cordially invite you to visit again any time to explore further.

Sincerely,

The White Mountains

******

From the Editors, to The White Mountains, "We Had to Look Up the Word 'Orogeny'":

The Editors would like to humbly, and from a distance, like to apologize for continuing to think of you as the Green Mountains, due to the unfortunate necessities of nomenclature and the observances of faith required by certain large and bloodthirsty deities previously referenced.

Having now completed the niceties, we would also like to relate that we have been reliably informed that our mountains are stronger, more shredded, and could kick all your asses if you were inclined to meet in the parking lot after school.

We trust that this letter meets you in good health and with kind regards, -The Editors

******

Received by the Magazine through Diuerse Worrying Methods, "As It Pertains to Sleeping in New Places":

Dear Editors:

Please accept our apologies re: the moving of everything to the Wrong Place. [Issue 28, "Sleeping in New Places" - Eds.] AirBnB guests keep moving things, and we hate it. Our malevolence is restricted only to them, not to guests of the family.

Telekinetically yours,

The Ghosts of the House

******

From the Editors, to The Ghosts of the House, "Ghost Are Often Memories, Accessed in Ways Both Strange and Humbling":

The Editors have cause to remember other guests in the House-- of which one, more kin to you than the others, decided to wander to the familial cemetery to visit a little while with the dead. It was dark out, and the land rolling underfoot, and they declined a lantern for the way.

Being of a narrative inclination, this struck the Editors unwise; being sadly entrenched in a world that rarely requires the services of the genre-savvy, we can only assume that that which returned from the graves matched in all particulars the person who had left.

It is wise, sometimes, to let the ghosts have their way with things, and to have a healthy respect for howsoever they might wish to conduct their business. To that end the Editors would like to assure the Ghosts of the House that they felt as welcome as any traveler could hope, and that they very definitely won't report any strange activities their Kin might engage in of a ghost-like or alternately-revenant nature.

------------------------------

COMMONPLACES

From Jessica Hayworth, "story about a lake I did recently":

>>Woman: A LAKE OPENED UP INSIDE MY CHEST. >> Woman: I THOUGHT WOW, THAT'S NEW. NEVER HAD A BODY OF WATER IN ME BEFORE.

******

From Jessica Hayworth, "story about a lake I did recently":

>>Interviewer: DID YOU HAVE TO INVITE IT INSIDE? >>Woman: I DON'T THINK A LAKE ASKS PERMISSION. >>Interviewer: [laughing] NO. NO IT PROBABLY DOESN'T. >>Woman: [laughing] IMAGINE THAT. >>Both: "HELLO I AM YOUR LAKE. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN YOUR LAKE. >>Both: "OPEN UP PLEASE. OPEN." >>Both: "OPEN SESAME."

------------------------------

ANNOUNCEMENTS

I'm going over-long as it is, but it should be noted that there are New Tiers on the Patreon, which I will probably talk about at some point. I make no promises as to when, however, because time is a lie.

Welcome to 2023. I'm going to go make a grilled cheese.

******

If you would like to write a letter to be produced/answered in the magazine, please email me at minor.hours.magazine@gmail.com with the subject line:

Letter to the Magazine: [subject of letter as you would like to see it printed]

If you wish the letter to be anonymous or under a nom de plume, please state so in the body of the email; similarly, if you'd rather not be printed at all, please also state so in the body of the email. It will otherwise be assumed that mail sent to that address is intended for print.

Alternately, commenting on the Patreon post will get you a similar result, with much less fuss.

******

As always, you can find me at my regular website, katherinecrighton.com, or sometimes via twitter, at @c_katherine.

To support the magazine and get it delivered directly to your inbox, join the Patreon.

-Until next week, be safe.

[thearchaeologiststeacup]

I've started making a little memory box from my PhD. It's not finished yet - I need to fasten things correctly and add in some structure - but so far it includes a postcard from the Inuit Studies Conference, a beautifully carved piece of caribou antler that I bought from an Igloolik artist, and a seal skull. . The seal material used in the experiments that were mentioned in Tuesday's poem all came from an animal that had died of natural causes. I had contacted the Pieterburen seal sanctuary to the north of Groningen to ask if they had any recently deceased seals, and received an affirmative. As they are a sanctuary, they receive a lot of sick or injured seals, and while many of them are able to be released back into the wild, there are unfortunately those who don't survive. I was therefore invited to attend the autopsy of two such individuals, and could then take whatever material I needed for my experiments. (I should say that this was only allowed because I had signed a scientific research declaration - they don't just allow anyone to come and get bits of dead seal...) . I therefore got the skins from two seals to use in my sewing experiments (the poem for that one will be shared next week) as well as the bones from one to use as the raw material for the different kinds of tools I needed for my PhD experiments. I did not need the skull for my experiments, but the vets very kindly let me take it, as they would have just thrown it out anyway, and so now it sits on my shelf as a memory to the creature without who I would not have been able to complete my PhD. . A bit of an odd post today, but I wanted to acknowledge that experimental archaeology is often a messy business. What's important is to approach the acquisition of raw materials from an ethical perspective, and respect the animals who donated them. . #ExperimentalArchaeology #ArchaeologyLife #ArchaeologyLovers #ArchaeologistsOfInstagram #archaeology #archaeologist #PhD #PhdLife #skull #ArcticArchaeology https://www.instagram.com/p/CqZsCghqhKo/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[levymcgarden55]

[id: 11 images. The first ten have text on them with the hashtag “overly honest methods” on top of different stock photos related to the text. They read:

1: Blood samples were spun at 1500pm because the centrifuge made a scary noise at higher speeds. 2: The samples incubated at ambient temperature in a remote border customs office for 5 months. 3: We didn't read half of the papers we cite because they are behind a paywall. 4: We chose to perform the test x-rays on a sea shell because the demonstrator said the pictures would be pretty. 5: We discovered the anxiogenic properties of our new drug accidentally, while trying to fuck with labmate Steve's coffee.

6: Experimental time points were chosen so I didn't have to come into the lab in the middle of the night or over the weekend. 7: This dye was selected because the bottle was within reach. 8: I used students as subjects because rats are expensive and you get too attached to them. 9: We don't know how the results were obtained. The postdoc who did all the work has since left to start a bakery. 10: The sample testicles were macerated by female undergrads because the boys all wussed out.

The last image is of tumblr tags that read “#I've also had people hold flakes and say "would i use this to cut something #does it fit well in my hand? #and most of the time you can feel where the person wouldve held it. #my favorite thing in archaeology tho is manuports #its basically when someone sees something #likes it #and takes it with them #so in like this 1800's homestead we did #they found three projectile points #arrowheads #with the bricks from the fireplace #we surmised that the owner of the house mustve found those projectile points and thought they were cool and placed them on the mantle #how neat is that

#and other times youll see pretty rocks just chillin at sites even tho those rocks arent native to the area and wouldnt have benefitted the #natives to keep #they kept cause it was a prett rock or pretty cool fossil or whatever #I just love that all humans have this need to pick up cool rocks #generations and eons of evolution and we still like cool rocks #:) [smily face] #keep #archaeology” end id]

Overly Honest Methods in science.

[7-milena-trajkovski-7]

Art Theory and Criticism - Journal reflection 6

An exhibition created in 2003 titled Gods in Color, puts to light the previously hidden truth about Greek statues and their pigmented exterior which is made up of coloured dye. These recreations made for the exhibition are based on archaeological findings and are fully restored to their rather garish colours. This is done to break the historic illusion of white as the main colour for the Classical, Hellenistic, and later periods like Neo-Classicism’s sculptures. The breaking down of this stigma is acted upon by choosing their original colours, which were very bold if pictured freshly done that time, which make them look kitschy in today’s societal views. Which is why compared to the elegance associated with the classical Greek marble statue, puts forward new commentary that still originates from centuries ago. As Stated from Liebieghaus (2020):

 Museum exhibitions of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures are striking for the dominance of pure white marble. But looks can be deceiving. These figures of gods and heroes were once richly clothed in vivid colors! We’ve known this for – so why does the image of whiteness still persist?

Figure 1: So-called Persian Rider, ca. 490 BC | Experimental color reconstruction of the so-called Persian Rider from the Athenian Acropolis, 2007/2019, Gods in Color – Golden Edition (liebieghaus.de)

The reconstructions of these works are pieced together using the ruins found, exposing the “former polychromy of the sculptures” (Liebieghaus, 2020). It is also important to note the change in visualisation and interpretation of the garments as compared to the blank sheets of clothes drowning in white, “Rich colors, detailed ornamentation, and countless gold dots once adorned this sculpture.” (Liebieghaus, 2020).

Figure 2: Detail of the hem of the vest of the so-called Persian Rider, showing the leaf-and-tongue pattern and a meander design, Gods in Color – Golden Edition (liebieghaus.de)

Excavations of these works only have the slightest scratches of pigment that can be seen with the naked eye. But this is enough for the artist and researcher to continue further from such a week and faint starting point. The patterns helped preserve whatever little colour was left after the Sculpture’s fate in the test of time and high chance on ruin, whether inflicted by man or nature. The unusual designs and colours make for a fresh view of these works and their time, that is when it comes to the mood and emotions, or even the narrative. However, what was lost to the naked eye can be discovered using the ever evolving technology of ultraviolet light, opening a whole new world of rediscovery and study of this already fascinating and highly researched era.

Figure 3: Archer from the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia, ca. 480 BC | Experimental color reconstruction of an archer, the so-called Paris, in the costume of the horsemen of the neighbouring peoples to the north and east, from the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia, Variant A, 1989–2003, Gods in Color – Golden Edition (liebieghaus.de)

Figure 4: UV-fluorescence photograph showing pattern on the leggings of the archer from the west pediment of Aphaia Temple, Gods in Color – Golden Edition (liebieghaus.de)

Reference list:

Liebieghaus, 2020. Gods in Color – Golden Edition. [online] Gods in Color – Golden Edition. Available at: <https://buntegoetter.liebieghaus.de/en/> [Accessed 19 November 2023].

[immaterialtraces]

A. They/them. Knowledge seeker.

A multi-disciplinary wandering concerning the nature of knowledge, the self, spirituality, ritual, embodiment, sensory experience, the occult, death, material culture, place, memory, and storytelling.

Research, philosophy, experimental archaeology, occultism, craft, art, storytelling, and whatever else catches my interest along the way.

Not inherently NSFW but not guaranteed to be friendly to minors.

Credo

✒

Current obsessions: ritual, sacrifice, hauntings, ghost stories, grief

Currently reading: Horror and the Holy, Kirk J. Schneider; The History of Magic, Chris Gosden

Ongoing Projects: TBA

Find me elsewhere: Material Traces (art-focused sibling blog)

[whartonists]

1870s Jenny Lind Cake

This recipe has everything. Opera! Science! Vanilla extract!

The specificity of this cake’s name is what first caught my eye--I knew who Jenny Lind was and I was curious as to why the cake bore her name. It also looked fairly straightforward to make, and I though that my rewatch of 1.04, with its memorable cameo by the Academy of Music (played by the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, incidentally) would be a great time to make it. (I did actually make it last Tuesday in time for my rewatch, but then I got so into the research for this post that I’m not posting it until now. Whoops.)

The recipe comes from a recipe manuscript from Massachusetts, dated 1870, but likely containing recipes from both before and after that date as well, and is transcribed in ye old trusty Food in the American Gilded Age, edited by Helen Zoe Veit. It reads as follows:

Jenny Lind Cake

Beat together 1 egg and 1 cup sugar--stir in 1/4 cup butter--Add one cup milk 1 tea spoon soda 2 tea spoons cream tartar A little salt 2 cups flour Flavor to taste--1 loaf.

It’s written in a cross between the narrative style of older recipes and the more precise format that was becoming increasingly common at the end of the 19th century, and is of course notably lacking baking instructions of any kind. However, it does include the clue that it should be baked in a loaf tin, and more precise instructions would’ve been fairly useless both to her and to me today--she would have been baking in a coal- or wood-burning stove, which had no precise heat settings and relied upon the baker to have the experience to know how to bake different genres of baked goods, like cakes, in it.

Jenny Lind, whose name first drew me to this recipe, was a Swedish opera star of the 19th century, who notably was brought to the U.S. by P.T. Barnum to do an American tour from 1850 to 1852. She was a sensation in American popular culture, and apparently any number of things were named after her--a quick search through the Feeding America cookbook archive turns up Jenny Lind’s Pudding (1857); Jenny Lind’s Soup (1870), purporting to be an actual recipe Lind’s cook made for her to soothe her chest and throat; a Jenny Lind Bread (1878); Jenny Lind Pudding (1882, totally different from the 1857 recipe); and Jenny Lind Punch (1897). I also stumbled across this wonderful blog post, listing a number of recipes specifically for Jenny Lind Cake. The first is from 1853--clearly, cooks were naming things after her almost immediately. (Indeed, a different recipe appears in a published cookbook that same year.) The post then goes on to list eleven other Jenny Lind Cake recipes, from personal cookbooks, published cookbooks, and newspapers, all the way up through 1913. The staying power and cultural relevance of Jenny Lind’s name is fascinating to me: sixty years after she had left the country, Americans were still naming recipes for her.

I couldn’t find cream of tartar at my grocery store, so I used baking powder to substitute for the baking soda and cream of tartar. Baking soda seems to have been more available in US earlier than baking powder (though the label on my brand of baking powder proudly informs me that it has been around since 1859); earlier recipes tend to use soda rather than powder. The difference of course is that baking powder has an acid, to activate the baking soda it contains, already mixed in; because baking soda needs an outside acid to react with, you’ll see recipes call for buttermilk or sour milk (most common in recipes I’ve seen), cream of tartar (close second), or another acid.

I used four teaspoons of baking powder, becausebaking powder has quite a bit of stabilizing agent (like corn or potato starch) mixed in to keep its other elements from reacting prematurely. It rose well, for a cake (which should be, well, cakey), but I’d like to try it again using the proper ingredients, and see what texture differences there might be.

For the flavoring, I of course had to use tumblr’s new favorite flavoring agent, vanilla extract. I used a scant teaspoon. Vanilla actually has an interesting history that ties in here, however, as it’s around the later 19th century that it starts becoming the “default” flavor in baked goods, the way we think of it today. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the default seems to have been rosewater, a flavor we almost never bake with anymore, but it served a similar purpose as vanilla does today, both a flavoring on its own as well as a complement to other flavors in baked goods. (This is purely something I’ve noticed from reading old cookbooks, so if anyone knows why this happened or has better sources around it, let me know.)

I ended up baking my cake loaf in a nice middling 350F oven, and it took almost exactly an hour to bake through. It got a lovely crust on top and has a very pleasant, almost birthday cake-like flavor from the vanilla. Highly recommend! It’s a lovely sort of snack cake, easy and tasty, and I will definitely be making it again the experiment further with leavenings (and flavorings--other Jenny Lind cake recipes call for spices to be added, so maybe I’ll experiment with that.)

[tnott]

"It's true that Mr. Tomkink isn't terribly interested in material culture," Theo said carefully. "His expertise lies more in historical records." Which was an excessively diplomatic way of saying that the man was a hidebound old curmudgeon who, like most of the international community of Wizarding historians, valued scrolls and books above all else and refused to consider that anything outside of his dusty little bubble could be worth investigating in the slightest.

But Theo couldn't say that sort of thing out loud, not if she wanted to keep her job, and she very much wanted to keep her job, especially considering the amount of trouble she'd gone through to get it; thanks to her father having trodden the family name quite thoroughly into the mud, she'd been hard pressed to find anyone who was willing to overlook her father's crimes and take her on as a research assistant, never mind that she'd earned a perfect score on her History of Magic NEWT. But Mr. Tomkink had been willing, and despite of his lack of creativity, he was a well-regarded member of the historian old guard -- even if he was so wrapped up in his books and scrolls that Theo wasn't certain he'd even noticed that Wizarding Britain had just gone through a war. Sometime he talked as though he thought that fool Cornelius Fudge was still in office.

Still, he'd been her best opportunity. And Theo would need all the opportunities that she could muster, because she was a Slytherin through and through, which meant she had goals and a plan through which to achieve them. The field of Wizarding history needed a good shaking-up, and Theo fully intended to be the one to do it. A life of living easily on her inherited wealth wasn't for her; Theo had ambitions, and she would accomplish them come hell or high water.

Pulling out a spelled loupe and her dragonhide gloves, which she had indeed brought and which she had also augmented with a few experimental charms to prevent contamination of enchanted artifacts -- let it not be said that she hadn't been thinking deeply about the implications of what she was learning in her Muggle archaeology classes! -- she said, "Seven boxes? Merlin, they have been putting this off for a while, haven't they?" She supposed the backlog might have been due to the war, but the war had been over for nearly four years now, so it truly did seem that the Ministry simply didn't consider this sort of thing to be a priority.

Big surprise, Theo thought to herself.

Peering into the box, the first thing that caught her eye was a single coin, still a little shiny under the patina of centuries, with whatever image had once been embossed on it worn into meaninglessness by frequent handling. "This is a Celtic stater," she said, reaching in and lifting it out. "Hammered coinage, probably from the Iron Age. Definitely enchanted, but I don't think the spell is harmful."

She looked around the office and suddenly realized that there was no suitable work surface, not even a table -- frankly, there wasn't even space for a table, between Black's desk and Arthur Weasley's desk -- so she asked, "Is there somewhere else we could work? I'll need to set these out to examine them, and your office is rather...cozy."

Cozy, in this case, being a polite way of saying more cramped than an elderly heiress with a hoarding problem's sitting room.

"But your boss doesn't give a damn about this, does he?" Sirius interpreted. In his experience, "prior commitments" generally meant that the topic was beneath their pay-grade--or else the person in question had gone mad and missing, and no one wanted yet to admit the truth, as had been the case of Barty Crouch. Sirius let his boots fall to the dusty floor as he sat up and reached for the letter an Owl had delivered hours ago. "Theodora Nott," he read off, recognizing the surname at once. Her father had been a Death Eater, and one of those now rotting in a cell in Azkaban. For her father's sake--not that Sirius believed he deserved it--Kingsley had at least begun cleaning up the place, breaking ties with the dementors and adding some humanity back into those holding cells from hell.

Kingsley had allowed Sirius to tour the facility not long ago. In fact, he'd offered Sirius a place in his cabinet with a chance to help with the prison reform project. In the end, Sirius had helped--he'd given his story, his advice, his "expertise"--but one trip out to the island had been enough to realize he could not make it his career. He wondered where her father was now, and for a moment, the grin slid off his face, replaced with the dark, cavernous expression that thoughts of Azkaban always gave him: like the soul really had been sucked out of him, like he couldn't quite remember how to feel anything.

He cleared his throat and tossed the letter back down. That she was the daughter of a Death Eater meant very little. One need only look at his own family tree to know that blood meant nothing unless you forced it too. He didn't know much about Knott, just that he'd been right in Voldemort's inner circle for a time--or so the rumors said--but once upon a time, Sirius' brother had been a part of that circle too, and their parents could not have been more proud.

"Well, I think I know what they were referring to. It's that box there." He gestured to a cardboard box in the corner of the stuffed room between his and Arthur's tiny desks. Sirius stood and pulled it out into the open, ripping apart the flaps to show the girl the contents inside. "There's some Roman artifacts in here. And medieval Britain and Ireland. Some assorted others I'm not sure about yet. I started sorting through them this morning. I don't know much about your boss--Tomkink, was it?--but the assignment, so they tell me, is that no one in the ministry wants to touch this box, and they're hoping you can tell them what's safe to sort through and what will burn our hands off."

The scare surrounding the box had not stopped Sirius, however, from beginning to sort through the items himself, and so far, his hands were still perfectly intact. "The letter said this is the first of seven boxes they're sending up, so it looks like we've got our work cut out for us. Hope you brought your dragonhide gloves."

[feminist-mina-harker]

This also applies to, like, careers. I literally owe my entire future to a random Tumblr post.

You ever just realized how lucky you are that you did that weird thing that led to you being friends with the people you are friends with?

[rudjedet]

Where can I learn more about Egyptian jewelry and perfumes and cosmetics and beauty rituals ?

I’m assuming you already read this ask I answered a while ago?

I’ll copy-paste the suggestions for further reading I’ve made back then for the benefit of others:

If you want to learn more, I’d suggest looking into the works of Salima Ikram, who has done experimental archaeology pertaining to Egyptian cosmetics. She has a chapter on toiletries in her book Ancient Egypt: An Introduction. Eugen Strouhal also has a chapter on the same in his book Life of the Ancient Egyptians.

If you have a JSTOR account, I suggest looking there, too. If you search for “Egyptian cosmetics” or variants thereof you’ll get a number of results from the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt among others. JSTOR allows you to read a number of articles each month for free online. (Such as this one: Cosmetics, Perfume and Incense in Ancient Egypt (it’s from 1930, though).)

Some more suggestions I can make, since we’re all practicing social distancing and trying to find ways to keep ourselves occupied anyway, is to scour museum databases for objects pertaining to toiletry, cosmetics, jewellery, etcetera. Often, they’ll come with a small description of what it is exactly you’re looking at, what it was made of, and/or how it was used. 

Here are links to a handful of museum databases:

British Museum database

Rijksmuseum van Oudheden/National Museum of Antiquities database (Dutch, though I think there’s an English option)

Metropolitan Museum of Art database

The Louvre Database (be forewarned this has shit search functionality)

You don’t want to be putting much stock in those “10 Beauty Rituals From Ancient Egypt” articles on websites such as Cosmopolitan or those beauty blogs, they’re usually incomplete at best, or give wrong information at first (Cleopatra did not use crocodile dung as a face cream, y’all). Wikipedia has pretty decent information on these subjects, but always check the source list. If you see too many websites or books written by non-Egyptologists, you’ll know to take whatever it says with a grain of salt.

You can also look at the Wikimedia Commons page for a number of Egyptian jewellery pieces, and use terms such as “wesekh” or “diadem” to further search on JSTOR for articles that suit your fancy. To pinpoint the stuff that has most use of being good, specify your search to the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, or check the Egyptologists’ Electronic Forum. 

You’d still have to exercise some caution, but if you’re ever in doubt about something that’s being suggested, feel free to poke me and I’ll see if I can help. 

[mahinourabdou]

WEEK 3 POST WEEK 🌟 HERE WE GO!

Before I go into detail of a few comments for research, influence, and notes about my upcoming painting project series for the class, I would like add something in regards to the “Content, Materials, and Process” post made last week. I wanted to add onto the “Process” part regarding the shooting art style/painting technique after pharaohnic era. Not only would I want to be interested in Picasso’s marks (the dynamics of how he shapes the forms of cubist artwork from his models from head to toe) but i also wanted to go back a bit: either Impressionism or Fauvism, or BOTH! Fauvism is a very interesting art style i just remembered/realized before even having to say about Picasso’s Cubism art technique (i may turn into Dory from Finding Nemo eventually due to a bit of memory loss from my past art history classes a few semesters back hahaha 🤣). The reason why I say this is because I see Impressionism and Fauvism as very important art styles/1800s aesthetic use of painting, color, and landscape skills that brought the whole art world’s attention during the 1800s as a birth of a brand new era. Especially when it comes to Van Gogh (what also inspired me from his magnificently iconic artwork “Starry Night”), I thought because it looked so calming and smooth because of how he used his brush strokes as a symphony to create a life-like attraction of what beauty he sees within his perspective amongst the reality that seemed rather not harsh but vernacular for an average everyday person doing the same thing all day: wake up, eat, work, go back home, eat, drink, sleep, and repeat. Same thing with the pharaoh art I would do; the Spiral of Thought (if you go back to the Content, Materials, and Process post i made/talked about) will be a unique trademark of how it will attract and relate to us of how we feel about our emotions and stressing days; alongside of how we think of our thoughts inside-out, and/or the opposite, outside-in. In my opinion, I think Van Gogh had more of what he wanted to expect for his artistic value and love for art for anyone who’d aspire to look upon him as a friend and a person of color and vividly kind creativity. That’s why by his “Starry Night” painting, it gave me the sudden, warm, and mediated feeling that Impression and Fauvism are the key to an artist’s reality check from whatever struggles he/she are facing within the everyday life we live in from the Modern era/Gen-z society we live in today.

———————————————————

POST 1!

RESEARCH (PT. 1)

Subject——EXPLORATION: Pharaoh Art (Exploring Its Art, Fashion, and Faces)

Going through this subject of the research I will break this post (separately) down into 3 parts—Exploration, Influence, and Experimentation. Today I will go through exploration. (IF POSSIBLE, I may add a little it of how I got influenced and inspired by the artwork from the Ancient Egyptian era; I will put a little bit of its heritage along this post if i may)

While roaming through my favorite museums, The Met and MoMA, I had always favored The Met mst often. Through its website to personal visits, I always had to start with the Ancient Egyptian Art section; nonetheless, it had so much more history from fine arts to mosaics and from relief paintings to sculptures. Also, if i can recall, a documentary by the name of Netflix’s “Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb” was beyond all levels the most interesting documentary i have ever watched (highly recommend it), for hard working archaeologists, until today, have discovered a pharaoh that had nearly been forgotten and yet analyzed to be hidden for the past 4400 years—the excavation was announced in November 2018. NOT ONLY FROM THE WHOLE DOCUMENTRAY, but animation segments describing the ancient artifacts of how Ancient Egyptian pharaohs/gods/goddess handled with everyday pharaohs during that era had so much monarchy awed today’s historians and analysists for years and years. What I would like to add about the documentary that actually did caught my eye was not only the beauty of how the archaeologists worked and dug really hard to find the new pharaonic discover,b to the animation segments that moved and placed the rare expectations of how the era felt genuine, golden, and mostly royal towards the Ancient Egyptian society before we were all born.However, because of the hard work the servants, villagers, and high classed pharaohs served their royals paid off with their stories carved, painted, and decorated onto the walls, pillars and temples, it is easy enough to say that it means a whole lot from their time period that blessed future and present artists, historians, and archaeologists today the rare beauty and magnificent restorations and excavations. Because i say this, I believe the rare beauty of how the pharaoh era became essentially the most aesthetic, authentic, and golden time when their arts became the historical movement of all art history and archaeology. Here are a few Pinterest images of Pharaoh art/wall paintings collages for your better viewing to understand why, how, and what the distinguishing beauty and fabulous color remarks the Ancient Egyptians used to tell stories, historical events, and (i wish gossip *hehe* 🤣) other specific genres of average/mysterious/formal everyday of the pharaohnic era.

As you can see here, in this collage, not only because of how the Ancient Egyptian lives lived through stories depicting war, religion, rituals, monarchy, and structurizing royal classes, but because of how these artworks (sculptural and architectural as well—but for this series i will mostly focus on wall paintings) resembled the rhythmic and superior use of colors, shapes, texture (fashion and painting-constructed wise), headwear/crowns, jewelry and facial expressions.

[papermonkeyism]

Hey Paper! Happy summer! I have a weird question: do you know how to not feel bad about neglecting your note/sketchbooks? I'm writing and planning ideas for a novel (illustrated, and in general pictures help flesh out stuff) as well as plan a D&D campaign, I have a handful of different empty books for these projects but I only manage to fill out a few spreads before sort of freezing. I look at months long gaps and want to rip my books to tiny shreds! Any advice for getting over this? :(

Not sure, I personally just dump everything into the same sketchbook (and then might go back to mark specific pages with book marks or post it bits so I can find stuff like comic scripts and important world building notes later)

Uh, wall-of-text warning. This got kinda long.

I once tried having a separate book for the dinosaur project thingy, but I think I maxed out at, like, eight pages, and the rest is now in the main sketchbook series.

I do however, have a specific tiny pocket sketchbook dedicated for my dragonborn ranger's DnD campaign notes!

So, question: where do you use your sketchbooks?

The main reason my dinosaur book failed was that sometimes I wanted to draw dinosaurs at school, or at a cafe, or at my parents' place, but I had left my dino specific book at home. My imagination doesn't only work at home, I'm always doing something. And sometimes ideas and inspiration just strike, and I have two options: A, doodle them on the general sketchbook then and there and then move on to draw whatever else I might want to doodle after, or B, NOT draw that idea in the general book, and instead wait untill I get back to the specific book, and often end up drawing nothing at all because this specific idea needs to be drawn first, and also risk forgetting the idea or losing inspiration by the time I get back. This can also lead to an art block, when you're only allowing yourself to do this one, specific thing on this one specific book, when your brain might want to sparkle other ideas elsewhere.

The DnD ranger's book, on the other hand, I keep in the same pile with the character's sheet and her spell card deck. So whenever I get out to go roleplaying, the tiny sketchbook comes with me, and it'll always be at hand when I need to take notes, because that's its main function. (I have taken roleplaying notes on the general sketchbook too, like my monk and warlock are both on the main books, but since the campaigns have been so long, I'd now need to bring two or even three separate sketchbooks to keep all my notes at hand and it's a hassle) But I know I need this specific book when I'm at this specific place, so it's easier to keep consistent.

It is also perfectly normal (for me) to get obsessed by a certain headworld or project for extended periods of time, but also to switch on the fly when a random idea strikes me. My sketchbook's have like archaeological layers. Like "here's a dinosaur era, here's an entire period dominated by Wurr, here's a single drawing of a completely unrelated project, another dinosaur phase, and here's now half a sketchbook of Entica with some random pokemon occasionally sprinkled in". So I can't really predict what I'll feel like drawing at any given time. What if I'm at my parents' place, and have sketchbooks for some of my different projects, but then I see some new discovery on the internet, and I'm suddenly on a dinosaur phase again? Do I need to keep ALL the specific sketchbooks at hand wherever I go? That could make multiple kilograms by now. I might be really into a world for a long while, and then neglect it for another headworld for months, sometimes even years before circling back. That happens.

Maybe there's pressure to create pretty, concise and consistent content, but that can also turn into a block. If you only allow yourself to do Pretty and Perfect, you might never get anything done. (this is why my sketchbooks have pages of experimental messes and outright ruined pages. Sometimes you just need to splatter coffee all over a page to make it less intentionally pretty, so there's less things to worry about. Sketchbooks are sllowed to be messy)

One of my DnD buddies makes messy notes on scrap paper during sessions, but collects them in this pretty, hand made book afterwards. Maybe that's an option too? Collect notes from general sketchbook, if you have one, into the specific ones by copying them? Or maybe even scrapbook them instead? Like you could make your notes in a general book whenever you think them up, maybe even use a sketchbook with tearable pages, and then cut and paste pages on their designated project books later?

If you have a specific place where you work, like a specific desk, maybe have a little book case on it with all the sketchbooks, so you have them at hand and can switch books depending on what you're working on at any given moment.

Or if you have specific places to get into mood (DnD campaign planning always happen on this specific chair, or at a coffee shop, but novel writing at the library? So today you know you're gonna go to a library, so you know in advance you'll be working on a novel and need the novel note sketchbook. Back before my Brainstorm Buddy moved out of town, I knew whenever I was visiting, we'd be working on comics (or pretended to be working on comics) , so I had my comic folder with me whenever I went to see her. I sometimes still get into Wurr mode whenever I walk this specific road to where she used to live)

(or just dump everything into the same book and bookmarking the heck out of it with color coded post it bits like some dumbass, a.k.a me.)

Any helpful?

[jeanjauthor]

I tried 3000-Year-Old Hairstyles • Using Iron Age Tools!

Obviously artists will want to know these things if they’re drawing Bronze Age (or a little later) hairstyles...but writers may also want to know this information.

It will make your characters seem more real if they ever have to (or want to) pin up their hair like this, without constantly referring to the ubiquitous “thong” to tie it back...which is so boringly ubiquitous (and I’m guilty of this, too; don’t get me wrong!) that it’s sort of a mini-trope that people take for granted.

It actually turns out that hair pins and clothing pins were VERY common in ancient times, to the point where losing them was just an utterly common thing.  Metal ones weren’t super-common, and certainly wouldn’t have been cheap, but they definitely would have been a status symbol, a display of one’s wealth.

Yes, it’s an expensive loss if you lost a metal pin, but whatever we find in the way of metal, there surely would have been plenty of bone and wood pins, too.  Certainly, they would have been even more common than metal ones (and considerably cheaper in many ways), but also far more likely to decay and vanish into the soil when lost.

Spiral braid holders would’ve been exceptionally tricky to carve from bone or wood, compared to metal wire. (Not impossible, but quite tricky by comparison.) So if a character of few means or resources were to get a metal hairpin, that might be one of the first ones they splurged on. Additionally, the top (wide-mouthed end) of the spiral was probably fashioned in a way that it could have been twisted so that the upper end could penetrate the braid.

From there, it could be turned a few times, further locking the spiral into the plait. This would work best if there were several more interweavings of the braid below the anchoring point--the cinchng taper of the spiral would help keep the lower sections from unbraiding themselves, in turn helping keep the upper weave in place, further locking the spiral into the end of the hair.

I know from personal experience (when my hair is long enough) that if I’m not doing very hard work/heavy labor, I can twist it into a bun and fasten it with just 1 straight pin, if that pin is long enough, and you do the scalp-scrape-and-wavy-penetration she describes in the video. (A wooden pin actually works best for this, as the grain will ‘catch and hold’ my hair a little better than metal or polished bone, even if the wood is sanded & painted.)

Of course, two straight pins are going to hold better, and several will work best...but if they’re straight and fairly polished, with no textures such as ridges for the hair to catch on, they will eventually work their way out and potentially be lost, especially if the hair is pinned to the back of the head.  If you look closely at the pins, they have ridges near the diamond-head bits. Those are designed to catch on the tightly-wrapped hair and provide hopefully just enough friction to keep the pins from shaking loose, without (again hopefully) catching and holding too much on the strands of hair when it comes time to pull them out and comb the oil and dust of the day from your hair.

And yes, most people of the Americas and Eurasian continents combed their hair frequently in the Ancient days through to the Middle Ages. (Natural African hair was also kept well-groomed, but I’m not even going to pretend I know much about it, other than that good hair grooming was a sign of good manners & good hygiene wherever one lived.)

Now, the finer-toothed the comb, the better your hair would look, but it wasn’t always easy to detangle it even with a wide-toothed comb.  The best solution was always to secure one’s hair by tying or plaiting in some way--men and women both--though women were more likely to pin their hair up, according to grave goods.

However, with that said...if anyone was a warrior, it would be far more likely that they kept their hair cut short, male or female, to cut down (literally, lol) on the chance of their hair being grabbed by an opponent and used for leverage in making a close-quarters attack.  This is why archaeologist don’t often find hairpins in the graves of warrior women...leading to the (idiotically misogynistic) idea that graves with warrior-goods (armor, weapons, etc) were somehow entirely the graves of men alone, “...because surely they’d have feminine things like hair pins in the graves, instead of swords and daggers and no hairpins!”  Uhh...not if they’re warriors with hair too short to be grabbed and used as a handle, bucko!

Anyway...when it comes to researching the setting, customs, clothing, hairstyles, and so forth for a story, writers...don’t just rely upon dry dusty archaeological findings.  Look around and try to find experimental archaeology attempts. (Or attempt something yourself; use discretion & modern safety standards, blah blah blah, ymmv ofc.)

Sometimes a seemingly academically sound theory ain’t worth squat when you try it in real life...and sometimes you’ll stumble across a new way to do a thing when you literally try to do it yourself with similar tools and a bit of open-minded thinking.  And if you can translate that into a story, you’ll bring that story to even greater life, by giving readers glimpses into your characters’ daily lives.

...Why is that important?  Because right now, we could seriously use some solidly good, deeply immersive fiction for escape. It’s vital to protest against dirty cops and that Black Lives Matter...but it’s also vital to pace ourselves, and that means taking time off now and then to relax, unwind, escape from reality, and just take a break.  Since we’re all in quarantine (or should be, in America)...sometimes the best way to do that is via a book or a short story or whatever.  Immersive fiction, with depth and details, can provide that escape by replacing our actual surroundings with reasonably detailed descriptions of Other Times & Places.

And that is the best goal a writer can have, these days: to give our readers a decent escape from everything. Even if only for a little while.