Don't be mislead by my newfound wealth; my core identity has not changed from when we lived near each other.
Today I found midwestgrrl, which I may have found before. then forgotten about... but anyhow, it's great.
I recently finished reading David Starkey's Six Wives: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and it was really good. Some of the political wrangling was a little difficult to follow, but I learned several things from the book.
1) The word "sad" used to mean "wise." Ignorance is bliss, of course, but the flip side is (and apparently has been for a while) that knowledge is depressing. This reminds me of Jonathan Franzen's essay on "depressive realism," or the sense that a person can be rationally justify being depressed, considering the state of the world. The state of the environment and environmental legislation alone makes me feel this way.
2) Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, was named after Katherina of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife, who was her godmother. Creepy!
3) "duckies" is a 16th-century slang term for breasts.
4) It's really funny to think about a king talking about "duckies" and thinking about breasts.
5) Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, was from Germany and he never liked her because she failed to participate in what she should have known were the games of courtly love. Poor Anne of Cleves.
6) Henry VIII actually was capable of having male children, which I hadn't realized; he had several bastard boys and a legitimate son who lived until the age of 15.
7) Once Henry wrested absolute power and absolute allegience from the papacy in Rome, it was impossible for him to logically establish absolute allegience as the head of the English church, because he had proven that what appeared to be unbreakable absolutes actually were not. This, I believe, opened the door to much of the further Reformation that was to come in England.
8) Every summer, the king and a group of people would travel the countryside and observe their kingdom. This was called the "Progress."
9) Heh, duckies.
Today I found midwestgrrl, which I may have found before. then forgotten about... but anyhow, it's great.
I recently finished reading David Starkey's Six Wives: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and it was really good. Some of the political wrangling was a little difficult to follow, but I learned several things from the book.
1) The word "sad" used to mean "wise." Ignorance is bliss, of course, but the flip side is (and apparently has been for a while) that knowledge is depressing. This reminds me of Jonathan Franzen's essay on "depressive realism," or the sense that a person can be rationally justify being depressed, considering the state of the world. The state of the environment and environmental legislation alone makes me feel this way.
2) Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, was named after Katherina of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife, who was her godmother. Creepy!
3) "duckies" is a 16th-century slang term for breasts.
4) It's really funny to think about a king talking about "duckies" and thinking about breasts.
5) Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, was from Germany and he never liked her because she failed to participate in what she should have known were the games of courtly love. Poor Anne of Cleves.
6) Henry VIII actually was capable of having male children, which I hadn't realized; he had several bastard boys and a legitimate son who lived until the age of 15.
7) Once Henry wrested absolute power and absolute allegience from the papacy in Rome, it was impossible for him to logically establish absolute allegience as the head of the English church, because he had proven that what appeared to be unbreakable absolutes actually were not. This, I believe, opened the door to much of the further Reformation that was to come in England.
8) Every summer, the king and a group of people would travel the countryside and observe their kingdom. This was called the "Progress."
9) Heh, duckies.
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