The View From Kalamazoo

You know, I had really thought I saw it all – that is, that I’d seen every possible way someone could cruelly abuse the spelling of medieval. When I was teaching, of course, I had some fantastic misspellings cross my desk (my absolute favorite was Charlemange. very contagious, leads to an unsightly desire for external conquest and internal reform. And no, schmartass, it wasn’t a mere typo – it was spelled the same way throughout a 5-page essay in which they actually managed to reference The Two Lives of Charlemagne and spell it correctly. hoo boy). Certainly there is no end to the amusement when teaching undergraduates, but the really amazing sadistic twisting of the poor word comes via the post office.

Letters, postcards, boxes full of books or supplies or whatnot – great or small, very important or nonsense tossed directly into the recycle bin, the address labels give us much in the way of mirth.

Ah but today, today. Today we chortled in our joy – hilarity, I tell you, as we discovered (like Schliemann finding Troy! Ok, maybe not…*snicker*) an amazing new rendition of our favorite ill-treated word!

midevile

This we add to our hallowed list of misspellings, to wit:

mid-evil (my favorite of the bunch! we’re not a little evil, we’re not very evil, we’re only middlin‘ evil!)
mideaval
midiful (I must admit, I can abide nothing full of midi!)
medevial
mideville (distant cousin of Cruella, I’m sure)
medeval
middevil (it’s just so Faust)
midevul
med-evil (as opposed to small or large, I suspect)
midival

Now, now I can die a happy Lisa. Fulfilled…

Alas, it appears from the soundtrack listing for Sweeney Todd that Johanna (Mea Culpa) (see it at the end, after Pirelli) has been cut out of the movie.

I think it’s one of the most powerful pieces in the musical, but seems often to be left out by productions…a shame, because the parallel of Turpin’s full-on decent into dementia to Todd’s with his Epiphany is masterful Sondheim. Dark, disturbing, demented…delightful. Judex ergo cum sedebit, quidquid latet apparebit: nil inultum remanebit.

(And I have to admit that I’ve rather wondered how Burton would handle the judge scourging himself to orgasm, since he wouldn’t have to stick to the staging as shown in the above clip and in the Barcelona performance, as well. O curiosity!)

Yay Yay Yay! I’ve been waiting for the unveiling of this book since forever (forever is years ago when Ray and I sat in on a Newberry Library seminar on medieval magic and chatted about it- I admit I unabashedly pimp the work of people I know and respect), so I am ecstatic for them!

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Summer 2008 Research Seminar on Extreme Materialist Medieval Manuscript Studies at the University of Iowa, June 2-13, 2008. Director: Jonathan Wilcox.

UP TO 10 FELLOWSHIPS to participate in The University of Iowa Obermann Center for Advanced Studies 2008 Research Seminar in “Medieval Manuscript Studies and Contemporary Book Arts: Extreme Materialist Readings of Medieval Books,” June 2-13, 2008.

This seminar will bring together contemporary book artists specializing in medieval-inspired techniques of papermaking, bookbinding, and calligraphy, among others, with medievalists whose scholarship depends upon a knowledge of the intimate physical details of medieval manuscript production. Participants will bring to the seminar the draft of an unpublished essay that models extreme materialist readings of a medieval book as a case study that will be discussed by all of the seminar participants, each bringing his or her own expertise. Seminar participants will have access to papermaking, bookbinding, and scribal facilities for modeling some of the underlying issues. The seminar will result in an essay collection that will exemplify what can be achieved in the field of medieval manuscript studies through such extreme attentiveness to the material.

Deadline for application: Wednesday, January 30, 2008. Those participants selected to join the seminar will be offered a stipend of $1,500 along with expenses. For more information and application details, please see the attached flyer or visit the UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies website at http://www.uiowa.edu/obermann/medievalbooks. Direct any questions to Obermann Center Administrator, Neda Barrett ([email protected], 319-335-4034) or to Jonathan Wilcox ([email protected]).

The briefest of updates, as I have been poked soundly via email regarding the aforementioned dearth. It’s lovely to have friends and colleagues that think so highly of my prattle that they nag incessantly gently remind me of my responsibilities. *snort*

• In addition to presider duties for the smashing session on blogging Shana Worthen and I have put together, it appears I’ll be presiding over another blogging session, a general, as well. Whee! I get to leave Registration! (please do not think I exaggerate my excitement, there is a reason I am so dreadfully punchy by Saturday…)

• I’ve been too busy to photograph anything I have finished and put it up in the shop, too busy to glaze this fall (so I have crazy amounts of bisque ware to cope with in January), too busy to spend as much weekend time in the studio as I’d like, and I’m sick of busy. Officially. Next big decision – do I want to keep playing with salt or shift to wood-firing (anagama) for grins and giggles. Oh yes, the survival of nations depends on that massive decision. *eyeroll* (yep, I’m as ‘interesting’ as ever, folks – sometimes no news is good news!) I have commission inquiries looming…production pottery, can I really manage it without losing my blinkin’ mind? Honestly, sets (especially large sets) really bring out the obsessive in me (did I just hear a collective groan from my closest friends? oh yes, they know, they do…like a bloodhound on crack, I am, complete with utterly random panic of the type-A variety). *fret. fret. fret*

• Too. Much. To. Do. At. Work. Seriously, it’s talk me off the ledge time. When I’m not hyperventilating I’m head*desking. That sound Charlie Brown makes when Lucy Van Pelt snatches the football away as he’s about to kick? Auuuugh! Yeah – that sounds like me on a disturbingly regular basis – scary, twitchy, insane secretary.

Add that to the bits I mentioned at the beginning of my last post, put it into your pipe, smoke away. So there. /petulant sneer