 ere
are some of the best mails from July 2004, with my
frequently-extensive comments following each mail. Many other
reader mails during that month were posted and commented on in the daily
blogs, so check the archives for July
2004 if you want to be a completist about things.
Mails are arranged in
chronological order, with the earliest on top.
Date: July 6, 2004
From: Mark
Subject: Historical Movies/King Arthur
Hey there,
Movies about ancient battles and heroes certainly
are popular as of late, huh? "Troy", "King Arthur", "Alexander"...all starring popular hotties/hunks, too. What's next, "Attila the Hun" starring Jet Li? It
should be interesting to see how accurate "Alexander" is. The real Alexander the Great died a
miserable death by malaria at age 33 (ten years after his last battle), which isn't a good way to end a
movie by Hollywood standards. Then again, the fact that Colin Farrell is cast as Alexander prevents me
from taking the movie seriously no matter how accurate it is.
Here's the lowdown about the 'real' King Arthur
that may or may not interest you:
The only two major characters in the collected
Arthurian legends that have a basis in history are Arthur and Merlin. All of the other characters were
made up for various reasons that I will elaborate on in a bit.
"King Arthur" was really Artorius, a Romanized
Briton who lived in the 5th century AD. He was the colleague/relative (we aren't quite sure) of Ambrosius
Aurelanius*, the governor of Britain under the Roman Empire. Artorius had the title Dux Bellorum, or Duke
of Battles. He led his armored cavalry in twelve astonishing victories against the Saxons and Picts who
were invading Britain at the time. Every last member of his cavalry died in his last battle, but they
completely annhialated an opposing army about 5 times their size. These twelve battles made Artorius a
legend.
The true identity of "Merlin" is not as easy to
discern. Currently, his character is believed to be based on Myrrdin the Wise, a hermit who lived in the
9th century AD. It is hard to find information about Myrrdin, because he lived in the Britain's Dark Age,
which began wen the Saxon/Pictish invaders took over and lasted until Charlemagne came in 1100 AD. The first mention of Arthur as a king comes from
Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historie of the Kings of Britain", from the 12th century AD.
As for the other characters? They seem to have
been completely made up, often by religious authorities at different points in Britain's history.
Guenevere was never a major part of Arthurian legends until mysoginistic Cistnerian monks made her an
adultress in 1200 AD. Galahad was invented a couple hundred years later to represent the ideal of
christian chivalry. It has taken many years, and the work of thousands of people.
Hope that helps.
sss
_________________
Date: July 6, 2004
From: Donnie
Subject: diets
Reading your blog about diet plans I was left with a single question. You mentioned that you still see a lot of commercials for products that are made with low carbs for the Atkins people (the fact that coke released c2 and pepsi just released the rival pepsi edge is proof enough for me), the thing is that I didn't think that you watched any television at all. If you do, you have no doubt seen the ads for the new weight loss pills like Cortislim. There are currently three different commercial campaigns going for three different pills (I am blanking the names of the other two right now) that all claim the same thing; instant weight loss, of 20 pounds or more, if you take their pills.
I, being quite cynical, think that those pills are aimed directly at people who have completely fucked up the atkins diet, and actually gained weight in the process. Like some sort of an "ultra stool softener" that will help to get rid of a lot of the crap that has built up in the bodies of the dieters. The question is, do you think I am way off base with that idea or right on the money?
I really think that it should be common knowledge by now that it is unhealthy to consume anything exclusively. If you eat nothing but meat and cheese you will have a lifespan about equal to what they had in the what 1500's, where you lived until thirty and then your heart just blew up?
Thinking along the same lines, wasn't it only sailors that seemed to suffer from "Scurvy", which was easily avoided if they ate a piece of fruit from time to time?
Back to the weight loss issue. Do you remember all through the nineties, where they were making everything 'low fat', but pouring in tons of sugar so that it didn't taste like crap? Everyone who was even slightly overweight was giving it a shot. Problem was that they seemed to forget eating a low fat salad, with a low fat dressing (therefore slathering their salad with sugar instead of fat), was just giving them even more energy to burn before their body got around to the fat reserves.
The number one thing that could.. no.. Should be done, would be to tell those people who are obese that there is not a quick fix for the problem. Every minute that they spend reading the latest "lose weight fast" book is taking away from time that they could be walking around or otherwise expending calories.
The only reason that I bring this all up is that every one of the "lose weight fast" pills says that the pill, "along with a healthy diet and exercise" is the path to weight loss. How do you become obese, or morbidly obese, if you have a healthy diet and exercise regularly?
If you are looking for a way to make yourself thin without a healthy diet or exercise you should look to Bulimia, of course you need to get on board when you are VERY young.
;o
sss
_________________
Date: July 13, 2004
From: Aahz
Subject: Living forever
I am definitely interested, but I didn't speak up because I'm not sure when I'd get to read it right now. Plus, at the time, I think you just had one chapter done. I'd really prefer to see 2-3 chapters together just so I could kind of get the flow of the literature. Does that make any sense?
Wow, that sounds incredibly picky. I want to read the novel, and I'd be interested in seeing excerpts. So whenever you get to a point that you think something should be sent out, I'll be happy to read it.
-Aahz
Flux <flux@blackchampagne.com> wrote:
Living forever is certainly a good blog topic for some day. Malaya's always interested in the subject, since when it's presented in fiction the immortals are almost always unhappy, tortured, alone, and they continue to be just as stupid at 500 as they were at 15, in terms of picking their relationship partners, acting impetuously, etc. Obviously we can't study any real 700 year olds to see how they're doing, but would people really get smarter if they'd for centuries? Or would they/we keep on doing the same stupid shortsighted stuff, living for the moment, indulging even more than we do since we knew it wouldn't kill us, etc?
I do ponder that sort of stuff in my novel (at least behind the scenes, in terms of how I want Quinoss to act) since there are a number of characters who are virtually immortal, and have lived a very, very long time before they appear in the story.
Speaking of the novel, you've never piped up when I've mentioned samples of it to site donors. You're not interested, I assume?
Flux
>
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! k ;o
sss
_________________
Date: July 24, 2004
From: R. L. Mackey
Subject: Gypsies
The Roma in Europe are forced to steal. People ignorantly believe that if you are born a rom, you are born a theif. They don't have a chance. People won't hire them, and laws are made against their lifestyle(such as living in traveling caravans, of which Britain made a law against in recent years..) If you could not find a job, and you had a family to feed and clothe, what would you do? You would steal to provide for them, and yourself. Anyone would. Why don't you try and be different by not believing everything you hear about them and help to try and end the ignorant stereotypes.
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