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Idea shamelessly stolen from Sarah Eve Kelly. I thought it would fun and maybe even useful to make a list of some of the things I hope to accomplish this summer as a way of keeping myself on track and honest. The original title of this post was ‘summer bucket list” but I realized once I was done that most of these things are not bucket list worthy (though some are). I am confining the list to those things over which I have some degree of control…

First are some things that are work related, but don’t feel sorry for me. I actually find working on my own research projects fun (which is why I have the job I have):

Finish and submit at least two articles for publication. They’re both nearly ready to go and there is no excuse not to get them out there.

Write another article on Cluny and Spain.

Write a paper presentation and article on Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada and Islam

Decide whether I want to spend a good deal of time working on Michael Scot and not feel guilty if the answer to that question is “no.”

Figure out what I want to write next.

Okay, now here are the fun bits:

Visit Kelmscott

Do “some” or maybe even “most” of the long walks around Oxford that I have printed out

Lose ten pounds. Okay maybe that won’t be “fun” all by itself But if I do it by walking (see above) then it will be pretty fun.

See my sister and my cousins.

Eat at Moro and Ottolenghi

Visit North Hatley, maybe in time for the Ayer’s Cliff Fair this year.

And last but not least, meet Sarah herself!

What are you trying to accomplish?

Check it out:

angrychicken.typepad.com

I found this post the usual way by following a link that took me to a link and then to another, but this one stopped me cold.  Dear Reader, I owned almost every single pair of these shoes.  Not the Tretorns.  My sister owned the Tretorns.  But Duck boots? Check.  Jellies? Check?  Penny loafers (no pennies; that’s TTFW), topsiders, espadrilles?  Check, check, check.  I even owned a series of pairs of Dr. Scholl’s.  In fact, I still have the last pair and I wear them at the cottage.  God, I was such a  preppy.

I haven’t felt so bad since I realized my local Whole Foods plays the soundtrack of every high school dance I ever attended every time I shop there.  I’d better stay away from Urban Outfitters or it could get ugly.

My Keds were pink, by the way.  And this is not an Aril Fool’s joke.  I only wish.

I got back a couple of days ago from the annual conference of the Medieval Academy at Yale. I have to admit, it is a conference I usually avoid for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with an unedifying reverse snobbery. I was persuaded to attend this year by a worthy cause, a session organized to honour my beloved doctoral advisor. “Oh well,” I thought, “It is worth it for that alone and I can spend the rest of the time reading novels and eating fish by the seaside.”

I did eat fish by the seaside (lobster rolls, lobster bisque, and sole in lobster sauce in one memorable meal), but the conference was worth it on so many levels. It was beautifully organized. Conferences, like armies, march on their stomachs and we were exceptionally well treated in that respect. The program was really exciting, and this is not always the case, to put it mildly. So, good for you, Yale.

I’m pointing you outside my blog today, to a post I wrote for the web journal Sightings, published by the Martin Marty Center. As many of you know, I wrote my dissertation and first book on anti-Jewish religious polemic in the Middle Ages, and the way it was used to define Christians and separate them from those with different beliefs. When I read the address Pope Benedict XVI gave at Regensburg on reason and faith in 2006, it upset me greatly because I had the sense he was arguing for a return to twelfth-century modes of inter-religious understanding — or misunderstanding as it might be. But I wasn’t moved to write until a couple of weeks ago, when I read a new address he gave praising one of the architects of this understanding, Peter the Venerable. Here’s the first paragraph, and the link that follows will take you to the full text:

n his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on October 14th, Pope Benedict gave an address in which he held up the twelfth-century monk and abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable, as a model for contemporary Christians, lay and monastic, praising him for his ability to balance both contemplative spirituality and the demands and pressures of the world. Peter was an unusual choice. Though the pope associated him with the abbey’s canonized abbots, quoting his papal predecessor Gregory VII that at Cluny, “there was not a single abbot who was not a saint,” Peter in fact was never canonized. Why select him as a model over other Benedictine contemplative administrators, not least Saint Benedict himself, who could provide the same example of tranquility in the face of turmoil? What makes Peter stand out from his brethren at this moment in time?

http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/archive_2009/1029.shtml

As promised, here’s a photo of my treasures from the annual Hyde Park used booksale. Missing from the photo are a couple of gifts, but otherwise, they’re all here, 50 books for around $30. Taking a look at my piles, I can see why I have a hard time answering “What’s your favourite genre?” questions. I truly do read a little of everything. But they’re not all mine. Most of the left-hand stack are for my son, especially all the Patrick O’Brians. And the Star Wars. But you knew that.

(Click the photo for a larger view)

I felt like the last part of my childhood died today.

I know a lot of people have said that by now, but that’s because sometimes a cliche is true. To my son, Michael Jackson is nothing more than a set up line in a joke about pedophilia, but like so many others, I grew up with him. For me, he was in the background, not centre stage, but always present, from the Saturday morning cartoon show to the explosion of “Off the Wall” — which made a much greater impact on me than “Thriller.” I’ve always loved his dancing more than his music, though some of his songs are still iconic for me. “Billie Jean” was high school graduation. I still have an old cassette tape somewhere that has Yaz’s first album on the A side and then Altered Images, ABC “The Look of Love,” Men Without Hats “Safety Dance,” and “Billie Jean” on the flip side.

My relationship with Farrah is far more complicated. She hit on the very cusp of my homely adolescence and what that poster said to me and to a generation of young women was, “You will never, ever be good enough. You will never be who someone wants.” When we played “Charlie’s Angels” in the playground, I knew instinctively that the most I could attempt was Kate. And that’s sad, because, given her choice of roles in later life, intimidating a crowd of teenage girls was probably the last thing Farrah ever wanted to do.

I think this video is as good as any to close with because it shows Michael at one of his most admirable moments, and also encapsulates the era I’m saying goodbye to as well as anything could.

You’ve all read Romeo and Juliet. But did you ever wonder just how that famous feud between the Capulets and the Montagues got started? Blixt did, and his answer to that question is just one of the threads that makes up his spectacular debut novel, The Master of Verona

It’s not Shakespeare who is at the centre of this book, however. It is Dante Alighieri, or Alaghieri, and especially his eldest son Pietro through whom we witness the desperate battles between the Guelfs and Ghibellines and the slow-motion tragedy that is the beginning of Verona’s fall. Pietro is an enormously engaging and sympathetic hero whom we follow as he strives to come out behind the shadow of his famous father and make his own way in the world.

And what a world it is. It isn’t fair to compare any author to another, and Blixt’s contribution is wholly original, but I couldn’t help be reminded of the work of Dorothy Dunnett when I read this novel. Like Dunnett’s, Blixt’s characters are larger than life — in a good way — and his battles have real consequences. No one escapes unscathed, either in body or in mind. Astrologers, diviners, illegitimate children, mysterious foreigners, and shrewd teenage girls crowd the page. It is a wild and completely satisfying ride.