As curator of the Celts exhibition, I got to spend a lot of time showing people wonderful Iron Age treasures. Some of my favourites were the big metal neck rings called torcs that were worn across much of Europe (and beyond) around 2000 years ago. One of the things I was asked most often is, ‘But how did you put them on?!’ It’s a very good question, seeing as they often look like solid metal rings with nowhere near enough space to squeeze your neck through.
Category Archives: Other Neat Stuff
First Birthday!
One year of We Are Star Stuff! Here’s to many more!
Milestone Achieved: 20 000 views!
20 000 views and 13 000+ visitors! Thanks to all my followers and visitors.
Happy New Year!
Happy 2016!
Milestone Achieved: 10 000 visitors!
Thank you to all my readers. 10 000 vistors, and +15 000 visits! Keep coming back!
The ‘horrifying and never before heard’ news of 300 female werewolves (lycanthropes), who terrorised the Duchy of Jülich after making a pact with the devil was published in a sensational broadsheet by Georg Kress in 1591 in Augsburg (now in Germany). These lycanthropic women attacked men, boys and cattle, adopting lupine form and slaughtering their victims until 85 of them were apprehended and burnt at the stake in Ostmilich on May 6th, 1591.
Outside: in space
Chris Hadfield‘s recent year in space was a major media event here in Canada. I don’t know how much attention anyone else paid to it, but the Canadian media loved him. He tweeted pictures of the view from the space station, filmed videos of life in zero gravity and explained the science of space in an accessible, low-key way.
We are proud of our spacemen and women, though. One of them, Marc Garneau, is a member of Parliament and is considered an important member of the Liberal Party. (The LIberals also have my favourite hockey player, Ken Dryden.)
Despite this, I know how I want to go into space. I knew it the first time I saw a Green Lantern comic. (Don’t judge by the lame movie – they managed to miss everything cool about the comic.) One minute you’re just an ordinary person, the next you’re a member of a galaxy-wide organization with a ring that protects you in space and manifests your will as a three-dimensional “construct”.
At a time when it seems that space travel is going to be another perk for plutocrats, it’s nice to think that you could become a space-traveller through sheer hard work and merit – or magic.
(Thrusters wallpaper by Easterhands at Imgur.)
It’s Just A Fiery Ball of Metal! The Impiety of Being Right Too Soon
Sometimes it’s not good to be first. The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras certainly found that to be true, after he was charged with impiety for teaching that the heavenly bodies were rocky balls whirling in the ether, fiery (and visible) because of their rapid rotation. He also held that the sun was a fiery metal ball, and the moon shone by reflection.
Awakening my Writer’s Mind
I’m sitting here in northern Canada, it’s eleven o’clock, and I’m starting to think it’s dark enough to go stargazing once I finish this. I started this blog back in January, after a long hiatus from writing. (I wrote three books back in the 90s, all on mythology.) This has been my way to start again.
I’m looking forward to learning more about blogging through this course, and reading others’ blogs as we go along.
For the dandelion image, click here.
Fireweed: Survivor. Mutant. Tea.
This may seem like a strange topic for a post, but oddly enough I was inspired by yesterday’s post about the northern lights. If you didn’t read it, I’m from Labrador, in northern Canada, and while the aurora is always a little chancy, you can count on fireweed every summer.
We Are Star Stuff 