Adventures

Fun with Caroline Minuscule

No, she's not a cartoon character, she's a type of script from the ninth century.

Today brought another crazy fun paleography class. This time we learned about Caroline Minuscule, a script invented in order to make manuscripts easier to read. The professor gave us some history, then we took a shot at reading and translating (from Latin) the first couple of verses of Genesis. It took us probably 20 or 30 minutes to get to the end of the second day, and it was totally fun.

Who would have thought?

Image credit: Wikipedia

I sware

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but i really liked it.

Today was my first shift at the library. I'm working with some nice people, so it's good for a chat when things are slow. Basically, what we have to do is ask people if we can make a copy of the front page of whatever they are copying and make a note on it of how many pages they copied. That's it. It's all kind of silly and pointless, but that's the way life is, and i get paid for it.

Crosspost

I had to share this aside that i wrote for the Popes! blog. Maybe i'm just too immersed in papal readings right now, or maybe this really is funny.

• Leo is described as exorcising a demon from a man because he was annoyed by the racket the possessed man was making.


• Another miracle discusses a wooden cup that was broken by a servant. Leo fitted the pieces back together and made a joke about the Almighty repairing stuff. Of course, the cup was miraculously made whole again, with only fine lines where the breaks had been. The biographer has this story from a reliable witness, the archbishop who stole the cup from Leo in order to revere it as a relic.


• His captivity in the hands of the Normans is described almost like a vacation during which Leo taught himself Greek.

Work for free!

The gender wage gap is not confined to the USA. The Fawcett Society campaigns against pay inequality in the UK, and based on the average gap, they say women in effect work for free from October 30 to the end of the year, every year.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Andy sent me this clip yesterday, and i love it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the song (i'm lookin' at the over-60 crowd here), the original version is after the jump.