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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1905.htm">http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1905.htm</A><A
href="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi312.htm"></A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've been saving this episode for a special
occasion. That occasion is now here. I'm proud to say.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Heralded forth, the Battle of Hastings defines so
much in our psyche as 'SCAers'. You could ask most any of us when
Guttenberg first used his printing press and get nothing but a blank stare, but
ask "What happened in 1066?" and you'd get a fairly accurate answer all
around.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Why is that? I think that one reason is
our romance for war. Certainly as SCAers we are caught up in such
things. Another reason is 'La Tapisserie de Bayeux'. What a snap
shot! Nothing compares to it from so early in history. Not only does
it play like a movie, it speaks to us on human terms. We see bits of
history, ships, thrones, armor, hammers, saws, stirrups, tables with bowls
of fruit and those things come alive in our imagination. Fire us to
that reality. Absorb us in that time and in that era.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>So, in its presence, are we just anachronists with
a comic book? Maybe. It's hard, likely impossible, to separate
our modern selves from the images we see around us. We are bombarded with
them. In these times, we are visual creatures very much use to books,
pictures, television, movies and such. But as Anachronists, we lack
something from the times we romaticise. That something is exactly the
same breath of images we are use to in the modern mind. Then comes the
jewel, that intrigueing scrap, 231 feet long by 21 inches wide, 'La Tapisserie
de Bayeux'. Simple, primative and yet wonderfully sophisticated.
Subtly, reality shifts. Time slips. In it we see not only a story,
but we see the hands from which it was made. In it, all of history,
our desire, our collective SCA imagination, comes alive.
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>dsd</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>