“But she didn’t understand; she just smiled and held my hand.”
In recent weeks, Matt Gabriele at Modern Medieval has hosted a blog forum about communicating the relevance of the Middle Ages to people outside of academia. I took him up on his open invitation and wrote a short piece about the pleasures and pitfalls of “applied medievalism.” Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned after two years of book promotion, it’s that going on the road to talk about Charlemagne is a lot like touring with Mötley Crüe, if the Crüe attracted small, sober, courteous crowds whose health-care regimen never included a visit from “Dr. Feelgood.”
(That said, the next time a book festival fails to remove the yellow M&Ms from the candy dishes in my dressing room, I shall be forced to raise my voice. Surely Vince Neil would approve.)
Friday, June 27, 2008, at 9:45 pm
Dressing room. At a book festival.
Riiiiiight.
Hey act right now and you can be one of the first private investors to own a share of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Presidio as well if you wire funds before midnight tonight.
Yes, be sure to tell them to cast out the candies that are jaundiced in color and insist they be replaced in equal measure by ones that are colored like emeralds.
BTW, I don’t know about Motley Crue and M&Ms, but Van Halen had that weird request in their contracts to remove all the brown ones.
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp
Have a good weekend!
Linda
Sunday, June 29, 2008, at 3:40 pm
But the brown ones are the best!