So, what is this all about? This is one of the most straightforward explanations:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

And if you go to any of the major sites who are participating in the blackout and protest, you’ll find more links about the potential danger of bills like these.

This is the same poem as last year, but a different design (and like last year, this is recycled from about 10 years ago). Have wonderful day!

(Sorry for the cruddy cell phone pics.)

This is one of those things that has one image when you look at it from one angle and then another when viewed from the other side. I should have taken the photos with the glowing red eyes on too. They had a couple of others, all based on Renaissance portraits, and I *think* one of them was Sir Walter Raleigh, or perhaps Sir Francis Drake.

And no, I didn’t buy it since I didn’t see how much it was and I was already spending enough money on the magnifying lamp I went in for. (Fellow needleworkers will understand – I was stitching on a small project that had some parts that were on 28-ct fabric over one and my eyes basically said “No way lady!”, hence the new lamp.)

* Shakespeare’s Kings and Westminster Abbey – RSC actors performing excerpts from the history plays in the coronation ‘theater’ of the Abbey. I wish I could attend some of these!

* Presentation on objects from Tudor and Stuart playhouses at the Museum of London on April 24

I hope you all will allow me the small indulgence of bragging on an exhibition near and dear to my heart! The Harry Ransom Center on the University of Texas campus (my alma mater and current employer) has put on the exhibit Other Worlds: Rare Astronomical Works in celebration of the International Year of Astronomy. Some of the works on display do coincide with the Tudor period though, so it isn’t totally off-topic! Up at the top is a photo I took of the HRC’s copy of Copernicus’ “De Revolutionibus”, printed in 1543 (the photo was from a different exhibition earlier this year).

More information is available here

And by the way, if any of you are in the area and visit the HRC, they also have an exhibit on Edgar Allen Poe on right now too, celebrating the bicentennial of his birth. See what I mean about all the cool things with anniversaries this year?

From The Daily Mail:

well’s instructions were followed to the letter.

This death mask shows the puritanical Lord Protector of England in all his grizzled, lumpy glory.

There has been no attempt to conceal the growth on his lower lip or straighten his crooked nose.

All in all, the mask doesn’t make an attractive artwork – though that probably won’t bother the person who buys it this week.

The plaster cast, made around 350 years ago, has been put up for sale at auction by a private collector.

It has an estimated value of £1,000, even though experts cannot be sure exactly when it was made.

Full article

I still can’t decide if I find death masks more cool than creepy, or the other way around.

(Thanks Kathy!)

From The Daily Mail:

It has been sung at carol services across the country but a centuries-old secret political code has been found in a popular Christmas song.

According to one musical expert, O Come All Ye Faithful, also called Adeste Fideles, is actually a birth ode to Jacobite pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Born on December 20 1720, Bonnie Prince Charlie was the grandson of England’s last Catholic monarch, James II.
…
‘Fideles is Faithful Catholic Jacobites. Bethlehem is a common Jacobite cipher for England, and Regem Angelorum is a well-known pun on Angelorum, angels, and Anglorum, English.

‘The meaning of the Christmas carol is clear: ‘Come and Behold Him, Born the King of Angels’ really means, ‘Come and Behold Him, Born the King of the English’ – Bonnie Prince Charlie!’

Professor Zon said there were other clues to the subversive political message contained in the carol.

Full article

Amanda is riding in a local charity bike ride called the Armadillo Hill Country Classic and in addition to the money raised by the ride itself, she’s raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She’s pledging to do the 105-mile ride. Yes, you read that right, 105 miles! I’ll also be doing the ride, but I’m aiming to just be able to make the 28 mile ride.

Amanda’s goal is to raise $2000 and is already 62% of the way there as of today. So, if you are interested, please consider sending some money her way in honor of Tudor fandom.

Here’s the link to her Team in Training page, where you can donate.