Well, that just clinches it...we need this class!!!!

[ianuk]

So, talking with one of our "really smart dudes" somehow we got onto fabric and his comment was "well, everyone wore burlap until the italians learned to pound fabric in the Renaissance!" and I lost it....Seriously, boggles my mind that a guy with a PHD could be so out of wack...now if anyone knows about the fabric technique he was talking about, I'd like to know but I ejumacated him a bit on the finer points (ha, ha FINER as in THREAD!!) of textiles and prehistoric/medieval context. Then I sent him on to look at books...cause he asked.

Women's Work: The First 20, 000 Years Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber.
5,000 Years of Textiles by J. Harris
Prehistoric Textiles by EJW Barber

Yeah, need to start working on this class and I do think Estrella would be a great place for this to preview at....yup.

Comments

[sfandra.livejournal.com]

Just another sad example of the wretchedness of the American Educational System. ;)

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

He was educated in Europe as I'm reminded constantly by when I do math around said individual...but I think that was for later study not history...

[scribe-ari.livejournal.com]

The stupid, it burns.

Seriously, the class is really needed. Sadly, the folks that need it don't play SCA for the most part.

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

yeah, I think I will delight in the research for this and the handout...I can see it...it will be massive! Tee hee...

[bertana.livejournal.com]

I am often amazed-- not by how many well-educated, well-read people we meet in the SCA, but by how many of those same people hold on to the most incredibly wrong (and kind of dumb) suggestions as if they are GOSPEL TRUTH. Seriously. Even I am observant enough (and dude, I'm pretty fucking oblivious, most of the time) to have quickly clued in to the fact that there were beautiful and varied fabrics around much, much earlier than the Renaissance!

Also: wtf is this pounding burlap fabric thing? It seems the end result would be ugly paper, not fine fabric.

[dverning.livejournal.com]

Well, the first temptation is to point and laugh at him for being stupid. Flinging poo, hooting, rattling the bars of my cage, and running for president also come to mind.

But rather than being set straight and just taking your word as the new gospel, he asked for references to read up on it... that I can applaud. Even the best make gaffes.

[public-shaylan.livejournal.com]

(pardon while I channel the stupids from my work)
OMG!! Really! An engineer/smrt person said that the Italians got fabric from pounding on stuff!! IT must be DA TUUTH!! I never knew that!!
*clubbin*

Dude. Were you able to get a diagram of how this italian pounding of fabric worked? I mean, he could explain it right?
Is it like that mythical steel? alloy? magic sword metal they can't reproduce?

Or did he just get confuzzled with paper and egyptians?