April 2023 – Tyddyn Ystradfflyr

Museum Visit: Springtime Gardens

Our April museum outing was a return to the Met Cloisters to view the gardens in spring bloom. Our party of eight was mostly locals from Appleholm, joined by one of our friends from the other side of the city.

Although there were the usual array of art and artifacts on display, as well as a special exhibit of household furnishings, the highlight of the trip for me was the outdoor spaces of the gardens and surrounding cloisters. The combination of inside and outside space, both enclosed and open, provides a wonderful sense of in-betweenness that we rarely encounter in the modern city.

A New Website on Society Governance

Over the last year, I’ve written a growing number of blog posts about administration, policy, and governance in the SCA. It seems the topic has a lot of lasting interest for me, and I expect to write more about it in the future, but it felt odd to have these cluttering up our household website which is otherwise focused on historical research, person development, and camping gear, so I’ve created a separate website and migrated these posts over to it.

If you’re interested in these kinds of “business side” topics, you’ll find that content over at CreativeAdministration.org.

Downsides of Increasing Centralization of Power

I know that many people in our Society are drawn to the pomp and finery of the nobility in the High Medieval period, and I can see the appeal — such pretty outfits! — but on some level it’s hard for me to escape the gnawing knowledge that this gaudy display is only one face of a system of profound inequality.