Road trip to Montreal

[learnedax]

Quebec is still very nice; the weather was sucky; even low-grade poutine is still fairly tasty; Casa Grecque was not deeply Grecque but did make excellent spanikopita; Amarula, Sortilége, and cidre de glace were acquired.

Crown tournament itself was disappointing if not terribly surprising. I was eliminated in two quick rounds, and obviously I would have preferred to stay in longer. On the plus side, for my first fight I challenged Gavin, and after we were both eliminated we spent much of the remaining time discussing technique, bushido, and mythic figures of Carolingian history. Very interesting stuff.

[Edited to add: In catching up, saw in dglenn's post this quote that I like, which seems very appropriate.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
    -- Samuel Beckett

]

Comments

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

Sounds as though you got a lot out of it anyway.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

And who does Gavin consider to be "mythic figures of Carolingian history"?

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Well, that's mainly my characterization, but our conversation was principally fighting oriented, so Vissevald, Fernando, and Aelfwine all figured prominently, with a fair amount of James the Fair, and a narrow expanse of Gyrth.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Here's to failing better! Sounds like you had fun. Scheduling weirdness worked out?

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

Well, you and Alex both have nearly the exact same core problems: a) you need to consistently throw killing blows; b)you need to be offensively minded in a disruptive way.

At Mayday, in the fights with both of you, I never particularly felt at hazard, unlike I did with the guy in the blue surcoat (Patrick?), even though your level of competence was somewhat higher. I think next time we're all three of us at fighting practice, I'm going to just suggest forcing both of you through a bunch of attack sequences until you do them while keeping your blows consistently sufficient and we've figured out a way for you to force your will onto the fight.

---

I'm not surprised at Gavin's list, but even for fighting, mine would have been different: Patri, Eudaimon of Alexandros, Charles the Templar, and of course, Alpen MacGregor, though it is hard to know how much he should count - most of the stories I heard about him were about how he swooped in and then disappeared. And then there's Barak Raz. Not a great fighter in his own right, but he was responsible for getting a duke, a count, a countess, and a laurel into Carolingia by dint of running the right demos.

Now if you were to open it up outside of fighting, the people I'd call meaningful when I joined were Baron John, Marian, John Of Canterbury, Eugenie du Bruge, Lisa Goldenstar, Nicholas Nussbaum, and maybe George and Tabitha. Those last two are marginal, but as their offspring is now active in Carolingia, they certainly have had a positive long-term effect.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

It's not really a question of which figures were most historically important - we were talking about things like Aelfwine's loose association with gravity and Fernando's impossible speed. That is, mythic qualities. I don't know if Charles the Templar had similar superhuman abilities, because I know nothing about him, but Gavin did not bring him up.

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

Charles way young. Really young. 15 or so, and could fight well. Tried to fight for the Virgin Mary in a Crown tourney once. Was denied on the grounds that he had no proof the she was interested in the position.

Aelfwyne helped out gravity with a good muscle/weight ratio. He could do as many one-armed pull-ups as I could do two.

[elizabear.livejournal.com]

mmmm ... Sortilége. We love that stuff.

[cat9.livejournal.com]

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

You know, I should have that tattooed someplace. Of course, I'd want to be able to read it, so that would pretty much rule out most the places I get tattoos. Damn. If I just shortened it to "FAIL BETR" I could get it tattooed on my knuckles. I'm afraid the shortening of better is open to misinterpretation, however. (bttr? bter?) Ah well.