Peter the Great taxed beards.
William III taxed single men over 25.
Windows have been taxed, so have chimneys and hearths.
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Man of War Blurbs
I’m happy to announce that I’ve gotten four very generous blurbs for Man of War. Here they are in alphabetical order:
“The wonderfully funny and humane Charlie Schroeder has served his country valiantly, and now we should all honor him by buying his book. The best way to spread the word? A period-authentic confetti cannon.”-Henry Alford, author of Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That?
“Man of War is an unexpected treat! I was enamored of Charlie Schroeder’s travelogue through the subculture of reenactment and fascinated by his modern take on ancient warfare. (Who knew the proper buttons were so important?) They say war is Hell, yet this book is a heck of a lot of fun.”—Jen Lancaster, New York Times bestselling author of Jeneration X, If You Were Here, and Bitter is the New Black
“A hilarious romp through 2,000 years of history, one forced march at a time.”—J. Maarten Troost, author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals
“Charlie Schroeder has produced a rollicking good ride in this compulsively scintillating book. From first page to last, it is an often surprising delight.”— Jay Winik, author of the New York Times bestsellers, April 1865 and The Great Upheaval
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Man of War-Official Book Trailer
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The Great Vowel Shift
Here’s something interesting I read the other night in a book called The Celebrated Pedestrian. This thin “toilet read” is a compilation of questions posed by readers of BBC History Magazine. (I prefer to read it in bed not on the potty, just in case you were wondering.)
In the chapter on language, one of the questions was, “how far back in history could we [English speakers] go and still be understood?” Great question.
The answer is a bit complicated and there’s still some debate going on about it, but one of the authors focuses on a very significant change that occurred in England sometime between 1390 and 1420. This change was called the “Great Vowel Shift,” and it came about after “the abandonment of French as the language at court.” (You see, when the Normans conquered England in 1066, they naturally brought their language along with them, and in doing so demoted the local Saxon tongue to second class status. Some Brits have argued that this is where their obsession with hierarchy started.) When the French language left court, it changed the way people pronounced their vowels. For example, the word mouse had once been pronounced moose.
Moose trap anyone?
Factoring in the vowel shift with a loss of inflection (before 1100 English was an inflected language like German), the author states that present-day English speakers “would seriously struggle to understand the spoken word around 1300.” Or rather, Fectoing in da voowel shiift…well, you get the picture and I don’t want to try to write like that for one second more.
Did this vowel shift occur only once? Hardly. In fact, it’s happening right now…in America.
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Driving in China
Taken a few years back in Zhongshan. I remember the first time I went to China back in 2003 there weren’t many motorcycle taxis on the road. Times have changed.
For a thorough examination of driving in China I highly recommend Peter Hessler’s book, Country Driving. He’s a wonderful writer.
Safe to say Dickens wouldn’t be very good company if he was alive today, but I bet he’d be Tweeting his brains out and figuring out a way to make a pound or two from it. #dickensbirthday #paidperword #showmethemoney
I’ve acted in two plays that were adapted from Dickens’ novels. And, I’m just realizing this right now, they were the first two productions that I actually got paid to act in (if you don’t count my stint as the sheriff’s son at a local Renaissance Faire). Turns out the producers made a very big mistake hiring me, because I wasn’t terribly adept at the craft of acting.
In the first production, I was totally miscast as Uriah Heep in some kind of interactive Dickens-themed Christmas show. The show took place at a poorly heated Victorian mansion in Pennsylvania. I was terrible and my characterization (if you can call it that) basically involved me slinking around the airy rooms ringing my hands and sneaking up on unsuspecting geriatrics and scaring them so much that extra defibrillators had to be installed in the parlor room. On the plus side it gave me the chance to dye my hair red. Incidentally, nothing I did as the humble Mr. Heep had anything to do with to the heavy metal band, Uriah Heep.
In my second paid debacle, I played Pip in Great Expectations at the now defunct Pennsylvania Stage Company. How bad was I? I just found a review. It’s from the newspaper, The Morning Call, and I’ve never seen it until now. “Charlie Schroeder overplays naivete to the near exclusion of richer emotions: shock, weariness, righteous indignation.” I’d like to think that my bad performance had something to do with the theater shutting down shortly after G.E. closed. May it, and Charles Dickens rest in peace.
That’s about all I can say about this good news. More later as this breaking news develops.
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Eating in China Teaser
In the coming days I plan to blog about some of my culinary adventures in Hong Kong and China. To whet your appetite, here’s a very short video I shot in Guangzhou Province in southern China. To give you some perspective, I was standing just outside the restaurant opposite the “menu.” This video captures a small portion of said menu.
In China, menus aren’t always the paper kind that one peruses while seated at a table. They’re three-dimensional-and alive.
Who says you can’t make any money teaching kids? According to a 2010 article in the Christian Science Monitor, a top “Star Tutor” in Hong Kong can make up to $1.5 million annually. One got so rich by helping children in the education-crazed city state that he has his own fleet of Ferraris. That’s a lot of coin for an educator. And awfully Magnum-like of him.
Star Tutors aren’t your typical after-school help. They command large audiences and market themselves as if they were pop-stars. According to friends of mine in Hong Kong, however, a Star Tutor’s special skill doesn’t really involve learning as much as “telling” kids what, in all likelihood, the questions will be on their tests. Cough up the cash for a Star Tutor and your chances of earning an “A” on your next exam skyrocket. When I was in school, we called that cheating. And we didn’t have to pay for it.
I’ve often (half) joked to my wife that if we ever move to Hong Kong I’d like to become a Star Tutor. Either that or the next drunken master. So you can imagine my horror when I discovered there was already a white dude named Charles banking lots of HKD. That’s right, Charles is part of K. Oten’s “Super English Force.” Super English Force you ask? I’ll let the photo speak for itself. Yes, this ad is on the side of a bus.
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To Read, Vol. 3
