Pre-Class Rules:  Please don't chat during class.  Please do not post until you see the word QUESTIONS, and stop posting question when you see CLASS.  I'll be glad to discuss any of this material later if there are any questions.

Welcome to Lee Killough's Checking on Culture -- A checklist for Cultural Building, Class 3.  The Killough book is the primary work I've used for this class.  Definitions come from the Random House Webster's College Dictionary.

Lee Killough has several books available from Meisha Merlin Press: Blood Walk and Blood Games, Bridling Chaos, and the upcoming Wilding Nights.  You can find more information on these books here: http://www.meishamerlin.com

You can also learn more about Lee Killough and contact her through her AuthorsDen website at: http://www.authorsden.com/leekillough

Lee Killough's book, Checking on Culture, is available.  Anyone who wishes to can order this little gem by sending $5.00 plus $3.00 for postage and postage materials:

Lee Killough/PO Box 1167/Manhattan KS 66505-1167 (Be sure to tell her it is for Checking on Culture.)

Part Two: Community Interaction (Continued)

We're still covering how people live within a community and interact with each other.

14. Food/cooking

Definition: (food) Any nourishing substance eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.

Killough:  What do your people eat, and how?  Do they serve up separate portions or eat out of a common bowl? Eat simple meals or elaborate ones?

How do your people cook?  It can depend on habitat. China, a nation historically over-populated, but chronically short of fuel, developed stir-frying, which needs very little fuel...

On the other hand, Europe of the middle ages, with vast forest and a small population, evolved stewing, roasting and baking... all cooking methods, which need great amounts of fuel but can be tended by a minimum of kitchen staff.

Zette:  How do your people acquire their food?  Do they have to go and hunt for it themselves?  Do they buy it in stores?  Is it provided by the joint efforts of the community? 

Each of these cases will also influence how the food is prepared and eaten.  Hunter/gatherer tribes often cooked at least part of their food at a kill site.  Even gathering berries might mean eating some as the person goes along.  It takes energy to collect food.

Much of store food is at least partially precooked or partially prepared, which cuts down on the amount of time needed to prepare meals. When cornmeal comes prepackaged it means no one has to spend hours at metates grinding the corn between two stones.

If the community provides for each other, this would likely mean communal meals as well.  Does that mean that some people must always supply certain types of food?  Are there designated hunters, fishers, people who raise herb gardens?

Habitat provides food.  Many cultures had no sugar, chocolate, etc. but used honey for sweetening. What sort of herbs and spices are available?

Hotter climates are unlikely to have huge, heavy meals until (if at all) late at night.  People living in colder climates might need that first warm meal before they go out into the cold.

How long and difficult it is to prepare food determines whether or not you will have a class of people dedicated to that duty, or if (for instance) the women are expected to stay home to make sure there is food on the table.

Consider also how the food is stored.  Canned goods and frozen food?  Grain in jars buried in the earth to avoid rats and mice?  In some cultures a meal is going to be a major event because there's no such things as 'grabbing a bite to eat.'

Do your people have special dietary laws? Do they have special food for special days -- like birthday cakes? Do they have 'comfort' foods for sick days?

According to Frances and Joseph Gies in Life in a Medieval Village:... Because his wheat went almost exclusively to market.... Most peasant bread was made from 'maslin,' a mixture of wheat and rye or barley and rye, baked into a coarse dark loaf weight four pounds or more...

For poorer peasant families... pottage was favored over bread as more economical since it required no milling and therefore escaped both the miller's exaction and the natural loss of quantity in the process.

Barley grains were allowed to sprout and then thrown into a pot to boil. Water taken from the pot and sweetened with honey was barely water.  If it was allowed to ferment it became beer.

Anything edible was added to pottage.  Peas, beans, bacon fat, anything from the garden and the wilds, as long as it wasn't poisonous or bitter.

As mentioned in an earlier class, the poorer people in places like ancient Rome lived in small, crowded rooms that did not have kitchens.  People bought the equivalent of fast food on the street corners.

In an SF vein, remember that the type of food intake determines the pattern of teeth.  Rodents have curved incisors set deep in the jaws and that continue to grow for life; hares and rabbits have similar teeth. Elephant tusks are enlarged upper incisors, the tusks of walruses are enlarged canines as are those of wild boars.

The lower incisors of pigs lie close together and project forward to form a digging instrument.  Some snakes have hollow teeth that function as needles to insert venom.

The forms and arrangements of teeth will show if the person is a carnivore or an herbivore.    Keep that in mind when you are creating a sentient race that you want to be humanoid, but perhaps with a slight difference.

QUESTIONS

• CiceroCat-- uhm, the use of sugar, from sugar cane, how recent was that?  Did they have sugar in medieval times?
• Anne_Marble-- Were the foods served by the Roman vendors cold? Or hot?
• Robert-- When you're doing alien worlds with reasonably sophisticated cultures, does it help to invent a local sweet rather than using just honey like medieval or cane sugar?
• @Zette-- Sugar cane is a plant grown in tropical climate, I believe.  So it came late.  But you can make beet sugar, etc.  I'm not entirely sure which was used when.
• CiceroCat-- ok
• @Zette-- Anne -- hot food was sold on the streets.  I suspect cold was as well.  But you bought cooked food on the way home.
• Robert-- That and maple sap for sugar was popular in North America
• Anne_Marble-- And they did it without plugs and propane!
• CiceroCat-- neat, Robert
• @Zette-- Depends on your world, Robert.  Would they have honeybees?  Does the world support something like cane sugar?
• CiceroCat-- lol, I have a sweet tooth so my world does too, my rich want to have sugar and chocolate (sweetened chocolate) :-D
• Steven-- Sorry I'm late.
• CiceroCat-- but they aren't exactly medieval, and they have a UN type deal over a continent
• Anne_Marble-- Or you can invent something. Frex, I think the Incans had an artificial sweetener.
• CiceroCat-- hi Steven, you missed the food topic
• karenth-- hi, Steven.
• Anne_Marble-- Steven, have a bugle.
• Steven-- *toot*
• Robert-- I've got a big sprawling empire of a million worlds with good transportation, it seems to me their supermarkets would make ours look pitiful for import goodies, especially odd sweets and delicacies.
• CiceroCat-- chocolate I know was drinken by the Mayans or whoever in SA made it orginally--only really important people like chieftains could drink it
• @Zette-- Sweeteners is a subject to look up, to see what process you need to get them.
• Robert-- And it wasn't sweetened, I remember reading about that - that it was Europeans who put sweet into the chocolate.
• CiceroCat-- lol neat-- oh and, zette what is a sweetmeat?  I heard of it, but never known what it is... is it really meat that is sweet?
• Anne_Marble-- Slaves are always useful.
• CiceroCat-- yeah, Robert, it wasn't   
• Robert-- Candy, just a term for candy.
• Anne_Marble-- Just don't ask about sweetbread. ;---
• karenth-- innards...
• CiceroCat-- really?  so it has nothing to do with meat/
• CiceroCat-- sweetbread?  *ears prick up*
• Robert-- Sweetbreads are organ meats. (just read Hannibal)
• @Zette-- I believe chocolate, in an untreated form, is a narcotic, right?
• CiceroCat-- eeeeew Robert
• CiceroCat-- darn, brb, phone
• Anne_Marble-- Thymus or thyroids or something...
• Lucas-- Isn't it true that rich people often get their food much the same as poor people?  For instance, currently, many American poverty level people buy most of their food pre-prepared, and so do the rich people.  Or is that inaccurate, and no one cooks anymore?
• Robert-- Yep. And I'd write all sorts of foods I wouldn't eat!
• @Zette-- Sweetmeat, according to the dictionary - - a sweetened cake or pastry, any confection or candy, as candied fruit.
• Robert-- Varies with place and time, I think, Lucas
• CiceroCat-- thnx
• Robert-- And on what's scarce. Food isn't scarce in America. Housing is.
• karenth-- ---- getting hungry!
• Anne_Marble-- Yeah, very rich people still have cooks today. I know someone whose sister married into a rich family, and they had a cook. The food sucked, however.
• Lucas-- Good point, Robert.
• CiceroCat-- that reminds me-- pies weren't always fruit pies either were they?  can you imagine eating an eel pie?  Gross
• @Zette-- It depends on the level of 'rich' too.
• Anne_Marble-- Remember Sweeney Todd.
• CiceroCat-- lol karenth
• @Zette-- Meat pies are very common, even today.
• Robert-- I enjoy meat pies. I don't like fish so I wouldn't go for eel pie but I like pot pies and that's a meat pie.
• CiceroCat-- neat, k, making sure :-D 
• karenth-- Anne...shudder.
• CiceroCat-- oh yeah, my sis loved pot pies
• @Zette-- Think of the little frozen pot pies you can buy.
• @Zette-- We keep a stack of those in the freezer for quick lunches.
• CiceroCat--
• @Zette-- Okay, let's go on!
• Anne_Marble-- How about trenchers of bread stuff instead of plates? (Is there a utensil section?)
• CiceroCat-- (likes that word, trencher)
• @Zette-- I have salads at Perkins in bread bowls all the time. Great stuff.
• @Zette-- Okay, now let's go on!
•  
•  

CLASS

15. Hospitality

Definition:  The friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers; an act or show of welcome.

Killough: The spectrum of sociability extends from pathologic xenophobia to an openness that treats even total strangers as family intimates.  Where on the spectrum do your people fall?

Do they act differently when the guests are strangers as opposed to known individuals or friends?  Must visits be planned ahead or can guests appear without warning and expect to be welcomed?

Once upon a time in this country upper-class ladies made afternoon rounds of other upper-class homes, ostensibly to visit, but usually just leaving a calling card because the ladies of that house were, of course, out 'visiting' too.

How do they greet each other?  With formal ritual greetings... a handshake... a  kiss... bear hugs?  How do they entertain guests?  Dinner, Games?  Formal entertainment?

Does gift giving figure in, and if so, how?  As a gesture of appreciation?  Of friendship?  Is the cost of the gift important?  Or, as in Japan, is the value in the appropriateness of the gift and the thought given to the choice...

Zette:  In areas of England in the middle ages, a person was required to blow a horn, shout, or ring bells to announce to a village that they were near because all strangers were thought to be thieves and murderers.

Are there rules of hospitality between different classes?  If a noble, traveling through your country, is unexpectedly caught in a storm, is the local town headsman expected to take him in?

If he wanders into a farm, does he expect to get the farmers own bed, or to sleep in the barn with his horse? What difference does it make if the man is a farmer wandering into a noble's keep?  If everyone is of equal rank?

What about differences in gender hospitality?  Not so long ago it was expected that the women would go off to the kitchen to talk while the men sat in the living room or den. Are children expected to be kept out of sight?

If someone is traveling with servants, armed men, slaves... what hospitality is expected for them?

And consider whether the person is supposed to pay for the hospitality, either outright or with a 'gift.'  If they offer coin, is it considered an insult?  If they leave nothing, is it the height of bad manners?

If a beggar comes, should they leave with more than they arrived with?  And what are the penalties for abusing someone's hospitality?

QUESTIONS

• @Zette-- Short section!
• Robert-- Generally in all the open hospitality cultures I've read about, it's death penalty for violating it too.
• CiceroCat-- to have a xenophobic people, don't they have to have a reason, like something happened to them, to make them that way?
• CiceroCat-- really, Robert?
• @Zette-- Not really, CC.  A fear of strangers can be because they've never known strangers.
• Robert-- Oh yeah. Sagas and Greek stories are full of some guy breaks hospitality by stealing or throwing a punch and the whole clan's out after them for *years*
• CiceroCat-- hmm, never thought of that, neat!
• @Zette-- That's not quite 'death penalty' but there are social Repercussions in many cases.
• Anne_Marble-- And what if someone of an egalitarian society visits a keep in a more structured society, and they make his servants go in another room to eat?
• Lucas-- That is the kind of thing that could very easily be interpreted as an insult, I would guess, Anne.
• Anne_Marble-- That could be fun. ;---
• CiceroCat--   oh yeah
• @Zette-- Right.  That's where you get fun stuff going on for stories.
• @Zette-- It's just another form of conflict.  And this is a great one to work with if you're dealing with two cultures in your stories.
• CiceroCat-- oh  yeah, I have like three lol to mess with
• @Zette-- So if you make them sufficiently different from each other you have all kinds of areas of potential conflict.
• Anne_Marble-- Especially if visitors are Vikings, and the kids are playing soccer with the head of a Viking. :-/
• CiceroCat-- one is very different, the other believes in "for the good of the tribe" can excuse many things, and the other, well, it's not as extreme
• Lucas-- "What?!  You send my guard, my traveling companion, out into the common room like dogs?  My country will have much to say about such treatment..."
• CiceroCat-- lol
• CiceroCat-- i heard about that with animals and some people
• Lucas-- "But sir, your guard ARE dogs!"
• @Zette-- Sounds like a good mix, CC.
• Kay-- LOL Lucas, that's great!
• Robert-- Sounds like a great line.
• CiceroCat-- ew, I just read what you wrote Anne
• CiceroCat-- beheading, eww
• @Zette-- It would all depend on the society and the level of power one person has over another -- hospitality is not always equal.
• Anne_Marble-- Well that's how soccer was born, supposedly.
• CiceroCat-- double ew
• @Zette-- Okay, on to part three.
•  

CLASS

16. Sports

Definition: An athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.

Killough:  What games do your people play?  Presumably they have an assortment as we do, but do they emphasize individual efforts, as in tennis and bull riding, or team sports?

To decide that, look at social attitudes.  Is the emphasis on cooperation and teamwork?  I have read that the British Empire pushed team sports in schools to develop the team spirit among its young men.

Also reflective of social attitudes: how fierce is the competition, or do they prefer non-competitive versions of sports, like skiing, hiking, horseback riding, mountain climbing?

Are their favorite games physical -- wrestling -- or intellectual -- cards, chess, trivial pursuit?  Do they gamble?  On what games?  Do they have the equivalent of horse racing or other sports using animals?

Zette:  Are there professional sports and how are the people who play them treated by the rest of society?  As a whole, we pay a lot to be entertained. Does your society consider someone paid to 'play' an important part of society or the scum of the earth?

What sports are not allowed, but secretly practiced?  Dog fights? Boxing matches?  Starship races? What are the penalties for getting caught?  Are there religious sanctions against certain sports?

Does the practice of the sport have some special cultural significance?  The Aztecs killed the losing team.  Jousting competitions in medieval times included the capture of 'enemy' knights and ransoming them back.

Are the sports segregated by gender and age?  What sort of trials do your people have to go through before they can play the sport?  Is it informal, or regulated with overseers to make sure there is no cheating?

What are spectators expected to do?  Sports have engendered riots throughout the world.  Is there national/tribal honor involved, or simply "bragging rights?"

Are there blood sports? In my book 'Dancer' I took a tyrannical government with control over every aspect of the people's lives, but allowing one really outrages blood-sport -- bear dancing.  (Alien world, not earth bears.)

The government had found that every time they cracked down on this one overpowering emotional outlet, they faced a backlash in rebellious activity on all levels.  Bear Dancing provided an outlet available nowhere else in that society.

So, what function does sports provide in your society?  Training for the young with mock battles?  Tests for leadership?  An avenue for the release of dangerous passions?  Entertainment?

QUESTIONS

• CiceroCat-- what kind of team sports did they have in non-modern times, like in medieval times?
• Steven-- what were you just saying about soccer, Anne?
• Anne_Marble-- trying to imagine what mage sports might be like g----
• CiceroCat-- lol dodge fireballs
• Robert-- I like the thought of some planet where team sports are outlawed for promoting war
• CiceroCat-- oh good one; outlawing sports, it will make geeks like me happy
• Robert-- Quidditch is brilliant
• Anne_Marble-- I imagine the games of young Viking males were things like "try to hit each other with sticks"
• CiceroCat-- lol
• @Zette-- Adults did not often play games, CC. They didn't have the time, to be honest.  But kids played much like they play now.  No rubber, so balls were rags, etc.
• CiceroCat-- hmm, maybe my Antis would do a tag like thingy with Mages, a hunt of sorts...   Release the Mages, then after a moment, the Antis get to go capture.... interesting   oh, but were hunts sports?
• Lucas-- I read a book where the principle training of a group of warriors WAS their team sport.
• Robert-- But with that you'd get illegal football teams and rallies.
• CiceroCat-- neat, Zette
• @Zette-- Hunts can be considered sport.
• CiceroCat-- neat... :-D
• Robert-- So can torture of prisoners, most of the Middle Ages executions were also entertainment.
• Lucas-- They sort of developed this rebellious army, training in the public arena's as sports teams, because they came under less suspicion that way.
• Robert-- So you could have one where blood sport's fine but chess is reserved to the upper military caste because it's strategy.
• CiceroCat-- oh that would be neat, do like the gladiators... prisoners are forced to be the entertainers in sports
• Anne_Marble-- And don't forget Rome's games. Their games including things like torture and execution, although the main part consisted of gladiator vs. gladiator.
• @Zette-- Entertainment, but not sports, Robert.  Two different things.
• Lucas-- (But who, might you ask is the Sport, of "sport's" teams... Sheesh, silly apostrophes...)
• CiceroCat-- we're in sync, Anne lol
• Robert-- And then the kid who learns on his own will either be beheaded or ennobled depending on outcome of a match...
• Anne_Marble-- Kind of like "castling." ;---
• Robert-- True, sports involve voluntary players.
• CiceroCat-- neat
• @Zette-- I was talking about hangings, not gladiators, Robert.  The arena games were all sports of prowess, whether voluntary or not.
• CiceroCat-- there are some neat horse sports, besides racing and stuff, i think one's called gymakkah?
• Robert-- True, though it looks like there's a line of "it's both execution and sports" where sometimes gladiators can win reversal of their sentence by winning.
• @Zette-- That's reward for the game won, Robert.
• CiceroCat-- even in Auel's Cavebear books, in the clan meeting, they had sports
• Robert-- Right
• Lucas-- Keep the intellectual items to the upper castes, sure.  If they like it, if they don't like it, then the poor people will read, write, and do sums, while the rich folk watch people kill each other in deadly games of skill. 
• CiceroCat-- like spear chucking
• Lucas-- The reservations of things to certain classes probably depends on what is valued most in that society.
• Anne_Marble-- When was curling first invented?
• Lucas-- The high-ranking folks will take what they value, not necessarily what the others would value.
• @Zette-- The Aztec sports and a lose=die sport.  Different societies can put different meaning on games.
• CiceroCat-- so certain sports for certain societal ranks
• CiceroCat-- didn't they make their enemies fight for their lives, if captured, zette?
• CiceroCat-- or was that someone else?
• CiceroCat-- like in an arena, or one on one combat
• Lucas-- Every bad movie with "natives" in it, is where that happened...
• Robert-- Golf used to be very upper class and polo still is. Bowling is often considered lower class.
• CiceroCat-- horse polo?
• @Zette-- There were two well-trained teams for their 'basketball' like game, CC.  They played for the honor of the gods, more or less -- as I recall it.  One side one, one side died.
• CiceroCat--
• Lucas-- Or in at least two Star-Trek episodes...
• CiceroCat-- neat, Zette   I think for my more extreme culture some extreme sports like that may be cool
• Anne_Marble-- So how did "curling" reflect everyday life? ;---
• CiceroCat-- Is curling the Canadian sport?
• CiceroCat-- like shuffleboard or whatever it's called/
• Anne_Marble-- I think it was Scottish first? Maybe?
• Lucas-- Magazine headline:  "Is standing up an extreme sport?"  (From a cartoon.)
• CiceroCat-- lol
• karenth-- very bored people will slide stones over ice if that's all there is to do... 
• karenth-- Lucas
• @Zette-- I'm not much of a sports person, but I can see all kinds of potential for something like this.
• CiceroCat-- ooh, were gauntlets sports too?  Running the gauntlet?
• CiceroCat-- lol karenth
• Anne_Marble-- Oooh, Xena did that.
• Anne_Marble-- Well maybe not sports to the person running it.
• CiceroCat-- curling?  Xena curled?
• Robert-- It's not always sport for the fox.
• Lucas-- Gauntlets?  What's that, running gauntlets, some kind of race with gloves and...  Oh, right, now I get it.
• @Zette-- By the way, one of CNN's very earliest reports was on the sport of 'pigeon rolling.'  They wrapped the pigeon up and rolled it across the ground, to see how won.  And there are the homing pigeon races.  Interesting article in Smithsonian a few issues ago on that.
• CiceroCat-- lol
• Anne_Marble-- Now, she ran the gauntlet. Oh, gantlet. ;---
• Lucas-- Yes, the homing pigeon races.  That was an interesting article.
• karenth-- pigeon rolling?  Oh, my!
• @Zette-- The pigeon that broke the wing and walked home... that really impressed me.
• CiceroCat-- there was a turkey bowl thingy at our school; took turkeys (not alive) and tried to hit things with them I think, I didn't see it
• Robert-- Blood sport in a saucer - Siamese fighting fish, for serious owners they are.
• karenth-- lol cc!
• Lucas-- Yes!  Exactly what I was thinking about, Zette.
• Anne_Marble-- Well if dwarf tossing can be a sport! Can you see trying that on Gimli?!
• CiceroCat-- neat!
• Anne_Marble-- Gimli would take your head off!
• karenth-- blood would be shed
• @Zette-- I want to use that idea in a book somewhere.  I'm waiting for the right chance, Lucas.
• CiceroCat-- lol, there is a dwarf tossing thingy.. It's illegal in most states, Florida for sure
• @Zette-- Okay, one last section, again short. Still having arm problems!
• Anne_Marble-- And there was a dwarf who protested the illegality because that was how he was making his living.
• CiceroCat-- poor Zette
• CiceroCat-- neat, Anne

CLASS

17. Arts

Definition:  The quality, production, expression, or realm of what is beautiful or of more than ordinary significance (2) the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings (3) a field or category of art Dance is an art.

Killough:  Every culture practices arts in some fashion, if no more than making hand prints or animal outlines on rock faces and chanting praise at a surperior tool or weapon.

Early forms on our planet appear linked to magic and religion.  Only later do they become valued for their intrinsic beauty alone, at which point some members of society begin dismissing art as impractical.

Static arts use material at hand -- habitat's influence again -- stone, sand in deserts, perhaps shells in an aquatic culture, colored muds, inks and dyes from plants, plant fibers, bone, animal hides.

Keep in mind that art can embellish practical objects... designs on pots and baskets, carving on doors, flames on cars.  Aliens might be expected to follow similar practices.

Anatomy shapes performing arts... how they dance -- if they dance -- what musical instruments they play, how they sing.  Physical or psychological structure of a race might also eliminate some performance forms.

It can be fun to invent philosophers, poets, and writers for your people, and make up writings and poetry.  Literary quotes by characters can give the reader information about the society and enrich character development.

Zette: Is there control over the creation and use of art?  In a society with a strong religious government, art will be controlled.  Art of all kinds has always been considered a subversive tool.

Are artists trained, if so by whom?  A 'master' artist, or in a school with a lot of other would-be students?  Are they expected to produce a 'masterpiece' to show they know the techniques of their art?

Who would judge such a piece?  Other artists, or a competition before the people?  Are they adored or do the people of your society shake their heads in despair and mutter 'why don't you get a real job?'

Are there gender restrictions?  Women were not allowed on stage for most of the history of the theatre.  Nor were they often encouraged to create religious art, though poetry and music were considered proper.

Are people paid for art?  Are they required to create art as part of their service to the community? Who owns the portable treasures?  If someone creates something beautiful, does your government have the right to claim it for the betterment of society?

QUESTIONS

• Lucas-- One thing this makes me think of:  Find the illicit art in your society.  What does the graffiti say?
• Robert-- Ties in with sports around Forward Motion - Extreme Writing!
• CiceroCat--
• CiceroCat-- hey, the sport of throwing the quickest pot (is that what they call making it on a wheel?)
• CiceroCat-- is body paint an art?
• Robert-- Yep. The arts could become very competitive and wild. Sure it is, along with tattoos or anything else you could think of.
• Anne_Marble-- We tend to keep art and war separate. It's hard for us to keep in mind that warriors in some ancient cultures were expected to be poets as well as fighters.
• karenth-- tattoo you
• Steven-- It would be ironic if it later turned out that cave paintings were the tribal equivalent of graffiti.
• CiceroCat-- neat
• @Zette-- LOL...  Actually, making potter on a wheel is a relatively new art.  Most of it was made without a wheel.
• Lucas-- Technically, anything that isn't necessary for survival is an art, isn't it?  Anything that isn't exactly what a robot would do to preserve its life functions?
• CiceroCat-- ah, in my art class we had to do that-- that's a neat idea btw, those who wanna learn how to make pottery kinda like the "old ways" , take an art class
• @Zette-- A wheel turns the clay and the hands shape it, allowing for a more uniform and thinner piece.  Very nice work that way.
• karenth-- the question of rank again:  what's highbrow art and what's lowbrow art in your society?
• Robert-- A culture might put more emphasis on the arts than this one.
• CiceroCat-- i never got to use the wheel
• CiceroCat-- i made me a fox, the others all got broke
• Robert-- Art and skill in the arts might create status or be demanded for it like those mandarins and their classics.
• CiceroCat-- did they have blown glass figurines back in ancient times?
• @Zette-- There is very little glass in ancient times, as I recall.
• @Zette-- If any.
• CiceroCat-- writing is an art, that'd be neat idea if say there was some taboo against it, unless you had a writer's license -- i almost wrote a story like that
• CiceroCat-- k
• Anne_Marble-- A society that respected war would respect art that showed battle scenes, poetry about battles, etc. And other types of art, if they even existed, might be "womanly things." (Or "man things" in an Amazonian society.)
• @Zette-- hold on a second... let me check something.
• Lucas-- I liked the story where someone (from a sci-fi kind of place) went to a primitive planet and tried to jump through a window to escape.  Bad idea, it was leaded glass.  *thump*
• CiceroCat-- acting out famous hunts or battles like the cave people in Auel's book
• Robert-- Greek theatre was religious.
• Lucas-- A license to write?  That would be ferocious.
• CiceroCat--
• CiceroCat-- oooh, Lucas, ouch
• @Zette-- I was wrong.  Egypt had glass making, but very little survives.
• CiceroCat-- neat!
• karenth-- bet it was gorgeous...
• CiceroCat-- btw, Robert, what is a mandarin?
• Anne_Marble-- Song about a raid on a helpless village = cool. Song about how pretty and quiet the trees are = horrid boring subversive tripe!!!!
• @Zette-- Says they were not made from blown glass but built up around a core of sand.
• CiceroCat-- lol
• Robert-- Chinese upper class scholar-bureaucrat
• Kay-- Chinese  very high class -- what Robert said
• CiceroCat-- neat , Zette
• CiceroCat-- ah, thnx
• karenth-- built up, zette?
• Lucas-- In "Quozl" (Alan Dean Foster), the aliens were naturally violent, but lived very peaceful lives surrounded by hundreds of gory sculptures and paintings.
• @Zette-- Glass blowing is believed to have been invented about 1st century BC.
• Anne_Marble-- I was going to say... type of orange. ;---
• @Zette-- By the Phoenicians, if that matters.
• CiceroCat-- I always heard about blown glass, but I never seen it; it sounds like it'd be pretty; I think in Edding's book they had a pretty bird
• Anne_Marble-- They make it in Willaimsburg and that type of place.
• CiceroCat-- btw, if you had a miltaristic society, kinda like the Spartans, would they allow much art?
• @Zette-- Ah, and I do recall that clear glass is a very late addition.  Impurities in the mix always made the glass take on a color.
• CiceroCat-- neat
• @Zette-- The Spartans had a wonderful amount of art.  I just read a great book on it.
• CiceroCat-- neat, so it's hard to squelch art
• Steven-- no. the very first blown glass was invented when someone dropped the very first glass and broke it.
• karenth-- snarf!
• Lucas-- There are a few places that offer glass blowing workshops.  For $$ of course, but still, it could be interesting.
• CiceroCat-- but it would be a neat idea, say if every available (and fit) male was used for warfare, than the women could do a lot of artwork if they found the time   make-up society
• Anne_Marble-- I know someone who started training in that. It's very difficult for someone with ADHD.
• CiceroCat-- neat, Lucas!
• CiceroCat-- lol Steven
• CiceroCat-- And we can't forget jewelry--jewelry making is an art form, right?  My sis is going into that... hmm, can I interrogate her for research???
• @Zette-- Well, remember also that Sparta, like the rest of the area, had a long prehistory before the very late 'military' system took over.
• CiceroCat-- I know very little on Sparta; Dad found this neat book "Gates of Fire" that he says shows a lot about their society.
• CiceroCat-- historical fiction or something
• @Zette-- CC -- if all the males are off to war, the women are tending the fields, making the weapons, and doing all the work that would normally take two people.
• CiceroCat-- hmmm, never thought of that....  
• CiceroCat-- maybe the children make the art   I can build the best sand castle!
• CiceroCat--
• Anne_Marble-- Sounds like some offices I have known. The men manage, the women do all the work.
• CiceroCat--
• karenth-- heh
• @Zette-- That's why long periods of war were often devastating for the people back home, CC.  And why wars, until modern time, were seasonal.  No one wanted the crops to fail, or no one to be there to harvest, etc.
• Lucas-- One point would be, a situation could appear to be one where one group manages and the other does the work, but if it really is that way, and you took away management, then the whole thing would collapse.
• CiceroCat-- so they waited till winter or something?
• Lucas-- Exactly, CC.  War had a season.
• CiceroCat-- true...
• CiceroCat-- neat
• karenth-- (i'd better say goodnight, all.  Excellent class again, zette.  Excellent discussion, everybody...)
• Lucas-- After the crops, and before the weather got too crummy to travel in.
• Anne_Marble-- I remember seeing a religious document from the Middle Age, trying to urge people not to go to war during certain times. It used religious reasons, but there were practical ones behind it.
• @Zette-- post-planting, and back for the fall harvest.  Usually winter at home.
• CiceroCat-- night karenth
• CiceroCat-- ah
• @Zette-- Night Karen!
• Robert-- Night, Karen
• CiceroCat-- Zette, can I ask you a non-culture related question?
• @Zette-- No one could afford to keep an army in the field during the winter.  The supplies were very hard to get to them.
• @Zette-- Sure, ask.
• Anne_Marble-- For example, they urged people not to fight during October and November because of feast days, but the real reason was to protect the harvest.
• CiceroCat-- I can't hardly find any info on it when I searched; when was steel first invented/used?
• CiceroCat-- I like the idea of steel swords, but I think it's more modern?
• CiceroCat-- neat, Anne
• Lucas-- That could depend on what you think of as modern.
• CiceroCat-- well, hmm, was it past Renaissance?  Past Medieval?
• @Zette-- Let me take a look here...
• CiceroCat-- thnx!
• Anne_Marble-- Not that anybody listened. :-
• Robert-- You have religious restrictions on arts sometimes too, like many sects of Islam do not allow representational art.
• CiceroCat-- representational?
• Robert-- Recognizable people, animals, events - all abstract patterns for decoration.
• CiceroCat-- about oneself?  About anything but gods?
• Anne_Marble-- And Eastern Orthodox churches don't allow statues of Jesus, saints, etc.
• CiceroCat-- ah
• CiceroCat-- k
• Lucas-- Steel has been used for centuries, in sword making.
• CiceroCat-- for a while they didn't want people to have crosses, afraid they'd worship a false idol
• Anne_Marble-- The only reason they have icons in the Eastern Orthodox tradition is because people were upset that they wouldn't be allowed the other images.
• CiceroCat-- (way back)
• Robert-- And lots of religions don't allow statues of people making love in various positions but an entire temple in Cambodia's decorated with it.
• @Zette-- Says here that although steel has been known for centuries, its production was extremely limited until the invention of the Bessemer process in the late 1850's.
• CiceroCat-- ah so the widespread use of it was fairly modern
• Lucas-- It would have been rare, but existing.  Used only for specific things, not just every tool someone needed.
• Anne_Marble-- Tee hee. One of my fellow reviewers got stuck reading a Medieval romance where the 12th-century Welsh castle had a steel gate. She was not impressed with the extend of research.
• @Zette-- Right.   Prior to that it was mostly iron.
• CiceroCat-- One more q   Iron's not shiny like steel is it?  In blade form?  Or do the two look a like?
• Anne_Marble-- But she was even less impressed when the heroine held herself ramrod straight. ;---
• Steven-- I don't think they look alike.
• CiceroCat-- lol Anne
• @Zette-- I think iron has a slightly duller, darker look... but I might be wrong.
• CiceroCat-- I know in a short story, I had a steel blade and my character used it briefly as a mirror (he was undergoing a transformation)
• CiceroCat-- thnx
• @Zette-- I think iron can be very shiny.  But bronze mirrors were used in ancient times, as I recall.
• CiceroCat-- neat, thnx
• Anne_Marble-- The European bronze age stuff looked really cool. It's easy to forget how skilled the craftsman were.
• CiceroCat-- isn't bronze -- the color of bronze?  a dull gold?
• Robert-- Yes, it's a tawny dark yellowish metal.
• CiceroCat-- k
• Steven-- that's where the name came from. ooooooo. a coincidence!
• Steven-- hehe
• CiceroCat-- lol!
• @Zette-- Yes.  Lots of great weapons out of bronze too, which was easier to work with than iron.  However, iron is far harder... and iron-equiped armies beat out bronze ones.
• CiceroCat-- neat; so I guess an army if they had steel swords could defeat an iron-sword combatants
• Anne_Marble-- Well-off Vikings were buried with combs and other grooming accesories. So the image of skungy barbarians isn't always true. They didn't have access to Spot-a-Pots, but they did what they could.
• CiceroCat-- Port a Potties?
• @Zette-- Yes, but you'd have to have a very advanced technology to turn out that much steel.
• CiceroCat-- Hmm, maybe magic might have a factor in that in my society... my semi-nomads are gonna have to have iron i think
• CiceroCat-- It's a matter of heat, the forging, isn't it?  The reason why steel was so rare?
• Lucas-- Indeed, CC.   http://www.techfak.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/kap_5/advanced/t5_1_4.html
• @Zette-- Mostly.
• CiceroCat-- ooh, a link, checking out ....  Mostly?
• Robert-- Heat and very skilled labor to get the mix of impurities just right and keep treating it to get good steel.
• CiceroCat-- ah
• @Zette-- Yes, both heat and extraction of purities.  And then shaping, which is also not easy.
• CiceroCat-- neat link!
• CiceroCat-- thnx Lucas
• CiceroCat-- Ah
• Lucas-- Sure, you're welcome CC.
• @Zette-- Well, that's it for this week.  Next Monday off... it's a holiday here in the US and I'm going to be gone for most of the weekend.
• @Zette-- SF convention in Kansas City!  Yay!
• Anne_Marble-- Actual vacations. Wow.
• Robert-- Thanks for a great class, Zette! Whoohoo! Have fun at the con!
• CiceroCat-- neat!  lol -- I'm saying that a lot tonight
• Lucas-- Hmm, "CC"...  I've recently started reading "Mute" by Piers Anthony.   "CC" is the abreviation for "Coordination Computer", the mechanism that pretty much runs the entire interstellar human empire.
• CiceroCat-- wonderful chat, Zette as usual!
• Anne_Marble-- Well.... Now we know something about CC.
• Anne_Marble-- Woo hoo @ zette
• CiceroCat-- lol neat --- I read some of his Xanth novels
• CiceroCat-- my name is a mystery whence it came from   no, not really
• CiceroCat--
• @Zette-- Going to be away for three days.  Wow.
• CiceroCat-- wow, have fun, Zette!
• Steven-- cool.
• Robert-- Sounds like fun!
• Anne_Marble-- My parents are driving to Quebec from Pennsylvania. That's why it just got cold on the East Coast. :---
• @Zette-- Oh, and I'll be seeing Lee Killough, by the way, the person who wrote the book on which I've based this class.
• Steven-- lol
• CiceroCat-- ne--great  
• Lucas-- That should be neat, Zette.
• CiceroCat-- Lee is a female?  Or male?
• @Zette-- Female.
• Robert-- Cool! Tell her how much we've been getting out of it!