Update land

I promised and update, and here it is:
I’m finally making headway in the archives. I’m not finding any new ballads, but I am finding the same ones printed over and over with a noticeable level of loyalty to the visual landscape of the original edition. I’ve also noticed that most ballads function as montage of images from which meaning is fairly easily extracted rather than in narrative, comic book from (as is standard with German ballads from the same period). I’ve found visual evidence of ballads posted on a wall and ballad singers in contemporary prints, a description of a person being able to identify a ballad by the way it looked, and a publishers catalog aimed at itinerant chapmen. I can’t tell if it’s a catalog that lists the publishers “in house” stock, or if it’s a “made ot order” list of copyrights held, but either way it will allow me to recreate what one print sellers options were. If you are a grad in my program and you are reading this, I will approach you to play the “guess what this one is about” ballad game. Don’t worry, you will be compensated for your time with beer and the knowledge that you may be helping me with my diss… but mainly with beer. So, I think I’m actually getting to something that will resemble a dissertation. I have almost 70 pages of notes and write ups of ballads since I got here, and that doesn’t count all the entries I have from the summer. All in all I can confidently say I love my job, I love what I do, and I actually have the confidence I’ll finish and finish well. Then again give me a week and I’ll be back on the brink of despair, but so goes the dissertation roller coaster.
Oh yeah, and I reworked my WH thru food syllabus and wrote a Tudor/Stuart syllabus to submit for summer school. I’m working with ReallyTiny on the WH Food stuff and if it gets accepted we are going to have a blast. We’re trying to work in eating and/or drinking to every week.

But after that fabulous week, I fizzled out today. I wasted time downloading the new blogger template you see here and when I got to the BL I realized I was more interested in reading reviews on skin and hair products than actually working. So after 2 hours of minimal productivity, I decided to hike my butt down to the national portrait gallery ( I did have a portrait I needed to look at) and have spent the last 3+ hours wandering around Covent Garden. Now, as you can see from this pic, I enjoyed a fall bitter and typing on my laptop in a pub.I realized I don’t have that much time left here and I have a lot I want to do. On the schedule for tonight: my weekly Sat night bread and tasty cheeses for dinner with my £3.33 red wine (nice, smooth with a good french character- much better than Chuck).

I’ve also tried a new cookie recipe from King Arthur flour. I’m still on a brownie kick but realized that I would totally eat a pan of brownies in, say, 24 hours, but if I make brownie cookies (and can not gobble down the dough) I’d be able to bake 1-2 an evening and freeze the rest of the dough. For the bakers out there it’s more like a fondant – very chocolate, sugar, egg. For the non bakers: it’s the cookie version of a lava cake. Good, but I over baked the first 2 and they turned out dry. I’d make it again but it doesn’t quite meet the dense brownie texture that I’m looking for*. Today I’ve decided to head to the Tate and maybe I’ll stop my a local bakery and p/u one of their outstanding brownies.

*Now that I have 2 friends at the BL (and one is a New Zealander who totally sounds like Bret from FOTC), I'm going to make most of the rest of the batch and take them into work.