I find the Moody Madame Vorhees really sexy for some reason.
I think it was nakedness. And the way she was talking about how much she wanted to have sex.
Right. The Gov. made the point that he’d read the “agreement” they all made before they got off the ship. It said that (paraphrasing) all the people agreed to be governed by the Gov. It didn’t say anything about Democratic process, peaceful protest, right to assemble, free speech, or that the governed had any influence on the rules or enforcement. All of those concepts didn’t exist for another hundred years or so (nearly 200!) and these participants seem to have forgotten that after about five minutes. Especially the women. At least in the 1900s house, the women made a feeble attempt to play the roles of 1900s women. These fools…
Face it, I’m addicted. PBS is the only entity that should be allowed to produce Reality TV.
Anyway, there’s a new family and more freemen there now so things should get even more interesting. I think some of the newbies will play the game by the rules.
And what, no comments about the guy who decided to go wander off on his own to “explore?” I think that probably would have happened, but the entire settlement would have sent off a group of men to get the lay of the land and find out if there’s any Indians lurking nearby. They wouldn’t just let one guy do whatever the hell hge wanted.
I don’t even understand why the Voorhees family signed up. If their religious views are that important to them, why would they agree to live in a colony where they know that attendance of the Sabbath meeting is mandated by law?
I was also a bit perturbed about the Vorhees family not going to church service. The Governor mentioned that as a Baptist, he felt conflicted about forcing religion on others- it seemed like he wasn’t ecstatic about the rule, but just the same there was the emphasis about the social importance of the church service.
I’m not that big on religion myself, but if I was on the show I would suck it up. After all, to me, I’d rather be sitting in the pews than breaking my back frantically trying to make enough spars to pay off the colony debt- at least it is an opportunity for a day off.
I was really impressed with the efforts that went into building houses for the new colonists. It looked like a ton of work; I don’t know how many of the colonists were dedicated to the house-building, but even if it was all the men that is still a huge amount of labor- Those guys were spending ten hours a day hacking and chopping and struggling with soft iron tools, shaping logs into beams. At the end of the show, they just got the frame up :eek:
I’m optimistic about how things are going. I think that they will be able to learn from their mistakes in the past. Making the colony viable is a lot of work, but the trick is to properly divide the labor, and get rid of all their 21st century baggage. Sometimes I wish PBS would starve them, just so they’d be more enthusiastic about getting work done.
I really wish I could be on a show like this. The reason is that I would have some challenges adjusting at first, but I would learn to COPE with it, and eventually get accustomed to the ritual of getting up early, working hard, etc. If anything, I would be able to look back and think “hey, I built a house from scratch, thats not bad” or something. While their tasks on the show are difficult, slow and frustrating, the important thing is that they have the opportunity to prove to themselves they are capable of living that way.
Same here, except I didn’t even hear back from them - I found out about their attitude from fellow re-enactors. What period do you guys do?
[end tangent]
The Vorhees family’s decision not to attend church services is really annoying, as is Jonathan deciding that he has to tell everyone he’s gay. Can’t these people at least try to act as if they were in a real 17th century village? Why did they want to be on the show if they weren’t prepared to put aside some of their own beliefs? I’m all for religious and sexual freedom in the 21st century; no doubt our society has evolved way beyond where it was in the 17th century regarding these issues. Having these people decide to work out modern-day issues in the Colonial Village is as disconcerting to me as if they’d decided they were all going to wear blue jeans or if every house had a refridgerator hidden in the back room.
I can understand your reasoning, but I can also imagine how the Voorhees were feeling. They probably believed that the mayor’s motivation were his 21st century religious beliefs rather than a desire to live like those in the 17th century. He did nothing to allay the fears of others that his religiosity would be motivated by authenticity rather than his personal agenda. He did mention something to the camera but I never heard him say anything to the others, and he certainly didn’t act like his motives were pure. Not to mention that City of God shit.
I was also bothered by the Voorhees not attending the sabbath services, though to be fair, Danny and Don were punished for not attending, too. I am glad Jonathon outed himself to the community, though. For a few reasons. I think it was a learning experience which fit in with the other challenges the colonists faced. Knowing the punishment for homosexuality was death, I can see it not being realistic to come out, but it added for me an issue I might not have normally thought about. I’m sure gay colonists existed, I think the added isolation and struggles homosexuals faced back then are equally deserving of a voice in this story. I also found it interesting that to some extent, a real sense of community has developed, to the point where Jonathon felt he needed to be honest with the other colonists. I admired him for it and found it touching.
I think some of this can apply to Amy-Kristina, as well. She talked about her position in the community, in that it might seem a bit ridiculous, since it wasn’t necessarily a true reflection of what her position would have been at the time. I agreed with her that it is a part of her history as an American, and felt glad she was a part of the story. I also felt it was unfair for her beng asked to wear the “P” for saying “crap.” Not because she didn’t think it was profanity, but because Jeff Wyers was committing blasphemy by this same reasoning, when using the phrase, “Gosh darn it.” I can see her misunderstanding his rules, by that example.
The sow having babies was great, and I like seeing the results of the community pulling together. The creation of spars, pig-pen, and working on the cabin were all fun to watch. I didn’t agree with halting production to build the cabin, though I was surprised more colonists were added without providing shelter. The explanation of new colonists living in earth caves covered that for me, so something else I learned. :eek: I wish they would have spent a little more time introducing the newcomers, but enjoyed both episodes.
I had to miss last night’s episode. Did they show one episode or 2 like on Monday? Can someone recap for me? Did someone quit? When is the next episode going to be on? (that’s the only thing I don’t like about these series…they don’t air on regular nights, although they do tend to re-run them quite a bit so hopefully I can catch this one I missed.)
Thanks
The “City of God shit” is based on the concept of the “City on the Hill,” which was proclaimed by John Winthrop, first colonial governor of Massachusetts. He wrote, "“We shall find that the God of Israel is among us . . . when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men of succeeding generations shall say, ‘The Lord make it like that of New England.’ For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us. . . .” There’s ample historical basis for the Governor’s use of the imagery, regardless of his present day religious beliefs.
As to the Voorhees situation - put them in stocks for a day and I’m sure they’ll be regular church attendees. Or, banish them. Both would have been the courses of action taken in 1628.
I would have to agree. Bethany was hot also.
Overall, I was disappointed with the show. I didn’t watch Tuesdays show and don’t plan on to. No more Bethany anyways 
They should of done it like that Montana Homestead show. Have it a contest to see if they can make it thru the winter depending on what food/wood they were able to get. Make them all motivated to actually get off their asses and do something. God it was boring as hell watching them fart around and do some half-assed field work. I want to see SUFFERING!
But I thought things like this were the point of the show. PBS doesn’t want to show you exactly how things were organized in a 17th century village, they want to contrast that life with how things are organized now. And what better way to show that contrast than to show the 21st-century backgrounds of the people in the village, and how that affects their performance and thinking?
And note that that contrast isn’t only shown for these ethical/social issues like (mandatory) religion and homosexuality. That’s just one facet. It’s also shown in the adjustments the people make to living in tight quarters, and working with 17th century tools (“it tooke me literally two hours to do what would take 1 minute with power tools”), and adjusting to the food, and farm chores, and crapping in the woods… everything.
It’s the contrast that makes the show, not the perfect re-enactment.
Dude, she came back.
An irony about homosexuality in the 17th century: prior to that time homosexuality was punishable by many means and upon occasion the death sentence was invoked, but the man responsible for making the death sentence mandatory was a particularly zealous Irish-born Anglican bishop named John Atherton (1598-1640). The first set of men executed under the statute were Mervyn Tuchet (aka Lord Audley, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven) and two of his servants, who were publicly beheaded after being tried on charges brought by Tuchet’s own son. The second set of men executed (hanged this time) were John Childe, who was a servant, and his master, Bishop John Atherton
(For a cite, just google “atherton sodomy castlehaven” or some combo.)
The church issue is a hard one because on the one hand it’s just a reenactment and otoh it really is a church service. While the Governor doesn’t strike me as a bad sort at all considering he’s a Baptist minister in Texas, I’m pretty sure that if this reenactment was in St. Augustine that he wouldn’t want to attend a 17th century Catholic mass and eat the wafer. I think I’d have compromised by holding a mandatory town-meeting at church-time on Sundays and then an optional service for those who were interested. On the subject of the gay issue, were I Jonathan I’d have remembered when I was pretending to be alive and keep my mouth shut- I don’t think he’s going to be scoring or tempted to score while he’s there, this isn’t REAL WORLD- Plimoth, and unless there’s a Wampanoag S&M bar in the woods called THE SCARLET FETTER there’s really no need to mention it one way or the other.
Having grown up on a farm in Alabama with aunts who wouldn’t didn’t have electricity until they were in their 60s and who never allowed running water in their house (one of my chores was keeping their well-water drawn) and having had some experience in reenactment at an reconstructed 18th century fort near where I was born, I think I could handle everything about Plimoth except for the chamber pots/trips to the woods. (I don’t even know how modern military men & women handle it when away from barracks even though digging privies is a part of their training [or so I understand].)
I think a good burning at the stake would solve all the whining problems.
I think it’s great to have people (both those on the show and those watching) be forced to consider how much better we have it now than it was then (particularly on issues of religious beliefs and the emancipation of women). I think it would be really interesting to hear their thoughts about it. But to expect that their 21st century problems with the law should be handled in a 21st century way??? :mad: Makes me wanna not watch no more.
FWIW, I did a ‘sheep to shawl’ project about 10 years ago. Starting in march, one of my ewes dropped twin lambs, both of which were male. Since I didnt really ned or want any more rams, I opted to raise them for eating. April rolled around and mrAru sheared them all for me. One of my ewes put out a lovely batch of about 6 lbs of wool. That is the batch I decided to use.
I started out by having mrAru cut down several smaller birches that had gotten storm damaged, and we had a fallen oak from the year before so we were set for wood. we dug out abot 12 lbs or so of clay from the clay bank in one field, and processed into usable clay body. We made this into a cauldron of about 2 gallons, and carefully fired it in an impromptu kiln [layer of wood, clay piece, more wood carefully surrounding it, turf over all then a good layer of raw clay from the clay pit, and a small door created by leaving a space and blocked with an old disc harrow disc] After we disasembled the kiln and got the put out we salvaged most of the ashes we could and made a lye trough [short segments of heavy oak bark formed into a trough with a small hole under it.] We heaped all of the ashes in, and dumped about a gallon f water in, and gathered up the drippings, and ran it through several times, and added more wood ash until we pretty much ised up the pile we salvaged, and the liquid had a good strong lye smell. We filtered it through a wad of waste linen fabric and bottled the lye. We saved different types of cooking fat in a dripping bucket, and filtered it through more waste linen and used that combined with the lye to make soap.
While we were puttering away doing that, MrAru took the best parts of the birches and male a waarp weighted loom frame, and a few srop spindle shafts. i made 100 drop weights, and 6 spindle whorls. While the wood frame was settling in, I took the wool, picked it over for the worst bits of twigs, stones, burrs and ahem physical detritus fromthe sheep, then rinsed it 7 or 8 times in the clay pot over the course of a week. After the water ran as cleanas i could get it, I scoured the wool by getting the pot full of water up to just above comfort level over a fire [you do this by building a very small fire around the pot of water, and slowly add small pieces of wood to it until you get to your temperature.] and added soap, and got ti well dissolved. Then you put the wool in and very gently push it in and make sure all of it is thoroughly wet. You let it soak until the water cools off th about body temperature, then sort of gently slop it out on several boards and tease the wool out to lay more or less flat and pour warm water through it until all the soap is out.
After scouring the wool, we let it dry in the sun [now is when you would make felt if you need it] and took it by the handsfull and combed it into rollags and stacked the rollags into a large laundry basket. These rollags are what you use to spin the actual threads out of. Spinning out the rollags into 1 ply yarn took something on the order of 7 months about 2 hours a day. If I was faster, and spun any time I wasnt actually doing something else I probably could have gotten it done in about a month and a half or so.
I threaded the loom, about a long weekends work, and set to work weaving, again about 2 hours a day for the next month. this left me with a panel of wool 22 inches wide [point of shoulder to point of shoulder] and about 15 feet long. I reserved 15 rollags of wool and spun it tighter into a thinner thread for sewing.
With careful cutting and piecing together, I ended up with a womans tunic, long sleeved in the early anglo-saxon style. It was the natural color of the wool as I didnt want to dye it. Elapsed time start to finish, about 10 months. Keep in mind, I am not the fastest spinner, and the colonials used spinning wheels that make it way faster, and I also processed everything solo - no other women helping me spin, or weave. This also included the time to actually make the equipment I needed to process the wool as well=)
Yup, there was a reason that women sat and spun or sewed any time they actually weren’t doing something else, even after the invention of the spinning wheel…it was definitely an interesting project, and one I would not willingly do again=\
From roughly fall of Rome [though there is no specific rule on how early you can go] to 1600, and theoretically any culture of western europe or that had contact with western europe, but the cultural thing is not really observed, we have had a King Ix[something unpronouncable aztec] a mongolian king, a japanese king …you get the idea=)
Me personally - I started out in 1978 with a sort of default celt, 550 ad northumbria. I discovered Apicius and got into rome, so I also have a 125 ad Alexandrian Egypt dwelling Roman, and when a friend got me into researching steppes, a steppes nomad of roughly 1300 ad. I probably have about 500 or 600 hours of research time in on the celt, about 1000 hours or so of time in on the nomad and about 300 or so hours on the roman. I also occasionally dress in elizabethan because the clothes are so spiffy.
As you can see, I really dont do a lot of the ‘normal’ stuff people do…Went out to dinner with some co-workers a couple years ago and was totally lost because I don’t watch soap operas, and hate friends and Seinfeld…and am not sure which superbowl that year was…but i can discuss the 100 years war for hours … or religious freedoms under Genghis Khan…
burundi and I watched it last night; it was great, but I too find the religious issues uncomfortable.
Here’s the thing: sure, religious attendance would be mandatory, but only Christians would be making up the colony in the first place. It would be extremely unlikely that the law would ever require a nonbeliever to show up for church. In this respect, the Vorhees were in a strange situation: the law as it applied to them could not reflect how sixteenth century law would’ve applied.
Furthermore, I get the impression that this colony started off as a primarily mercantile operation, and that the governor decided to retool it into a religious, “city-on-the-hill” colony midway through the project. The Voorhees very well may have declined to sign on in the first place if they knew that the religious elements would be emphasized.
As for homosexuality, I’d be interested in knowing how commonly such laws were enforced. My guess is that the more mercantile colonies ignored homosexuality whenever possible: when the workforce is that sparse and labor is that vital, you don’t want to kill workers off unless absolutely necessary. I can see theft, murder, even adultery being punished harshly, but I’d imagine that single guys (and girls) who wanted to fuck one another could get away with it as long as they didn’t make too big a deal out of it.
The punishments seem a little silly. Foucault talks a lot about how post-Enlightenment, we’ve moved from punishments inflicted on the body to punishments inflicted on the spirit: whereas the evildoers on the show should be punished through pain and discomfort, instead they’re punished through having a time-out. Of course, they can’t torture people on the show, but I’m surprised they don’t have measures to inflict moderate physical discomfort. Could they not design a stocks that was somewhat uncomfortable, instead of having folks sit in a chair?
I was disappointed that the governor didn’t inflict the no-beer-ration punishment.
Daniel
Actually, according to PBS, they most likely would have been condemned to die. As for the contrast, we don’t need to see modern things on the show — we have those all around us. We can contrast by seeing reasonably authentic 17th century life and contrasting it to our own living rooms.