Living History

We’ve all seen things that take us right out of the moment when witnessing Living History, this week we talk about some of our pet peeves, those items that, for us, are real show stoppers, including:
• Modern clothes, shoes and jewelry
• Modern piercings, tattoos and hair colors/styles
• Actions and words, politicizing, talking about your personal life,  smoking a cigarette
• Furniture and items like coolers, sleeping bags, toiletries, vehicles, porta-a-potties, ATMs, cameras, cellphones
• Food containers like beverage containers, plastic bags and wrappers, and vendor purchased items

Musical Interlude: Tribe of the Lost Road by Ensemble Davuli off their album The Wandering Drum

Download: Show Stoppers

Alena and Stephen interview Dan Crowther and his daughter Syd about recreating Iron Age Celtic life in Upstate New York. We talked about:
· How Dan started down the living history path and starting a new group: Ancient Celtic Clans
· Syd’s experience growing up doing living history
· Why they recreate Iron Age life and about all the items they have created and use in the LH demonstrations
· How to research ways of life that were not written down, including the Celtic Living History Forum.
·         Working with kids in Living History presentations
·         Events they have participated in including timeline events.

Musical Interlude: Cluck Old Hen performed by Savanah Cotton Exchange off Skirmish Presents: All in Tune With History.

Download: Recreating Iron Age Celts
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Jeromy, a member of RIPP

Join us on a pirate adventure in episode 34 as Alena and Stephen get a tour of Newport, Rhode Island and learn all about Newport’s piratical history from the folks at Rhode Island Pirate Players. We also interview two members of RIPP and find out:
·   How RIPP got its start
·   Recruitment techniques
·   Casey’s business model for running RIPP
·   Jeromy’s long term love of pirates
·   Telling the real stories about piracy in the 18th century in many different environments.

Musical Interlude: General Taylor performed by Great Big Sea

Download: Walking with Pirates

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Casey, founder of RIPP

This week, episode 33, Alena and Stephen follow up the episode on Minutiae with by talking about reenacting and interacting the larger objects. They tackle big topics like:
•    Shelter: from Houses and environments to tents and other portable homes
•    Furniture: camp furniture, common furniture and a reading from Home by Witold Rybczynski
•    Storage: humans collect stuff, and have found myriad ways through the years of storing it all
•    Vehicles: both historical and modern transport concerns
•    Animals: adding animals to a portrayal, working with heritage breeds, dealing with the public.

Musical Interlude: Greensleeves performed by Renaissonics

Download: The Big Stuff

Thanks to all of you out there listening to the Living History Podcast and giving us feedback! In this week’s episode, number 31, we address some of the questions and comments we’ve received since we started the podcast including:

• What has been most surprising about doing the podcast?
• Providing more details as a part of our podcasts
• There is no such thing as a stupid tourist question
• Great tips for event survival
• Some unique living history terminology
• Is the human race loosing valuable skills to the detriment of us all?
• School Event restrictions
• Reenacting military life as a family, specifically gender disparities in more modern military reenactments
• How does the Renaissance Faire relate to Living History?
• What is our list of small items we still want (including an update on our chamber pot situation)
• Reenacting in order to show respect for those who lived in the time we are representing.

Musical Interlude: Jamie Raeburn’s Farewell by Tourdion

Download: Listener Feedback
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