Hi!

I’m writing this well ahead of time, because only a few days after getting home from the USA, we’re off to Barcelona on our family holiday. I should be home when you get this, but I’m not planning to write any emails while I’m away!

Madison Madness

Last week I caught you up to the Madison seminars on July 6th and 7th. Monday the 8th was batshit crazy. I went to The House on the Rock, about an hour West of Madison, with my friend Alexandra. The place with the carousel made famous by Neil Gaiman in his American Gods book and TV series. It defies description: the best I can come up with is that a harmless lunatic (Alex Jordan Jr.) was rich enough to create a perfect representation of the inside of his head.

It has the carousel, of course. With no horses on the carousel itself, but 2500 carousel horses around it:

But also an enormous collection of guns, mostly crappy replicas with a few honest-to-goodness antiques mixed in.

Next to a world-class collection of Chinese ivory carvings, and a world-class collection of circus models.

Not to mention the life-size whale wrestling a giant squid sculpture. You could easily stand up inside the whale’s mouth.

And musical automata literally everywhere, and at every conceivable scale.

It’s absolutely worth a visit, just be warned, it’s exhausting and overwhelming as well as being awesome and fascinating.

Fancy a large American car entirely covered in bathroom tiles?

Mr. Jordan has you covered there too:

Tuesday was a bit more relaxed - Madison has the largest collection of mustard in the world in the Mustard Museum.

And an excellent zoo, with strange creatures.

I also played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time since the 1980s. Turns out it’s all about the Dungeon master. Justin did a sterling job of creating an NPC for me - I got to find the original source of all swordsmanship in a secret library. I mean, does he know me or what?

Swords in Minneapolis

Then I hied me to Minneapolis, to teach seminars for Brandon Foat’s Center for Blade Arts. This was extraordinary - the club has about 200 members, covers sport fencing, HMA, kendo, and other blade related disciplines. And I’d never heard of it before Brandon asked me to teach there. I think it’s fair to judge an instructor by their students, and I have to say what I saw there was very impressive. Over 30 attendees on each day, and all of them a delight to have in class.

On the Monday I went to visit my friends at Arms and Armor. Holy cow, that place is incredible. The workshop is vast, and has been used for creating first-class swords, spears, knives, daggers, and training weapons for over 40 years.

I happened upon an original ghiaverina, just propped up against a bookshelf in Chris’s office.

It’s sword-nirvana. Or so I thought until I went next door to the Oakeshott Institute, run by the same folk. So. Many. Antique. Swords. That they let you hold and play with.

Oh my.

While I was there we also shot a couple of videos. Here’s one of me gushing over a bastard sword with the original grip still intact:

​https://youtu.be/RvgCLVzZXVk?si=T5fSB5QFoyqmUqEI​

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And there’s an hour-long interview coming up. Many thanks are due to Chris Poor, Craig Johnson, and Nathan Clough for a magnificent afternoon!
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Flying Squirrels

My last day in Minneapolis included history, aviation, and a very cute furry animal. Brandon introduced me to his friend Jerry Vecoli, who breeds flying squirrels:

Jerry also owns this gorgeous old, lovingly restored, WWII US Army spotter plane:

We didn’t get to go up in the sky on this trip, but next time!

This week on the podcast: Clubs, Wands and Gladiators: Historical Physical Culture with Ben Miller

Ben Miller is the man behind Physical Culture Historians, preserving and reviving historical exercise methods for mind, body and spirit using wands, Indian Clubs, calisthenics, and more. He has a successful and fascinating YouTube channel, and has produced several modern editions of 18th and 19th century fencing and self defence sources, as well as being the author of The Gladiatory Art: The Lives, Writings, & Techniques of the Eighteenth Century Stage Gladiators.

In our conversation we talk about how Ben got interested in the physical culture of the 19th century, and how his experience doing historical fencing made him realise that the people who designed exercises and physical training in the past had some insights that we are lacking in modern sports culture. Modern fitness is too specialised, whereas in the 19th century there was a much greater focus on holistic health, which would be beneficial to us today.

Ben talks about his favourite piece of equipment, the Indian club, and the difference between historical Indian clubs and the modern varieties; they are designed with different ways of swinging in mind. He also explains the origins of the push up, and how you should do the original Swedish version.

We go on to discuss the largely forgotten stage gladiators of the 18th century, who were men and women who fought with sharp swords (amongst other weapons) on stage, for real. Often resulting in hideous injuries, disembowelling, and even death.

To the podcast!

yours,

Guy

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