juniperus' paper was well received, and I learned a great deal about the Picatrix, a medieval Islamic magic text traslated into Latin. It helped that sursamajor was there to give me some background on it; also, it was good to run into A. She remembered me as being blonde, I remembered her as having longer, curlier hair; our memory lapses only delayed us by about a second. The astrolabe panel was full of information, but ultimately best as an advertisement for the Avista reception later in the afternoon. Tide dials are really nifty. As with so many pieces of elegant hand-held medieval technologies, I covet an instance of one; it shouldn't be too hard to make a tide dial, actually.The Dante panel I attended was very, very good, each paper beautifully presented, clear, well-structured, and well-presented. Plus, it was the first session I've attended so far which directly relates to work I'm currently doing. In the echoes of staircase en route to my next destination, I ran across two people singing duets together, and loitered until they ended.
I made astrolabes at the Avista reception and navigational instrument demonstration with
chilperic and a_d_medievalist. I finally, finally have my own cheap replica astrolabe! And, of course, have practiced using it. It's all very well to know the theory - things make a great deal more sense in practice. Afterwards, I went off to eat gargantuan portions of irregularly-delivered mediocre Chinese food with a really good fresh mango smoothie and in the fine company of C.M., a few Avista folks, and some numismatists. Unlike the mediocrity of dinner, lunch was delicious: shish tawook with a side of really good fattoush with juniperus and medievalist at the Shwarma King. The hummous was tasty too, nicely balanced, with smooth chickpeas predominating the mix.I meant to attend a reception or two tonight, but got sidetracked talking to
medievalist. In the still of the evening en route to rest, I passed a room of slightly drunken medievalists lustily singing "House of the Rising Sun", accompanied by flute. It was joyous. 