Everyone.. stop by here and say hi.. Intros!

[Chrisnstar]

Welcome to EquiFriends, Erika! hope to see MJ here soon too.

chris

[Mary Ann]

Woohoo!!! Ericka's here!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[KaLioMele]

I've sneaked in as well...haven't had much to report lately but been keeping track of you all.

For those who don't know me, I'm a 38 yr. F in MD, with 4 horses on our mini-farm:

Angus - 1995 black CPO App gelding
Hana - 2001 gold champagne QH filly, WCH bred
Kiko - 2003 dun leopard Appaloosa gelding, also known as 'trouble'
Jess - 15ish QHx bay gelding, here to be a companion horse

Been in horses since I found my first one running up the road at age 11, but been horse-crazy from birth. Ridden mostly H\J but transitioned a few years ago back to western (from my 4-H days), team penning, and would love to do reining, but the trainer cost is prohibitive, so probably never will.

Married, 3 dogs, 2 cats, 2 Bettas, 1 mini-human on the way....

[Chrisnstar]

Welcome Mel! Glad to see you are here! speak up! ;D

[tricia]

Wow, I didn't know that you had this board. Hope you all don't mind if I join, the trouble maker that I am. ;D

I go by tag87 on Stable Minds.

Currently we have 3 horses.

Sheba is my little paint mare that was born here and will live with me forever. She turns 5 next year.

Ladd is my daughter's breeder stock paint gelding who is currently recouperating from a near-death experience.
He will be 6 in the spring.

Blue Bird is my farrier's 43 year old Perch/Appy gelding who is living with us right now. He is our "back up" horse. He is still going strong.

Glad to be here.

Tricia

[Mary Ann]

Yessss!!! Melelio and Tricia too??!

I'm so glad you're both here!!!

[ariel]

Ooh, I hope you'll let a squirt like me come and play, too! I promise to be good, I play well with others, and I never run with scissors!

Chris, I was browing your website--I've always loved your BayRabs--and saw you had a message board, TOO! AND all my favorite people from the other boards were here? Fantastic! I can't wait to hear more about your herd, I miss hearing about them.

Anyhow, I'm Ariel, and tend to go by "Ariel" on these internet communities. I'm a 23-year-old college grad, working desperately on my grad school applications (applying for PhD programs in English Lit), and doing my little share of living out here in Portland, OR.

I've been riding since I was 6, mostly on bay Arabs, and so have a particular affinity for that type of horse. My guy, a 23 year-old Aza Destiny grandson, is living the high life back home in Seattle giving lessons to youngsters and earning his well-deserved keep in my absence.

I am completely thrilled to have a new message board to check!!! ;D

[Mary Ann]

Well this is just the BEST!!! It's great to see you here, Ariel! I had no idea you were planning graduate work in English Lit--- I was an English major in my first life (BH--Before Horses) and loved it. What sort of genre are you currently studying?

It's so good to have you here!!!

[ariel]

As funny as it may sound to say I am passionate about something old, dead, and very "fuddy" (but not quite "duddy"): early Victorian literature makes my world go round. In particular, I am enamored with the liminal period of change and transition between the Romantics and the Victorians in which the Empire was just getting underway, and people were desperately trying to devise and create an identity. The Romantics were so self-reflective, and the Victorians so socially-oriented, that the move from one sphere to another creates some fascinating "spots of time" (to steal from Wordsworth). I've done a good deal of work thus far on the way that identity is created, and the various mechanisms individuals characters use for "self-fashioning"--but this is primarily in Renaissance lit. and in Hamlet (that's what my senior honors thesis was about). I want to extend that focus (/subcategory) and look at those same issues in the Victorian period.

Why is this relevant? The parallels between their era and our own grow more and more striking every day!

[PaulaM]

And from the cold north, there is me. PaulaM (aka Paula). Proudly owned by:

Canasta, 1984 Dark Bay/Brown OTTB former dressage horse and broodmare, now pasture potatoe
Briana, 2001 Chestnut CWHBA mare, soon to be started under saddle (as soon as her back heals)
Valour, 2002 Chestnut CWHBA gelding, just in the growing up phase
Missy, 1995 black DSH (an approx. age as she was a rescue)
Jake, 2002 Brown Tabby DSH

Husband, Rodney, supports me and my herd. Getting ready to move into a new house in late January/early February 2005 (not bad considering is was supposed to be Early September 2004!!

First learned to ride on Arabs in Saudi Arabia back in the early 80's (Dad worked for an Oil Company), did a bit of english and western before my riding instructor sold her horses and moved away, gave up riding until 1994, did a bit of jumping before being introduced to dressage and became a convert. In 1998, Rodney bought me Canasta and since than, I showed, than bred and now am getting ready to start those babies under saddle.

Work full time for a publicly listed firm in Edmonton. I am the Accounting Dept. reporting directly to the Controller of the company. I also work at the barn where I board the herd to help reduce costs. I have learned quite a bit about horses in the past few years still have lots to learn though.

[Mary Ann]

Okay, I am totally blown away.

It really does sound fascinating, but I don't know or remember enough about it to even comment like someone with a brain. But I have to ask (and sorry if it makes me sound like a moron) is since fiction was becoming more and more readily available as the middle class grew, and as literacy grew, how much do you feel fiction was a driving force for social change? Or is this a chicken and the egg question?

Personally, I love the dead stuff, and dead authors! I remember going to a professor's office when I was in college, and he had an old text on his desk on which he was doing some research. If I recall right, it was about four hundred years old, and he was talking about the shape of the O's. I just remember having a feeling of reverence for something so fragile that had survived so long, for now ending up here in his office. And at the place where I went to school (Indiana University) they had a rare books library, with a Gutenberg Bible, and lots and lots of William Blake's works on display, as well as illustrations by Picasso, and other cool stuff. I haven't been back there in 25 years, but I when I think of places like that, I think of that episode of The Twilight Zone where the guy has the stopwatch and can freeze time. You remember that one? How I would love to have that watch, and be able to snoop freely in that library!!!

BTW, what sorts of parallels do you see between their era and today? You don't have to feel on the spot, or like you're gonna be grilled, but I sure am curious.

What an interesting field of study!

[Pouncer]

Hiya, all! So glad to see so many familiar handles (although some of the changes are gonna be hard to track, lol!)

Know most of you from Stableminds, and I am delighted to find another spot without a nemisis of mine-which is why I quit posting there the past few months.

Well let's see, for those that don't know, I am in Alaska, southcentral area, not too far from Anchorage. Yep, I did CTR also (would like to get into it again too!) and currently I have just the one horse, an Appaloosa stallion whom I adore. A wonderful, if mostly non horsey husband and a little boy who is the light of our lives. Lead a pretty boring life mostly, since I work full time, but I have done tons of recovery/rescue, and hope to continue doing so in the future.

[boston]

I also come to this board via Stableminds. I am 27 years old and live in upstate NY near Albany. I have been riding for about 15 years always on quarter horses. I own 2 quarter horses and 2 ponies and also three labradors.

Boston- Buckskin QH is 19 and was my show horse and has been retired to trail mount for my mom.

Kid- Palomino QH is 3 and we just completed his first year showing under saddle (western pleasure) and also used as my trail horse

Molly- 6 year old pinto pony, hoping to train her to drive she is mainly a companion to

Buddy- a ~10 year old shetland pony who acts like he is 20. Buddy came to us about 3 years ago because he has cushings and needed to be on a dry lot. He has since gone almost completly blind due to cataracts.

Thank you Chris for developing this board for us to hang out at!

[ariel]

Lol, Moron!!!

I was so excited to answer this message, that I had to wait until I got home for fear that I would spend an hour or so at work, tick, tick, typing away!

Ok, to start with your question about fiction as a driving force for social change, I think it was a very important contributing factor. As you mention, literacy was growing, as was the availability of books, poetry, etc. The late-Romantic/early-Victorian period was the age of the three-part novel and serialization: the Brontes, Dickens, Thackery, James, etc all took part in these means of distribution. Serialization, in particular, made the fiction of these great novelists available in short, exciting doses that people could buy once a week or once a month in a paper, and not break the bank on. Authors like thingyens became so popular that they basically singlehandedly kept some of the publications on their feet. People would line up, anxiously awaiting the release of the new installment of the new thingyens' book. On a side note, it also helped establish suspense and cliff-hanger chapter endings as we know them--a very effective tool to make someone want to buy the next chapter!
The popularity of these stories, though, made them an immense stage through which authors could expose the plight of certain situations; a particular favorite was the desperate situation of poor children across England. 1848-1875 was the era of the reform laws. Parliament passed laws restricting the average number of hours that children could work in factories (it made it something humane like ten or something..), the age at which they could be employed (again, like ten or so, right?), they finally placed laws on the coal mining industry, sanitation, etc. Authors such as Elizabeth Barret Browning, with her saccharine poem "Cry of the Children" were very effective in tugging at people's heart strings and making them realize that such regulations were worthwhile. If you consider the popularity of thingyen's Oliver Twist, for instance, its hard to imagine that his orphan plight had no effect on its readers.
On a more implicit level, though, many of the poets (in particular) questioned the prevalent notions of morality and what defined a "good, upstanding citizen." Authors like Thackery, Wilde, and the Rosetti's all brought the ridiculous nature of society to the forefront of people's attention, and were merciless in their condemnation and sarcasm regarding it all. Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is a riotous example of this that you can read in just one sitting!
Ok, but back to your question, I think that the importance of literary figures in popular culture--they we just like rock stars...--had the same influential effect that movies, magazine, and fiction does for us today: for those content to view things on a more passive, pedestrian level, it reaffirmed things that they already knew about their social situation, for those willing to actively analyze and critique it, it provided a venue to express their concerns, and their condemnation of that they saw.

Lol, which brings me to your second question: how do I find the Victorians very similar to our own society?

I think that the very structure of our social make-up right now is very, very similar. Britain in that period was suffering the growing pains of a culture expanding across the globe. It was the most powerful nation in the world (aka, British empire), and it's citizens were well-traveled and underwent military stints in far-flung lands. With this came a desperate attempt to define and re-define just what and who they were and what about their culture was left as unique as it spread across the globe. I think we, as Americans, grapple with similar questions.
I also see similarities between what I was talking about with the reform laws and what we are are witnessing with the press that labor abuses in third-world countries (particularly by large, US corporations) receives. As poets like E. Browning and Blake exposed the nightmares of the mines and factories, we similarly have distubing images and stories of the people who make our cheap shoes and tee-shirts brought to our attention. Things are being brought to our attention that, while we might prefer to pretend doesn't happen, is important that we recognize and work to remedy--which I also think is happening.
Finally, with my very admittedly own personal perspective, I see aspects of over-the-top "Angel of the House" type-moralism and the type of ridculous attention to superficial nonsense in our society that operated in the Victorian period. The rise of the ridiculously radical fundemental religious right in the US and the emphasis on being "politically correct"--to the point of absurdity--echoes the Victorians to a "t" in my mind.

Anyhow, as you can tell, I LOVE this stuff, and I love it on both the level of particular detail--reading a poem for the specific, potential meanings of its individual words or rhyme alone--and on a broader, sweeping level of self-identification, formation of society, travel, expansion, feminism, etc. Yowiee!!!!

I had the opportunity to go to the University of Sussex in England a couple years ago on a grant I was awarded by the Lewis and Clark English Department, and it was just stunning. Your description of your professor below, with his book, reminds me of it. I was ostensibly doing an investigation into the validity (or, IN-validity) of the way in which Modernist authors like Lawrence and Eliot represented the city (described as "satanic") and the country (idyllic). The Mass-Observation Archive that I went to was the result of a project a couple young sociology students undertook before and during WWII. They wanted to gain an accurate representation of what ordinary people thought and felt at this particular moment in time, and so recruited Joe-Schmoe's from all over the country to respond to directives, write journals, and answer questions about themselves, their daily routines, and pretty much life in general. It was AMAZING. I was sitting there, reading hand-written accounts of the Battle of Britain, of the fall of Paris, etc etc, and who knows how many people had even SEEN these before--based on the log-in sheet on each box of information, not too darn many. Anyhow, the capacity and potential for that kind of research is just SO exciting. Lol, when I got to the Archives and stepped into that library it was the summer after my trip to Ecuador, and I hadn't had much chance to indulge my "real" academic side in over 8 months... Oh it was heaven! I -knew- at that moment what it was I needed to do in life!
LOL!

Sorry, I've gone on and on... I'm such a dork!!!! Teehee!

[ariel]

LOL... um... it changed D-I-C-K-E-N-S to "thingyens" every time in my message! TOO funny!