Pictures of Greatness!

[Staggerwing]

My favorite scene.  ;)

[besilarius]

Charles had always suspected that Linneaus was delving into dread things, things best left gnawing in the earth, crawling in the deeps, or slithering between the stars...

[besilarius]

Very often these things run in cycles.
Hopefully, we are coming to an end of this one.

[BanzaiCat]

[JasonPratt]

"Patron Saint of All News" more like.  ::)

I remember watching some film of Goebbels at a Nazi rally a year or two ago -- pretty sure it's archived in "The World At War" somewhere -- and I vividly remember two things.

First, he addressed the audience rather like he was schlager fighting. Not at all sure where he got that, or if it was coincidental, but as a fencer it caught my eye. (Schlager, no umlauts on this keyboard so imagine there's one on the 'a', is a type of German sabre fencing where opponents each stand in a narrow circle within reach of each other's blades, and with various amounts of not-much-protection. Footwork is strictly prohibited, and body dodging is frowned on as cowardly. Defense is purely dependent on bladework; no stabs allowed, but the goal is to be the first to get a light cut on the other guy. I used the principles slightly modified with more protection of course, as a sabre training tool when teaching.) Not a lot of 'swordarm' work, but a lot of 'sword hand' work, and his posture though a bit sloppily dangerous (too much chest turned toward his 'target') was pretty decent. I've never seen anyone else make a speech like that, and I've made a mental note NOT TO EVER TRY DOING THAT if I ever get into the habit of public speaking just in case someone makes a spurious comparison.  ::)

Second, he was literally, and I mean literally, telling the audience exactly why propaganda was evil (so that they should beware of it), and also that the Nazis were certain to defeat their foes because they made a skill out of being the best propagandists -- to which the crowd was cheering lustily along. You go, super-evil propaganda guy, woo-hoo!!

I thought, am I watching the ultimate audience trolling here??

[LongBlade]

First, he addressed the audience rather like he was schlager fighting. Not at all sure where he got that, or if it was coincidental, but as a fencer it caught my eye. (Schlager, no umlauts on this keyboard so imagine there's one on the 'a', is a type of German sabre fencing where opponents each stand in a narrow circle within reach of each other's blades, and with various amounts of not-much-protection. Footwork is strictly prohibited, and body dodging is frowned on as cowardly. Defense is purely dependent on bladework; no stabs allowed, but the goal is to be the first to get a light cut on the other guy. I used the principles slightly modified with more protection of course, as a sabre training tool when teaching.) Not a lot of 'swordarm' work, but a lot of 'sword hand' work, and his posture though a bit sloppily dangerous (too much chest turned toward his 'target') was pretty decent. I've never seen anyone else make a speech like that, and I've made a mental note NOT TO EVER TRY DOING THAT if I ever get into the habit of public speaking just in case someone makes a spurious comparison.  ::)

Yeah, a less permanent method of fencing was in use by some German fraternities back when I was going to school there. I didn't join one, but I had a buddy who did.

It's my understanding that the more modern version (at least to his eyes) didn't hold so much technique as it was a simple slugfest, with the loser the one whose arm gave out first.

Also my understanding that these "Duels" are where the stereotypical one-eyed Prussian officer came from, since the result thereof was not just a woman-swooning facial scar...or perhaps the more fortuitous monocle....

[besilarius]

http://www.awesomeinventions.com/death-star-firepit/

What every Grognard should have.

[Barthheart]

[JasonPratt]

LB, reading around a bit after remembering that, I got the impression Goebbels wasn't using schlager form (directly) so much as various choices he made to hold himself upright after a childhood of debilitating illnesses. Some of that could have still been based on having watched schlag duels, but after seeing other photos of his speaking style I'm now leaning toward that film being more of an accidental resemblance.

Conclusion: I can still use schlager form for public speaking one day.  O0

[besilarius]

But only after you shave, so we can see the dueling scars.

[JasonPratt]

The one legitimate dueling scar I ever received has long since faded away...  :'(

In other news, I am apparently old.

[besilarius]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[BanzaiCat]

[JasonPratt]

Could be worse. The sponsor/veteran/coach of our fencing team in college liked to show off this terrifying scar he got on his leg from a sabre. Then after everyone was suitably impressed, he'd explain how he got it: screwing around with a broken weapon while drunk one night in college, he and a buddy decided to slash it across the pavement of the road while sitting on the curb in order to see it shoot sparks. One of the slashes missed.  :D

Moral of the story: alcohol and/or screwing around doesn't mix with sharp weapons. Also, the weapons may be dull but they break sharp.

The three fencing injuries I know about personally come from sabres, probably because they tend to lack colored tape on the end to signal when that end has gone suddenly missing!  >:D (Plus being drunk for the Grand Old Fencer.) Also they're the thinnest of the three Olympic weapons, and the only one of the three where cuts are both legal and encouraged, so they shatter the easiest and get into the most snapping situations. (The other two weapons can snap from stabbing too hard, but that's true of sabres, too: thrusts count for points.)

Mine was one of those: the thick fighting glove on my weapon hand had gotten a little small over time, as had my jacket sleeve from washing it, and the sleeve had come out of my glove during an exchange without me noticing it. My opponent was trying a stab for my chest below my main arm, having psyched me into raising my arm a little too high to parry it properly (and well done on that strategy, btw), so I did the only thing I could and pushed down with my arm to force a secondary cut along my forearm. (In sabre rules, when a thrust turns into a cut, the cut counts as a second attack even if it lands first so the defender has a brief chance to score a point by counter-attack even if it lands second. There are training-to-hit-without-being-hit rationales for this. Arms are considered on-target for sabre.)

Consequently, he shot that sabre blade right into the gap of my jacket, and even though the blade wasn't snapped there are still edges to it, so it can be like getting a paper cut with metal. Zippp! -- about a 3 inch cut on my forearm. Not deep enough for stiches, but it left scar tissue for years.

The other scar I know about could have easily killed someone: a sabre had snapped during someone's parry, and no one noticed until the defender parried another thrust a few seconds later down onto his leading (in this case his right) leg, out thrust from a previous lunge. A good idea normally, since legs are off-target in sabre and also (unlike in foil) a hit off target doesn't stop the action. (Or it didn't back then; sabre rules tend to be changed more often than for other weapons.) This time, not such a good idea: the sharp tip went straight through the kevlar weave knickers he was wearing, zip zip, in and out, halfway through his leg. Only needed one stitch, but barely missed the artery.

This is why I used to tell students that while the jackets and plastrons (underlying half-jackets, required legally once someone died from a foil strike that someone calculated might have been prevented with more padding there) and knickers are all one hundred percent necessary, and might possibly save their lives, don't rely on them. If a blade breaks sharp, it's going in and out through that stuff regardless; only the mask will really save you (which is why the only ironclad rule for sparring is never without a mask). Then I would punch a broken epée entirely through a box I brought for that purpose. And watched their faces when they jumped.

Striking terror. Best part of the job.  >:D

[JasonPratt]

(Couldn't actually find the panel from closer to the end of that miniseries I wanted to use -- same line, far more awesome circumstances where Batman has brought Green Lantern to a Luthor/Brainiac fight -- but failing my search for the proper image did bring up this...)