Glass Mystery Object! What is it?

Do you recognize this mysterious glass object? 

Someone suggested it was part of an old lightning rod, but the shape isn't right. 

The mysterious part is, it's stuffed with hanks of something that resembles human hair- see third photo. 

The glass is clear with a blue color coating that's starting to flake off (this is a sign of cheap glass, and maybe 30-60 years old, give or take. Anyway, it's no 200-year-old heirloom). It smells like garden soil. It's 5" tall and the thickness of the glass makes it too heavy to be a good Christmas ornament. Maybe a light bulb cover for an old gas station or carnival ride- but what's with the hair?

Guesses? Superstitions? Is it a variation on a "witch ball?" (Not a "witch bottle"; that's something different).

I'm back! Bonus picture

Spent last weekend at ConFusion in Michigan. Took me a while to get used to the horde of constantly moving people, but by Sunday I was comfortable and even talked to a few, although I'm pretty sure I babbled like an idiot. 3.5 hours is a bit of a drive, though, especially in bad weather. Next, I'm thinking about Millennicon in mid-March (only 1 hour away in Cincinnati), as I'd like to tell Jim Hines how awesome he is, but we'll have to see how things go financially.

Portrait of Allan as a boy, before he grew to be 6' tall.

The limits of friendship

Allan & Stephen are learning the limits of their friendship. What seemed simple in private takes on a whole new set of terms and conditions in a complex social setting.
 

Clothes shopping in the 18th century

Finding references for the inside of am 18th century tailor's proved difficult. Hopefully it isn't too different from an 18th century dry-goods store. I did see photos of several period storefronts, and let me say, bow-front windows look amazing. How did they ever go out of fashion? Oh, right, the invention of plate glass. Such a shame.

They didn't have men's ready-to-wear clothing in this time period. You couldn't just walk into a clothing store and buy something off the rack. Okay, so the tailor would cheat a bit by having suit pieces pre-cut and embroidered so they could be tailored to an average-sized customer(which Allan is not). This was because the gentleman would want his coat quickly! As in, a few days, a week perhaps. At the same time, gentlemanly pride wouldn't be content with a premade coat. Also, accessories were sold separately. Hats, shoes, wigs, lace cuffs, gloves, buttons, etc- were all specialty items in separate shops, although these could be bought off the shelf unless you wanted them made to order.

Ladies' options were a bit different. Again, clothing was not bought off the rack, but it all depended on money. A lady of high fashion with deep pockets would go to the mantua maker and have fabulously expensive garb made to order. A more typical lady would buy bolts or yards of fabric, and tell her seamstress what to make. Ladies of modest means would buy fabric and sew clothes for themselves. Any lady might buy plain hats and sew on their own ribbon and flowers, and similar creative projects.

Clothing for children was not purchased new or made to order; rather it was sewn by female relatives or family servants, as far as I can tell. Swaddling for infants, nightgown-like garments with leading strings until they're toilet trained, imitations of adult styles after that. These children were not "out" in society, so function was more important than fashion until they were near adulthood.

I'm not making much progress here lately. You can probably tell by the way the coloring's gotten so crappy. Around mid-January I'll probably need to take a week off. Or I may need to drop back to 2 pages a week for a few months. New round of medical bills this week. Worried about money, as usual, and worry kills creativity.

Found: 18th century bone dice

Variations on the basic fish trap can be found worldwide. They were outlawed in England a few centuries before, possibly because they blocked river traffic. Not that the law applies here. I found the idea interesting enough to tuck into this chapter, but that's as much as I have to say about it.

But I have something else to talk about today! I think I have mentioned how much I love the unique antiques that come my way at work. In a midcentury canasta box I found 4 antique dice. Canasta is a card game, I think, so the dice didn't belong to it; and they were far too unusual to belong to the 50s, anyway. One was wood, hand carved, painted black, with hand-painted pips. Three were bone, unmistakably, had considerable wear, and were nonstandard sizes. One of those had a faint mark on it: G.R and a crown.

Google helpfully told me that G.R. stands for George Rex (King George) and that the hallmark meant that it was made in England after the Stamp Act of 1765. I didn't know which King George, but George IV died in 1830, and after that it would have been stamped V.R. for Victoria Regina.

So far, 1765-1830 is a pretty awesome age for a bone die, and makes it interesting in its own right. But at the risk of boring you, I'll relate what else I know and how those dice tie in to American history.

Most of the other dice with the G.R. mark were tagged Revolutionary War, on the reasoning that British soldiers might have brought them to the U.S. to dice with. I wasn't terribly satisfied with that reasoning; sellers just trying to get hits and make a buck, I think.

I'll tell you what, though. In the 1760s, the British Empire was overextended, underfunded, and fighting on too many fronts. The Stamp Act of 1765 was their attempt to raise money by taxing the crap out of the colonies, including taxes on stationary, newspapers, playing cards, and dice. The American colonies felt they were taxed unfairly and the building resentment eventually led to the Revolutionary War. That's an explanation I feel more comfortable with.

On an only slightly related subject, in 1795 the British government again tried to raise money by levying a tax on hair powder. Anyone who was anyone wore a wig, and even many servants, and so hair powder was a necessity- or so they thought. Instead, in an ironic twist, wigs went out of fashion overnight.

I've rambled long enough! Good night, Happy Holidays, and I'll write again soon.

Monster School!

This is definitely a dull chapter for me to draw, and I'm having trouble trudging through it. Seems that whenever Allan and Stephen are together they become nothing but talking heads. Partly for the lack of reference photos for the background, partly because this story isn't titled The Adventures of Allan & Stephen. It could be.
 Stephen could be Watson to Allan's Sherlock Holmes. They could have adventures in the social scene of 1760s London. It would be a farce, since Allan's only genius lies in making trouble. That could make a fun spinoff if I had time for it, which I don't.

I get so many ideas. I was saying the other day that I would like to see a comic or D&D campaign where all the characters are monsters. I'm a bit miffed about characters like Drizzt Do'Urden and his mad sword skillz. It's like he was born to be a ranger-paladin, and the only thing standing in the way is a bit of excess skin pigmentation. I like to see characters work for their achievements, instead of starting with them. You can say the conflict lies in being accepted as a drow ranger-paladin, but if that's the crux he would spend more time in diplomacy and less time f'ing fighting.

The conversation then segued into the various problems with matriarchal societies in fantasy literature, and veered back toward several variations on a monster-based campaign or comic.

I settled on two semi-related ideas; a D&D campaign where the PCs are monsters bent on achieving an unsuitable character class. Drizzt is uber-powerful; but what if a kobold wants to be a paladin? Who's going to take them seriously? Or a gelatinous cube? (Can that even happen?) How do they assemble a party, convince the other monsters, and keep adventurers from killing them out of hand on their path to herohood?
The other, somewhat related idea, was a comic about a school for monsters. Not training for villains, not Hogwarts, but the aim of the school is to raise monsters from 0 level to something a Hero wouldn't be ashamed to fight, and use them to stock dungeons or something. Call it their "final exam." But really, I'd focus on the fun and bizarre high school life of the assorted characters in monster school, who are unaware of their fate.

Yeah, I don't have time for that either, but it would be fun! I hope someone writes one. I'd read it!

Stephen for once

I feel for Stephen, I really do. We enjoy enforced social interaction about as much as having a tooth pulled. And we're the same height, but that matters more to him, of course.

I had a strange thought of the three of them in a modern apartment. Allan and Paddon were playing on the Wii or Xbox and Stephen was texting on his phone. Still in their 18th century clothes, too. It was amusing, so I thought I would share.