En Garde

This is one of the reasons why people fence.

Coming on to the strip, you bring much imagination with you (including hundreds of movie images) in addition to a calculating, contact-chess like mind, and the instincts to survive (even with a blunt tip there is something, well… dangerous about the whole thing).

This is such a cool video. I found it on the New Orleans Fencer’s Club website homepage and it deserves to be seen. It is more hollywood than real foil but it is cool – especially the part where one fencer uses his weapon to slide down the side of a building – an image first used by Douglas Fairbanks in the 1926 movie, The Black Pirate only he slides down a billowing sail with his knife ripping the center as he holds on. This scene gets a mention in Open Wounds and is one of the main character’s (Cid Wymann’s) favorite movies.

What was I doing looking at the New Orleans Fencer’s Club website? Going to New Orleans in June for the ALA (American Library Association’s national conference). More on that later.