An update of sorts

Hello! It’s been a few months, and the world’s a completely different place now, except the same in all the strangest ways. Like many of us, I lost my job due to the pandemic. Problematic because my bills don’t stop, but a possible boon for folks because it means, when I’m not working on the freelance I manage to draw in, I’m working on translations.

There’s one ongoing project I can’t really talk much about (though you likely know about it if you’re involved in any way in the world of modern destreza). There’s also the dribs and drabs of free stuff that I will always post here. I want to make that clear: I will not stop working on things that I send out into the world for free.

That said, though, I do need to supplement my income in any way possible. And that’s why I’ve started a Patreon. I’m happy to spend my time translating, but I can’t afford to do much of that while finding a new job and seeking new freelance contracts. With Patreon, the translating can become a freelance contract of its own, so to speak (at least in the ledgers of my accounting).

Compendio frontispiece

I’ve chosen to translate Pacheco’s Compendio de la filosofía y destreza de las armas, de Geronimo de Carranza, published in 1612. It may seem like a strange choice, but I like it because it’s a bridge between the highly philosophical original book by Carranza and the studied, almost didactic works by Pacheco. In the Compendio, Pacheco extracts all the bits from Carranza’s book that are directly relevant to fencing and gathers them up with brief asides, commentaries, and identified throughlines. Most of the works that have any substantial translations come from the later eras of destreza, and I felt it was important to get earlier works available, too.

I’ve made a range of tiers on the Patreon, because I know a lot of us are badly affected by the pandemic. And even if you can’t contribute, that’s okay; the things that get published on the Patreon to subscribers will eventually get published here (they get first dibs, but I won’t keep things behind a paywall permanently).

At any rate, I hope you’re doing as well as possible under the circumstances. Take care of yourselves.

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