TOP TEN POSTS OF 2010

Last year was a great year for These New Old Traditions, with all sorts of interesting pieces coming down the wire. Here’s a list of the top ten most read pieces:

10. PLAYING NORDIC: The fine line between honoring one’s own heritage and creepy white pride cultishness…, by Onalistus Reveler
“Conservatives befriending pagan traditions (often specifically Heathenism, also known as Germanic Paganism) hover so close to the ideas of the men’s movement, and to supposedly ‘post-racial” concepts of racial solidarity, you just wish sometimes they’d take off their Norse helmet and be like, Look. We take pride in being white. We relish in dated concepts of ‘maleness.’ And, we believe ethnic purity is a real thing that should be preserved. Instead, so many PagaCons try and hide their racism beneath the leaves on their Odin altar, burying their bigotry in notions of ‘roots’ and ‘heritage.'”

Find the rest after the jump….

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DAISY JANE DANGER IN INDIA / THE MOTHERLAND: Diary of a sword swallower (part 4)

Queen of Swords at yr average samosa stand

As I packed and prepared for my trip to India, it seemed like an obvious choice to leave behind my wire blade. I had every intention of keeping up my daily practice while traveling, but left my coat hanger blade for a few good reasons. First, I didn’t want to check my bag, and if a straightened out coat hanger in carry-on luggage doesn’t say “Threat to National Security,” I don’t know what does. Also, it’s a wire coat hanger. I could get one in every hotel I’m staying in, right? No need to bring my own all through India, when I’ll be in the land of flimsy wire products.

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EXCUSES ON THE PATH: Diary of a sword swallower (part 3)

Do not try this on your own. This article is for entertainment purposes only! —The Editors

Not really a sword to swallow?

After a successful lesson, Adam left me with my homework, and any feeling of accomplishment was soon to be squashed by this assignment. The homework quickly proved how challenging learning the talent truly was, despite the physical simplicity of the assigned task. He had begun his teaching by comparing the difficulty of learning sword swallowing to the difficulty of quitting smoking. At that time I cockily thought to myself that I, who wakes before dawn and walks through frigid east coast winter air to practice yoga daily, would have little problem dealing with the “discipline” aspect of learning a new talent. Oh, how wrong I was.

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WELCOMING OUR LATEST WRITER: QUEEN OF SWORDS

It's that simple...

It is with great pleasure that I welcome our latest writer and fellow Reveler in the New Old Tradition, the Queen of Swords. The Queen of Swords is a recent apprentice to the very New Old Tradition of sword swallowing and will be blessing us with writings that follow her blossoming profession.

We Revelers wish her and her innards all the best.

Stay tuned…her first post is on its way!

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