Fw: Re: [Ansteorra] Authenticity

[willow taylor]

Lord Iain

It is hard to tell what people really mean when they call somebody a
history maven. That is a really bad term in other kingdoms. It means
people who don't have fun and cause trouble for everyone. The opposite
are the fun mavens who are the people who come to event and are nice. In
most kingdom it is a black /white thing. Ansteorra didn't follow this
concept in the past. We saw things in grays. A little history, a little
fun. you could do both. You could get drunk and sing bawdy period songs
and have a kenning contest and drink period mead. Watch Norsemen do slap
games. You could have tavern fights and archery contest during court. You
could watch a couple of swashbucklers insult each other. You weren't
studying dull dead history you were living it. Now it seems people are
getting into that black/white thing.  I didn't like the historial maven
vs. the fun maven  when I went to other kingdoms and had to put up with
it. I t makes me very upset when I see that kind of thinking in
Ansteorra.

Willow  de Wisp


--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: iainmacc at juno.com
To: ansteorra at ansteorra.org
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 10:24:07 -0500
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] Authenticity
Message-ID: <20020415.102427.-242459.0.iainmacc at juno.com>


On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 07:20:07 EDT IagoAH at aol.com writes:
> > one more thing. For you people who use words like Nazi and go out
> of your
> > way to stop all role playing and historical research and make fun
> of us
> > who do I would ask a question. Are you not enforcing standards
> also?
> >
> > Willow de Wisp
>
> Who's making fun, Your Grace? This thread began by making light of
> the use
> non-period terms. It also included, at one point ridicule and near
> scorn
> along the same lines.  Nobody has suggested stopping historical
> research.

        I have watched this thread evolve for some time and kept my mouth
shut. However, I feel there is a point that should be made here. Please
understand that I am neither accusing nor belittling anyone.

        No one on this list has been ridiculing anyone about their
authenticity or lack thereof. No one on this list has been saying that
"we should stop" anyone else's authenticity or lack thereof.
        I cannot lay any claim to authenticity, nor to any real burning
desire for it. I am here to have fun, and my occasional attempts at a
more authentic way of doing things tends to have results that are at
least slightly cheesy.
        However, I remember a comment made by a friend when he asked if I
had ever been to Pennsic (I told him I had not). He told me that when the
fog or the drizzle rolls in, and this incredibly huge tent city is lit by
no more than torchlight or campfire light, you could easily believe you
had moved back in time several hundred years. I'm told it's a very moving
experience, and I believe it.
        The point is that if you make no attempt to cover your ice chest,
if you make no attempt to fix that joint in your armor that you been
closing with duct tape for over a year, if you sit in a list field
pavilion talking about D&D or computer games, you are casually destroying
the picture others are trying to build in their heads. Not all of those
are "Authenticity Police", either. And yes, you are in essence forcing
your standard of mundanity upon everyone around you.
        We all make allowances. We all know that canvas tenting is both
expensive and heavy, so we don't gripe about how mundane the tent city at
Steppes Warlord is. We repaint it in our imagination. I have noticed a
tendency in SCAers to have tents in soft, muted colors, a concession that
can be plenty difficult enough.
        You can safely trust that if someone were to grumble to me that
the style of embroidery I used on my collar didn't exist until 400 years
after my period, I would have little patience with them. I could probably
manage not to be rude to them, but it would be an effort. But at the same
time, I think that the old "ten foot rule" is one of the best ideas the
Society has ever come up with, and is, in the long run, vital to our
survival.


      Yours in Service,


              Iain MacCrimmon
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