[Bards] Dream? What Dream? Did you see a Dream? I know I didn't!
Ken Theriot
kentheriot at ravenboymusic.com
Sun Apr 20 10:55:58 PDT 2008
<Their mundaneness then trickled down into our humble camp via many others
where it proceeded to fight us for our own suspension of disbelief.>
I feel I must jump in here as the above statement relates directly to our
craft. For me, bardic performances have provided some of the few golden
moments in my SCA career (over 20 years now.uggh) when I felt the "magic" of
being lost in that long-ago we come to the SCA to find. So even though not
all of my performance pieces are intended to do that (The Feast Song, for
example, is meant to evoke a magic of another kind.laughter), one thing I
try REALLY hard to do is NOT snap people out of their suspension of
disbelief. That is the ultimate no-no as far as I'm concerned. So this is
why Adelaide and I are so against the fairly common practice in the bardic
community of "bad filk." Notice I didn't say "all filk." To me, creating a
bardic performance from a blatantly modern song is what snaps me out of my
"suspension of disbelief." Go ahead and filk other original SCA songs, no
problem (as long as you credit the original composer/author), and filk
unknown tunes, or heaven-forbid, filk to a period tune. But please, please,
please STOP filking to Stan Rogers Songs, or top 40 songs. NOTHING brings
me out of the dream faster than a filk to "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," or
"Take me Home Country Roads." And since in my mundane life, Stan Rogers was
like a god to me, I was horrified to hear "Northwest Passage" filked (and
using many of the same lyrics of Stan's song!!!) in Ansteorra! Talk about a
dream killer.
So while we are calling for the halt of the dream-killers, let us also look
to our own craft to bring this about.
Kenneth
_____
From: an angel in black ink [mailto:angelinblackink at yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 8:02 AM
To: ansteorra bard list
Subject: Re: [Bards] Dream? What Dream? Did you see a Dream? I know I
didn't!
Thank you for your kind words, Elanor, it means a lot to me for you to say
such things.
Now, Svetlana, I feel that I must clarify for you. I'm not wanting to
change the way
people play, I just want them to play. You see, I've stumbled upon Laurel
camps filled
with people talking about their mundane jobs and such and been so turned
away from
the dream that I had to leave and return to my own. Their mundaneness then
trickled
down into our humble camp via many others where it proceeded to fight us
for our own
suspension of disbelief. We eventually won but my point is that we need to
pay
attention to what we're doing or we might ruin it for others. Also, there
have been a
load of people bringing the mundane into our game *cough* 'mod squad'
*cough*
which ruins it for many people who don't give a damn about why they're mad
at
so-and-so. The politics are getting out of hand. People are getting turned
off by the
vast freakiness of it all. (example: "I believe this, but I can't say it
because it'll tick off
<insert name(s) here and they'll make my life a living hell for it.>")
It's ridiculous. Even
now there are those who will speak privately but do not post their feelings
here.
Yes, there are people who are deep within the Dream and perhaps I am a bit
jaded by
all the silliness, but these people need to share their Dream with those
who don't know.
I said it in my Work, to be without blame is nearly impossible while being
a part of the
community. We have a responsibility to see that the next generation of
SCAdians know
what we really are instead of a bunch of NERO nerds squabbling over
political crumbs.
To live the Dream and to help others,
Xue XianXian, Miscreant at Large
_____
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