Check Pants - Was, SC - Is Arrowroot Period?

[Sue Clemenger]

Huzzah!!!!   Well said, Brandu!!!

I joined the SCA in AS9, although I had first heard
about it in AS3.  I remember the carpet armor, the
freon helms and the wonder I felt when I got my first
period cookbook "Fabulous Feasts".  Which I used
extensively for my first banquet.  I am very proud of
that banquet.  Would I do it exactly again?  No, I
have learned lots since then.  But, as you said so
eloquently, we were trying our best to present a
period atmosphere.  We have learned, we have grown,
and we still have a lot of learning and growing to do.
 What we were then, we are no longer.  What we are
now, we will no longer be in 35 years.  That is the
way of life.

Huette

- --- Jeff Gedney <JGedney at dictaphone.com> wrote:
> 
> > You might want to remember that in the early days
> of the SCA, there was
> > *carpet* armor, and *freon* helms!
> > 
> > By no stretch of the imagination would I find
> these to be period.  But -
> > from the accounts that I have had from a
> participant from AS10  (who resided
> > in Berkeley) they were interested in recreating,
> not dissuading people.
> > They taught without being overbearing...and even
> enjoyed the amusing side
> > trip into the bizzare at times.  It is amazing
> what you can do with non
> > period items when you have nothing period to work
> with.
> > 
> > The most important feeling I came away with from
> my conversations with this
> > Mistress was that the locals in Cali practiced
> 'suspension of disbelief'.
> > This allowed them to enjoy their events even
> though they didn't have perfect
> > recreations of period items.  A little
> 'imagination' goes a long way.  So
> > does tolerance.
> Oh, I am tolerant! 
> One should help poor recreation in those who know no
> better, and in 
> beginners. But those who are able to do better, and
> know how to do 
> better, but choose not to do better? shoudl I say
> "wahtever floats your 
> boat, dude"? or should I say " you can do better,
> why dont you?" ?
> 
> The point, my dear is that we were TRYING way back
> then.
> Don't forget that we _started_ with broomsticks and
> old fencing masks.
> Carpet armor and Freon tanks were an _advancement_
> on the 
> original process.
> Each generation in the SCA has refined and inproved
> our recreation.
> (I remember well those Freon Tank days, BTW...)
> We are not in the Freon tank days anymore.
> We can, and this has been proven time and time
> again, be "fun" and _still_ have 
> good recreation, and that we can be as accurate as
> possible and still not be 
> dissuadingly stuffy.
> 
> Back then the SCA had precious little to work with.
> I'll put it to you to ask your Mistress this
> question.
> If she had had the resources, in terms of widely
> available research, 
> artisans, smiths and other crafts people, Sites,
> patterns, improved 
> campsites, Pavillians, and the World wide web and
> the Internet for 
> disseminating and gathering information, would the
> SCA have 
> _STILL_ been what it was then? 
> 
> I think that she would not honestly be able to say
> that it would.
> It was what it was because it was small, it's
> resources poor, populace few and 
> widely scattered, with much less mundane regard,
> than is the case today.
> To use that time as a model is not appropriate. 
> The Conditions that made the SCA "make do" with
> freon tanks (and before 
> that coach Headlamps, and Fencing masks) SIMPLY DO
> NOT EXIST TODAY.
> 
> The resources for better recreation certainly exist.
> NOT to use them because 
> they didnt have them in the past is like choosing to
> walk around naked, 
> because people started out wearing nothing.
> 
> Come on now, which of you joined the SCA because it
> had an "atmosphere"
>  that evoked the romance of the Middle ages?  I did.
> 
> Does does a 14th century Saracen dish on the table
> add to that atmosphere? 
> I think so.
> Does  a 20th century American dish on the table add
> to that atmosphere? 
> I think not.
> 
> Even if it _is_ "creative".
> 
> There are a lot of people who do not try to achieve
> any authenticity 
> at all, and excuse their intrepretation of the SCA
> as a private fantasy 
> realme with this old and hackneyed plaint: "but it
> is the Society for 
> _Creative_ Anachronism, not the Society for
> Cumpulsive Authenticity!!"
> 
> Some of them say that if you cannot grow your own
> sheep, spin your 
> own wool, weave your own cloth, etc, you might as
> well wear that 
> electric pink camoflage houpellande.  
> 
> That as the noble Cariadoc is fond of pointing out
> is "letting the best 
> be the enemy of the good"
> 
> I consider it a kind of intellectual laziness.
> 
> At some point you have to decide:
> Is the SCA going to move forward toward better
> recreation, as it has 
> done steadily for 34 years, or go backwards because
> authenticity is 
> a little more work?
> 
> Is the "dream" the "Dream" because every body
> "paharrties" or because 
> we try to carve out a little magic from time, using
> that 'suspension of disbelief', 
> here at the dawn of the 21st century.
> Without the struggle for better and more
> authenticity, the SCA would have 
> been just another F&SF con. Whether you like it or
> not.
> And it could well have gone that way. 
> Consider the number of "Tolkein tourneys" and "Elves
> vs Dwarves" events 
> the SCA had in the first ten years.
> the reason that the SCA is not a F&SF con is that at
> some point the 
> collective wisdom of the SCA decided that it was
> important to emphasize things 
> not as "they might have been if" but things as "they
> were were, or would have 
> been" ( would have been if they had to deal with
> 20th century hygeine, tort and 
> insurance laws, criminal laws, etc.etc.etc. )
> 
> Brandu
> 
> 
>
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