Le Monde

Every now and then, I go on a little rant about the SCA.  Warning:  Strong language.

Someone Left The Cake Out In The Rain.  10/12-05

Crusades was *exceedingly* wet, but that wasn't the most disappointing thing about it. No, I can deal with wet weather - wool is good at shedding moisture. I don't mind wet feet, or even my splendid lunch plans being rained out.

What I minded was the lack of medieval. Crusades had way too many people with HFN chairs. And plastic pop-up dayshades. And visible modernities. And too few people who seemed to care at all.

I don't understand why people do that - I mean, they're supposed to be trying for at least the Victorian approximation of a medieval-oid event, so why the lack of period things? Even basic stuff wasn't in evidence.

When I started playing, most people still used blue plastic tarps and modern tents because there really wasn't anything else available to the average person with a limited budget. We used director's chairs, and we covered our coolers with scraps of fabric. Despite the unavailability of any actual period-style furniture, everyone made a real effort to cover and hide modern things.

These days, there's all sorts of stuff available at reasonable prices, and if you can't make it, you can almost certainly buy it. Wooden chests, and canvas tents/dayshades, nice tables and chairs, and all sorts of other goodies being made and/or sold by a wide range of people at affordable prices. We should be in hog heaven as far as period-oid items go - everyone can outfit themselves with at least the basics.

And yet, people seem to be going the other way - HFN chairs without covers, coolers sitting out in the open, cans of soda drunk straight from the can... All these things would have garnered shocked looks and a request to cover/decant/fix things so that the place looked more vaguely medieval (insofar as one can make a gymnasium/cattle barn/rec center look medieval) in the old days (which weren't better, just more motivated).

Crusades was wrong. It wasn't an event, not a medieval-style one. I looked around the hall at one point, and I grant you, it was crowded, and people had to do the best they could because of the rain, but it looked like some weird PTA-run craft show, not the SCA. People had set up willy-nilly, with their nylon chairs and their modern tote bags, and their coolers, and it looked sad, just lame and sad.

I don't understand, I really don't. I don't expect people to be perfect, but I thought they could at least make a little tiny effort, you know?

Nylon chairs are horrible (hence my name for them - Horrible Fucking Nylon chairs). Coolers and tote bags look completely modern. Soda cans and plastic water bottles look like what they are.

All these things can be veiled with minimum - really minimum! - effort. Throw a piece of thrift store fabric over the cooler. Pour your damn drink into a period-looking mug. Invest a teeny bit of money and at least get a chair that looks vaguely like it's made from natural materials.

I'm not thinking just of Crusades, though that's the most recent thing in my mind. In the past year, I've witnessed people walking around drinking out of soda cans, letting all their modern stuff sit out where everyone could see (and trip over) it, and setting up their HFN chairs around the field where everyone could admire them in all their nylony glory (and don't even get me started on the ones with footrests).

It's not nazi-like to ask for these things to be covered, it's the bare minimum anyone should expect from the attendees of the event. Okay, your T-tunic is a cotton-polyester blend, and you're wearing sweatpants. It's no big deal; everyone starts somewhere. I just want you to go one more step (like people used to do) and cover your chair/ pour your soda into a cheap aluminum tankard/ cover the cooler that's holding your soda nice and ice-cold.

I'll take care of the ultra-period stuff - I don't expect anyone else to match my level if they can't invest the time or the money - but at least make a teeny bit of effort, okay?

The tote bag - buy a cheap basket from a craft/dollar/thrift store.

The cooler - I can't say this enough: Get a piece of fabric, whether it's an old bedspread/throw/sheet or something cheap from your pal the thrift store, and COVER THE FUCKING THING. It's really cheap, and requires maybe two brain cells worth of thought.

The chair - more fabric, if you insist on the HFN chair. There are fewer people out there with genuine back problems than there are people who simply haven't made the effort to find a better-looking chair, so don't give me that excuse. You bought it because it was cheap and it's comfortable. Fine. COVER IT.

The drink - you have no excuse for wandering around with a can of soda in your hand, or leaving a plastic water bottle sitting in the cup holder of your HFN chair. Cups are so cheap, it's ridiculous. GET ONE AND USE IT.

Seriously - I'm not asking for anything outrageous. If you have that hard a time even covering your modern items, then maybe you need a hobby that doesn't require an attempt at pre-1600 stuff. Nascar, say. Everyone uses those HFN chairs there.

Yes, it makes me cranky. I'm not crushing your dream by asking that you make a tiny little effort. But if you don't want to make even that miniscule effort, then maybe you don't belong in this particular dream.

Hand sewing - What It All Means.  8/26/03

Someone asked me, in essence, why do I bother with hand-sewing my historical clothing. He opined that people only seem to notice the flashy shiny stuff, not the really period details, so what's the point?

The short answer is that I know it's right. The long answer is a bit rambly, but here goes:

First of all, people don't just notice the flashy stuff, but it catches the eye immediately, so it's more likely to elicit a remark. But there's stuff going on here that isn't as obvious to the casual observer. Some say that people like "flashy" rather than "period". Not quite. There are an awful lot of people out there who think flashy *can't* be period, even though there are lots of paintings to refute this - the problem starts when people use the wrong kind of flash to decorate their clothes. Because there are people out there running around in frankly quite terrible outfits, there has developed a kind of reverse snobbery that says "period" is only period if it's dull and drab.

Case in point: For a couple of friends' coronation, I made them these beautiful satin Elizabethan outfits. The only thing not period about them was the blue colour I used, because I wanted them in Atlantian colours. Everything else was textbook Elizabethan, to the stained fleur-de-lys band on her dress to the white satin of his doublet. But because they were eye-catching, some people sneered and said that the outfits couldn't be period. In this case, flashy WAS period (after all, they were a King and Queen), but because of the existing hostility towards "flashy", people couldn't recognize period (and people don't bother to research properly - so they make pronouncements about what's period and what isn't, and make themselves look petty AND ill-informed at the same time). Flashy and period are not mutually exclusive, but you'll have a hard time convincing some rather close-minded people of that. And the people that do flashy without doing their research make it even harder. But it's not really my problem - I know it's right, so y'all will have to trust me. :P

But I digress.

Why do we bother with all the handwork when machines can do a passable job for us? Because that's what they did in period. While the difference between machine and hand work may not be visible from ten paces, you know it's there.

Never underestimate the boost wearing correct clothing can give your perception of "period". The feel, the look, the drape, the effect. It makes you stand straighter, move differently, respond to your surroundings in a more period way.

Yes, it's all in your head. That's where the re-creation starts. We can dress up in period clothes, eat and drink period foods, and sit in period furniture, but if we stick to our modern mindset, the illusion does not work. I've been doing this a long time - as B.B. King says, "The Thrill is Gone". I cannot simply go to an event and feel like I'm in another time - the modern intrusions, the modern conversations are all too present for me most of the time.

When I make an outfit by hand, I put myself in the place of an Elizabethan. I get a better understanding of how long it takes to make a new outfit (not as long as you'd think, at least, most of the time), and the feel of a garment taking shape under my hands affects everything I do with and in it from there on. I treasure the embroidered pieces I make, because they took a long time to create (a coif takes anywhere from six months to a year, and the larger pieces can take hundreds of hours). I mend and darn my clothes rather than discarding them for new outfits because I appreciate the value of a carefully made article of clothing. I don't have a new outfit for every event because making it right costs money and time, two considerations that also affected people in my chosen period.

Doing it by hand makes it feel right, and cutting corners means selling my dream short, I guess.

NOTE: Your mileage may vary - for a lot of people, the beautiful designs made by an embroidery machine enhance their perception of period.

But it's not for me. I'm old-fashioned, and getting more so. Yes, I have clothes that aren't quite right, and you may justly hit me over the head for my handwork snobbery, but I really get so much more out of the game by doing things this way. I like the way handwork looks; I like the way it feels when I run my fingers over it.

I like knowing it's unique, and I feel a real sense of accomplishment over my creations, from the simple couched pincushion I just finished, to the elaborate hand-appliqued doublet I made for Bob, to the fact that I finally got the couched sleeves finished on my green wool coat (and all 126 hand-made buttons). In the details, I find purpose.

And that's why it's worth doing it by hand.