Day Six: I am eaten by sharks.

[attack_laurel]

Well, nibbled by sea urchins, anyway.

Still can't sleep, and bad pain, so today's post is brought to you by the letters c-o-e-d-i-n and e, but:

Comments

[attack_laurel]

"Maven" is good, too. :)

[kass_rants]

What if said enthusiast wasn't passive-aggressive at all? What if the person in question does things authentically and was just offering advice.

You see, everyone who knows me knows that I strive to do the historical accurate thing with all I do. So if they ask me for advice on a project, that I will tell them the historically accurate way to complete their project is implicit.

But of course, I don't sneer. ;)

[thatpotteryguy]

"repressive right-wing murdering genocidal fuckheads"

Someone compared you to a neo-con Republican? Them's fightin' words...

[isabelladangelo]

there's always the Renaissance Faire - they don't require you to dress up in anything

Well, they do require you to dress up in something but that something is about the same as your local 7-11's dress code. In fact, I think 7-11's is stricter. Down with 7-11! They are soo mean! They make me wear shoes! What are they thinking?!? Freedom!!!!!

I think the problem stems from "vultures". These are the people that see "ah! newbie! Must tell them everything they are doing wrong right now." Rather than even attempting to be nice about it with a "I like that color. You know, there is a portrait of Lady X with the same color dress..." they go into the evil step-sisters of cinderella mode and verbally rip the person apart.

[kass_rants]

You just hit it right on the head, I think! I find there is nothing so virulent as the zeal of the newly-coverted. When you have some new knowledge, you want everyone to know that you have this knowledge, so you tell everyone what you know. And if you are a bull in a china shop about "teaching" a newer newbie than yourself, you'll probably come off as a complete jerk.

[soldiergrrrl]

Good points. My beloved husband can be a dork about authenticity, but I'll have to make more of an effort to call him something else in exasperation. :-( I hadn't quite thought of it this way.

Thanks.

[attack_laurel]

"You are such a dork" works. ;)

[soldiergrrrl]

But I call him a dork all the time! Hmmmm...

"Quit being an authenticity dork, Ioannes!" That sounds pretty good!

[gwacie]

authentinesta?

[kass_rants]

I know it's going to come as a shock that I agree with you. What I have never understood is why anyone would join a group dedicated to replicating the Middle Ages and Renaissance and then make absolutely NO effort to replicate the Middle Ages and Renaissance. That just sounds dumb to me. Why not join your local Rotary Club instead of the SCA?

Personally, I have never given a damn about what anyone else does. I really don't see outside myself. I do this. I don't care what you do. I don't understand why you'd join a historical group and not even try to be historical, but whatever.

However, I am deeply offended by those people who come up to me and start whining (and sometimes screaming) about how I'm ruining their good time because I'm doing things as period corretly as I possibly can. I've tried being polite until they shut up. I've tried to walk away. I'm sick of it! I won't put up with it anymore! Next time someone comes into my area and starts their pathetic passive-agressive whining about why *I* do, I'm going to read

[attack_laurel]

Godwin's law says they lose at that point, anyway. :)

I, too, don't understand why someone would join even the simplest historical society if they don't like doing historical things. And I, too, find it so rude when people tell me I'm spoiling their fun by doing my thing. It's that kind of self-centered thinking that leads to a Harrison Bergeron version of the SCA, because being better than someone else is bad for their self-esteem.

A visionary, that man...

[kass_rants]

Yeah. I just despise mediocrity anywhere. I think it is a direct insult to the human potential. Personally, I am a horrible machine sewer and only a passing novice embroideress. But there really is something for everyone and I don't see what keeps people from striving at *something*.

[hugh_mannity]

L.P. Hartley wrote a novel called Facial Justice with the terrifying theme of universal equality. To this day I cannot hear the aria Every valley shall be exalted without a shudder. That and John Lennon's Imagine.