Suzanne Moore writes in the Guardian about why she’s had enough of irony. She makes a good point about how the irony is all-pervasive now. From where I’m sitting, this is true.
The cultural sphere - art, drama, music, film, what have you - has shifted sideways and can’t be seen or enjoyed straight on any more. You have to stand aside, watch from the sidelines with a knowing little smile, and watch not just the piece of art, but the people watching it straight on, and snigger - in a refined, self-conscious and ironic manner, of course - at their failure to ‘get it’.
So far so much post-post-modern whinge. But Moore’s penultimate paragraph is interesting:
So what strikes me increasingly is that the most subversive thing anyone can do in this time of all–encompassing irony, is to care about something and do it well.
I read that, and thought “I know those people!”
The re-enactors who spend time an money and blood and sweat on researching patterns for clothes and shoes and sourcing traditionally tanned leather, coarse linen and wool fabrics in appropriate colours and making costumes that are correct. And the larpers who do the same for costumes that have never existed, but if they had, they would have been just so.
The SF and Fantasy writers and fans who keep track of the native flora of Kashyyk, the phases of the moon in Middle Earth, the stability calculations of the Ringworld, and how Tony Stark found that shawarma joint.
These are the people who care. These are the people who left the sniggering sidelines and entered a world that may not be real in an absolute sense, but does have communities and friendships and engagement and a liveliness the ironic people would roll their eyes at. These are the people who live and take part, who are not afraid, who dare believe.
The sneering people on the ironic sidelines? Too afraid to care, to take part, to believe. I pity the fools.
Geeks aren’t ‘cool’ because it’s ironic to wear an artificially faded Superman T-shirt. Geeks are cool because we care, and aren’t afraid to show it.
Filed under geeks larp culture irony reenacment
iamfireandiamsteel:
It’s hilts like these that remind you that creating a sword was often the combined effort of 5 or 6 different specialists.
Soo pretty. Though the blade looks modern.
(via art-of-swords)
So happy birthday to you then, o bard!
Your plays are still alive and doing well.
Though language drift has made it now quite hard
To catch the puns, the smut, the jibes you’d tell.
Now serious scholars comedies dissect
And pick apart your jokes on Netherlands.
Discuss the social mores you did reflect,
And analyse the fart-jokes for the stands
Your tragic prince, misquoted by poseurs
Your Scottish gen’ral known to bring bad luck
Some claim you didn’t write at all - the slur!
Some “re-invent” you, fill your lines with “fuck”
And yet, your words live on, on screen and stage
You are immortal, bard of bygone age
Filed under sonnet
fuckyeahlarp:
Submission from aquarion:
I’ve not played with non-latex weaponry, but the first thing you are *ever* taught about LARP fighting in the systems I play is that failing to pull your blows, to actually hit people properly, is a bannable offense. You swing, you *tap*. You neither thwack, thrash…
I started out doing stage fighting, which saw me being referred to A&E by the regiment doctor (I was in the army at the time) with a note saying “Hit in head with spear, probable concussion”. Apart from that accident, which was ultimately caused by a last-minute equipment replacement, I had no problems. The “combat” was completely choreographed and controlled.
Then I started doing dark ages re-enactment. Competitive full-speed combat, blunt steel weapons. Lots of training, safety assessment required to be allowed on battlefields at public show. The focus is on “lethal appearance, not lethal intent”. We must pull our blows, otherwise we would seriously injure people. We hit each other, but not hard. Accidents happen, though they’re rarely serious, but if you tend to leave bruises on your opponent, your training officer will be told, and you might be banned. If you injure someone more seriously, or are dangerously not in control of your weapons, you will be banned from combat for at least 3 months, and will have to take your safety assessments again.
Then I went to a few LARP events in England, and got a basic latex sword. I love it. It doesn’t weigh anything, and it’s lots of fun to play with. I still pull my blows, because when I fight, I want to win, not hurt people. And a hard whack with one of those still hurts, for all that it’s rounded and rubbery.
Lately, I’ve organised a couple of small combat-only events for friends-and-family. I allow both professionally made latex weapons, and boffers (I made myself a straight sabre and matching dagger). Around half the regular players come from a re-enactment background, and have been trained with steel. They tend to be safe regardless of weapon. Those who haven’t been trained with steel tend to be safer with latex than boffers, simply because the boffers are more obviously padded, and so people assume they’re safe to hit hard with. There have been instances of whacking with boffers, and I’ve told people off for it.
It’s all about control. Both out of a concern for safety, and out of pride. If you can’t control your weapon, if you can’t stop it if needed, you shouldn’t be fighting. It’s as simple as that. And a sudden need to stop the weapon can occur regardless of weapon type, be it steel, latex, wood, or boffer.
Even if you and your opponent(s) have armour, even if the enviromnent is secured so there’s no risk of children, dogs, squirrels or other innocents wandering into the arena, you still need to be able to stop your attack before it lands. Because your opponent may faint from heat exhaustion and put their face in the path or your axe as they crumble up. Because you might notice mid-swing that the tip of your larp/boffer sword has broken and the carbon fibre/pvc pipe core is exposed.
(And finally, if you swing and whack as hard as you can, you’re slow to recover, and someone who has control will find it easy to block and riposte, and kill you.)
Another year, another step
Further away from my little girl
Closer to your own definition
I mourn my loss, as I rejoice in your gain
Not that I’ve put a lot of thought into this, but if the law permits same-sex marriages, is there any rational reason it shouldn’t permit poly marriages?
I mean, if marriage is defined as a legal union of non-incestuously related adult humans of different sex, and the law recognises only two distinct sexes, then it follows that marriage by definition is a union of two people. However, if the different-sex requirement is removed, as I think it should be, I can’t see any reason to limit the number of participants.
You could have a standard form, something like:
We, the undersigned, hereby declare our desire and intention to join in legal union of marriage, in which we undertake to share joys and hardships, and to support and respect each other.
[Names / Signatures]
[Official witness name / Signature / Stamp / Date]
This ought to be enough for the law, in terms of inheritance, dependents (I guess any child of one of the members of the marriage would count as a dependent of the marriage as a whole - is that how it works with step children now?), family taxation and benefits, and so on.
If a religious blessing is sought, that can be obtained elsewhere, in a religious ceremony that is not legally binding (alternatively, the right to perform legally binding marriages could be given to any religious organisation with the provisio that they have no right to refuse to perform the marriage ceremony - religiously and legally - for any group of people who have the legal right to get married, regardless of the configuration of the marriage).
Divorces in full or part must be allowed, of course. And I think, personally, that one should only be permitted to be a member of one marriage (however many people might be in it) at any one time.
Is there any reason not to, apart from tradition?
Filed under Musing
I guess I am conservative,
A stuck-up boring fool,
A jammed-up old preservative,
Abiding by old rules
But don’t you need to know the rules,
And know why they exist,
To break with old and stagnant schools,
To break new ground and breathe?
It seems to me that poetry
Is best when it’s restrained
When form goes hand in hand with thought, and carries it along
I don’t demand a clever rhyme, but reason must be there; and rhythm must be kept in mind, to make it move ahead.
Those prose-ish poems may be cool, and boldly, brightly drawn. But in my house I have my rules: You kids get off my lawn!
Since it’s World Poetry Day today, apparently, I’ll repost one I wrote just over a year ago
