[Northshield] Inauthentic authenticity

[Elyse Boucher]

What a lovely question! Here's 5 answers:

I, too, have been annoyed by the children playing M:TG
and the merchants selling clearly inauthentic wares;
one teaches me about period railings against youth and
the other teaches me about period rants about
merchants.

And, of course, there are always little guild wars
going on between the various merchants selling C&I
supplies, but that's not quite in line with what
you're asking for. ;-)

However, my favorite recent moments of inauthentic
authenticity, though not so dramatic as yours, always
come to me when I am putting a few dollars in the red
collection buckets set up by the Salvation Army every
Christmas season. I'll state straight out that I am
not a practicing Christian as a modern woman, nor do I
regularly tithe within the tradition of my particular
church. However, I include multiple small donations to
Sally Ann as part of my regular charitable giving. 

So every Christmas I pop a little money into the pot
every time I enter a store with a bell ringer, and I
always respond to their "Merry Christmas!" with
something way outside the usual holiday lexicon yet
still appropriate. And when I, Elyse, do so, I get
this little shift in my perception that creates two
seperate moments: I, Merouda, am doing my Christian
duty by giving to the poor box, and I'm being looked
at strangely because I have left the grace of Rome and
am now a heretic in the eyes of my largely Catholic
countrymen.

And last one, although this happened to me at a time
when I was between activity in the SCA: 

I was on active duty in the Army, stationed in West
Germany. I was going through a divorce. I was on field
manuevers. Note that at this time, I was a Sergeant
and the other person in this story was a Specialist
Four, so I clearly outranked him. One evening, while
enjoying a brief quiet moment alone in the woods, I
was approached by a gentleman who wanted to talk with
me about his version of Christianity, a gentleman who
had recently taken it upon himself to attempt to
convince me that playing cards was a sin. However, his
was not the fire-and-brimstone approach, but rather a
gentle attempt to persuade me of the errors of my
ways. And as we stood there talking in the cooling
woods, with the smell of diesel and the rumble of
tanks, our selves blending into the forest with our
fatigues, I had this ... shift... and I suddenly
realized *why* it was so important to him that I amend
my ways, why *I* was the subject of his evangelical
attention, and I felt very much like what I imagined
the worshiped lady must feel like in the game of
courtly love as she discussed a very appropriate topic
with her worshiping knight. 



Your Servant, Merouda


--- "Lieder, Lisa" <Lisa.Lieder at bestbuy.com> wrote:

> 
> I'd love to hear from people about "inauthentic
> authentic experiences".
> 
> I have found that certain completely inauthentic
> experiences have evoked
> very authentic responses for me in the SCA because
> they are able to
> evoke the same emotion as a similar document able
> experience did in
> period. I want to share two with you and to find out
> if any of you have
> had similar experiences. 
> 
> The first occurred while participating in a Quest at
> Pennsic. My Lady
> and I were very tired, we had walked in armor all
> over the Pennsic
> grounds, carrying our helmets and arms. It was over
> 100 degrees and we
> were parched.  The only camp we were close to at
> this time was the
> Tuchuk encampment. My Lady (Viscountess Ysault, from
> the West) asked me
> as her servant to get water from the Tuchuks. I
> approached their gate
> and asked the man at the gate for water. He stated
> that a "dog" would
> never serve a (language omitted) like me but that he
> would get one of
> the other (language omitted) to get me some. A woman
> came out of the
> camp barefoot and served us, head bowed without
> speaking. She served us
> in broken dishes with spiders that she simply wiped
> out. 
> 
> It was a very evocative experience. We clearly were
> in a "foreign" camp
> where we did not understand the customs and had
> violated them. We looked
> like two crusaders asking a nomadic camp for help as
> our armor was not
> appropriate for the lands we were in (full plate +
> 100 degrees=stupid
> Christians). We were a little frightened as the camp
> was reacting with
> anger to having two women in full plate approach and
> ask a male for help
> (they honestly thought we had come to give them
> trouble). All this was
> brought into high focus by the fact that we were
> physically exhausted
> and unable to go on without water. If we did not
> approach them, we would
> have to abandon our quest. 
> 
> The second experience is why I appreciate the role
> playing teenagers. I
> find that they evoke in adults the EXACT response
> that dice playing
> young men evoke in writings on the sins of youth. If
> they were playing
> at a "period" game, it would not create nearly as
> authentic a response.
> By their inauthenticity, they create an authentic
> experience.
> 
> How about you? Any inauthentic authenticity in your
> SCA life??
> Sabina 
> 
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> http://mailman.northshield.org/listinfo/northshield
> 


Modern: Elyse C. Boucher, West Allis, WI
SCA: Merouda Pendray, Caer Anterth Mawr, Northshield
Per pale sable and Or, a gryphon segreant counterny within an orle of feathers counterchanged. http://www.merouda.com

This is an listread address. I may not see your response for several days. Mail requiring more immediate attention should be directed to merouda at hotmail.com. If I don't answer, then hotmail's spam filters ate your message; please try again.


 
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