Weekly Check-in: Things I Learned at Pennsic
Date Posted: August 20th, 2010
Me and Aaron accompanying dancers at a swanky dinner party.
As I’ve been alluding to on the blog, I went to Pennsic last week. It’s not an easy event to describe in a sentence or two, but I’ll do my best. It’s a two week long camping trip at a giant campground where everyone dresses in not-normal clothing. Not-normal is the correct term since few people actually dress in a specific period the whole time, and even fewer do it with any accuracy. Global warming isn’t period, so most clothing from 400 years ago and earlier wasn’t made to handle such hot weather. (Although you’d be surprised at how well it does work.)
Some people will say that Pennsic is a big war between the East Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom, but that’s not really true. I mean, yes, there is a war, but to say that that’s what Pennsic is all about isn’t accurate. I think of Pennsic as more of a gathering of lots of people in the SCA who do all sorts of things. It’s a chance for weavers and spinners and dancers and musicians and painters and fighters and archers and singers and… to get together and play with and learn from and spend time with each other for a week or two. There are a lot of SCA hobbies where a local shire or barony may only have one or two people doing it. At Pennsic there’ll be at least 50. The Knowne World Choir is a great example of this. A lot of people in the choir are there because that’s the only chance they get to spend a week singing polyphonic music.
Of course people will say that definition isn’t quite right either since there’s a sizable number of people there who aren’t part of the SCA. These people don’t go to classes or fight in the war. They just spend all day at camp, all night partying, and maybe an hour or two in between checking out the merchants. I’ve heard it said they go because Burning Man is too far away and too expensive. That part of Pennsic I haven’t seen much of, so I can’t really say much more about it than that.
This Pennsic I spent most of my days either under the shade-fly talking to the like minded people usually sitting there, at the dance tent playing music, shopping, or at some class… usually music related. (I went to very few classes this year, actually.) In the evenings I tend to be at the dance tent. As you can see, for me Pennsic is a music and dance camping event. 
Things I Learned
Taking a bit of a departure from the normal weekly check-in this week to talk about what I learned at Pennsic.
Medieval clothing works both better and worse than I expected.
That green cotehardie I’m wearing in the picture I wore almost every day that week. I had another cotehardie (same colors as Aaron’s) that I wore a bit too, but I never quite finished it so I didn’t want to wear it all the time. I had a linen/cotten undershirt underneath the cotehardie too. So, two layers of fabric (three if you count the lining on the cotehardie) with long sleeves during a 90 degree week. Doesn’t matter that linen’s supposed to be ideal for that sort of weather, I was still uncomfortably hot and sweaty. So, thing 1 I learned: medieval clothing is not as comfortable as modern clothing.
I didn’t wear any sunscreen all week because I didn’t want to feel like I had to take a shower every day to get the chemicals off. As you can see from the picture I’m pretty pasty white, so I should have gotten badly sunburned what with being outside in the burning sun all day, but no. I’m a little pink around the neck, but not all that burned. The reason for that being I was almost entirely covered. I wore some kind of headcovering almost every day (straw hat, veil, cool felt helt) and as I said, I had a long sleeve dress on with multiple layers. If I’d had a wimple to go with the veil, I’d have avoided the little burn I did get. So, thing 2 I learned: medieval clothing does an excellent job of keeping away sun burn. Not surprising since northern Europeans didn’t have sunscreen and probably didn’t want to get sunburned.
Another thing I learned: sweat does not necessarily imply smell. I was pretty sweaty all week, but I don’t think I reeked that much. I also didn’t notice the stench of other people, even if they were complaining about how gross they were feeling. Very interesting.
The Early Music community is pretty welcoming
I got to talk to some of the musicians I admired, and they seemed interested in listening to my questions and seemed to want to help me succeed. A very nice change from hearing about people who are so over-stimulated by the number of fans they have that they start seeing these people not so much as people but just as “fans”. Granted my exposure has been pretty limited, but so far every time (maybe 4 or 5 times?) I’ve contacted someone in the community I’ve gotten a speedy, friendly, helpful response. Here’s to hoping my experience wasn’t a fluke.
Being around like-minded people is refreshing
I don’t walk the normal path. It’s not that I want to be weird, but that I want to live as close to right feels right to me. A lot of times what feels right isn’t what everyone else is doing. Most of the time I try not to flaunt it, but sometimes things come up in conversation. Things like being anti-shoes, wanting to homeschool, biking to work, being mostly vegetarian, having an SCA wedding… it gets tiring explaining why I believe what I believe, and it’s even more tiring to listen to people explain why they’re offended by the way I live my life.
At my camp at Pennsic, the people I was talking to at camp just got it. No need to explain. Just “yes, I get it”. My goodness it was nice.
That said, explaining myself all the time is useful. I have a lot of clarity on why I do what I do, and that clarity is worth a lot. I’m just saying that once in a while it’s nice to be in a place where I don’t have to explain. Where my beliefs are validated. Where I can physically see that I’m not alone.
I still like sewing
I had to do some finishing on the cotehardies at Pennsic. (Ah, the joys of handsewing.) One day I spent the entire afternoon sewing buttons and buttonholes on the cotehardie Aaron’s wearing in the picture. That evening I didn’t feel like doing any more sewing. Or the next day for that matter. But the day after that it felt like a good idea again.
I think I’m on to something with this, but I’m not sure what. It has something to do with doing things you have to do vs. doing things you want to do and giving yourself time to want things.
—–
It was a great trip. I have lots of good memories and I’m so looking forward to next year. Yay Pennsic!
I’m trying not to feel too guilty about it.
