Allecto Returns with “Our Mrs. Reynolds”, Part 2

Before I begin, I feel the need to clarify my motivation with these rebuttal articles. If Allecto were just arguing that Joss Whedon is not really a feminist, despite his reputation, I wouldn’t really have anything to say in response. Unfortunately, she can’t seem to stop with saying he isn’t the feminist he’s cracked up to be: she has to claim that he’s a woman-hating, wife-beating rapist. If she had any credibility, she’d probably be on the receiving end of a defamation suit.

All that said, Allecto makes a heck of a lot more legitimate points in this article than in her previous ones, largely because she stays closer to the actual content of the show instead of imagining things to complain about. In particular, she has some valid points about the stereotypical handling of a female villain. If she didn’t wrap her good points in delusional ranting, I wouldn’t have anything to say about them. I guess I should thank her for providing me blog material.

I mentioned in the first post that the most disturbing potential reading of this episode is as a justification and indeed glorification of male violence/terrorism in the home. I left off in the last post talking about the romance between Mal and Jayne. In the following scenes Saffron settles in to her role as a subservient and pleasing wife, with Mal being a happy consumer of her services.

Speaking of Allecto delusions, she couldn’t resist mentioning “the romance between Mal and Jayne.” As for Mal being a “happy consumer” of Saffron’s “services”, we’ll see what she uses for evidence.

MAL (cont’d)
Well, that is odd.
SAFFRON
What?
MAL
I just don’t - I’m not one talks about his past. And here you got me…
SAFFRON
Does your crew never show interest in your life?
MAL
No, they’re, they’re… They just know me well enough to… What about you? What’s your history?
SAFFRON
Not much to say. Life like yours, I fear you’d find mine terrible dull.
MAL
Oh, I long for a little dullness. Truth to say, this whole trip is getting to be just a little too interesting.

Touching stuff here. Mal beginning to see Saffron’s resources as an emotionally supportive slave as an addition to her exquisite domestic skills. What makes me even more annoyed about this scene is the fact that Mal, as always, does all the talking, leaving Saffron’s potentially interesting history unexplored. This is typical of stories written by misogynists. They are not interested in women’s stories; women are only there to further understanding of the male characters.

I know that Allecto wants the story to revolve completely around the female characters. Alas, that’s not the story that Joss Whedon is writing. I guess you can disqualify him as a feminist on those grounds if you want.

SPOILER WARNING! (Last one you’ll get; it should be obvious that these posts will be full of them.)

Looking at this scene a little closer, it’s obvious that Joss has no motivation to give us detailed backstory on Saffron here, because Saffron’s submissive wife persona is a complete fabrication. More on that as we get to the Big Reveal, but in the meantime, Allecto needs to pick on Zoe some more.

One obvious example of [male writers creating female characters that hate themselves] in Joss Whedon’s work is in the following scene where Zoe shows herself to be completely unsympathetic to Saffron’s slavery and blames Saffron for her own subjugation.

ZOE (V.O.)
She’s clearly out of her mind.
WASH
Well, she’s led a sheltered life.
ZOE
Did you see the way she grabbed that glass from you?
WASH
Every planet’s got its own weird customs. ‘Bout a year before we met, I spent six weeks on a moon where the principal form of recreation was juggling geese. My hand to God. Baby geese. Goslings. They were juggled.
ZOE
Of course the man rushes in to defend her…
WASH
(huh?) I’m talking about geese.

[some dialogue clipped by me]
It goes without saying that I find it highly problematic that women’s oppression is compared with the juggling of geese.

I’m skipping over some colorful language that I don’t think needs to be repeated here (follow the link to her post if you want all the profanity). I guess you can interpret this scene as trivializing women’s oppression if you have Allecto’s hyper-literal, hyper-sensitive point of view. You could also watch this and conclude that Wash finds Saffron’s submissive demeanor to be quite strange, as if he didn’t normally see women behaving that way. Character after character sees Saffron's behavior as some sort of disturbing anomaly, but Allecto thinks all the male characters are delighted and all the female characters are jealous. It seems to me that a rational person watching this show would have to conclude that everyone but Jayne is rather appalled by Saffron’s oppression.

And here we have Zoe blaming women for their own oppression and hating women, presumably for not being as liberated herself. Does that even make any kind of sense?

It’s nice to see Allecto making some kind of a coherent argument, because Zoe definitely does seem to be blaming the victim. To answer the question, perhaps Zoe’s lack of sympathy could be attributed to the fact that, having come from a liberated environment, she is unable to identify with someone as apparently oppressed as Saffron. Even given that it is wrong for Zoe to blame the victim, is it really bad that she is unable to relate to the victim mentality?

Wait a minute... Zoe's "liberated"? I thought Zoe was Wash's indoctrinated, oppressed servant-wife!

And Wash borrows Mal’s unicorn outfit to ‘defend’ Saffron and her weirdness. See, that is what I just love about male supremacy. Men rape babies, they buy, sell and trade women (real, live, thinking, breathing human beings) as sex, they kill each other, they bash, rape, mutilate, torture us day in and day out, for not being subservient enough, for being too subservient, for being too ugly, for being too beautiful, for not conforming enough, for conforming too much, in short for being born female. And women are the ones who get called crazy and weird.

I like how she just dumps out a huge list of crimes and lays them all at the feet of every man on the planet. Yep, women are “real, live, thinking, breathing human beings”, but men are all scum. Nice double standard, Allecto.

How the #@&* are women supposed to survive what men throw at us and not go a bit crazy? And weird? Well, if hating my sisters, conforming to white male supremacy by being treated as a sex-object and possession by a white man, conforming to white male supremacy by jumping when the white man says jump and calling the white man ‘sir’ is your idea of ‘normal’ womanhood, Mr. Whedon, then I sure am glad that I am ‘weird’. But thankfully I know that your image of Black womanhood ain’t anything like the courageous, resourceful, angry, compassionate, strong, resilient, tireless, flesh and blood reality of my Black sisters.

I copied that paragraph only because I wanted you to read the last sentence. Most people think that stream of adjectives would apply quite well to Zoe, but Allecto thinks Zoe is just an oppressed victim.

The next part of the show is one of the most disgusting, heteropatriachal, rapist scenes that I’ve watched. So gross. Saffron shows up in Mal’s cabin completely naked. She surprises him when he comes into his room. She is in Mal’s bed, draped in his sheets, telling Mal that she has made the bed warm for him and made herself ready for him. EWWWWWWWW. I already think I need a bath. #$^&@ Joss has a filthy mind.

So Mal, still wearing his unicorn suit (though by this stage it is getting a bit tatty) tells her that she has her own room. Saffron is confused believing that, as they are married, they must become ‘one flesh’. EWWWWWW Joss’s words there. So Saffron quotes her planet’s bible at Mal. Remember these words were written by the great feminist Joss Whedon.

Yes, the “biblical quote” that Saffron gives is despicable. I don’t see any reason to dispute that point. Of course, I don’t think Mal approves of the concept either, since he tries to resist her little seduction routine instead of just jumping her without hesitation. I think Joss is pointing out the misogynistic content of fundamentalist religions (well before the current FLDS church controversies arose, I might add), not glorifying it.

Interlude: Joss Whedon’s Guide for Beginners on how to make female submissiveness sexxxxay. Take one naked, skinny, shortish prone woman. Add one clothed, built, tallish standing man. Insert suggestive, heteropatriarchal, religious reference. Stir.

And yet, the implication of the entire scene, even before the Big Reveal, is that taking advantage of this woman is wrong. At least that was the impression I got. Mal actually lets the audience down when he gives in to temptation; although I suppose your mileage may vary.

Allecto relates an anecdote from her own life about how she’s a better person than Mal for having resisted temptation in a similar situation. Good for you, Allecto. You are better than a flawed, fictional character.

Mal, however, succumbs to the whole seduction scene and lets Saffron kiss him. Boom! He falls the floor. Apparently Saffron has knock-out drugs in her lipstick. It's the Big Reveal: the submissive wife routine was all an act. Saffron’s actually a con-artist.

Allecto is going to complain at great length about the manipulative female villain cliché. I have no reason whatsoever to dispute this with her. A cliché it is, and not a complimentary one to women, either. Of course, I think she carries it way too far; here's what she takes away from this revelation...

Women lie. About everything really, but mostly they lie about rape, child abuse, sexual assault and harassment, male violence in the home, male violence in the street etc. Women lie and lie and lie. They can’t help it. They don’t even have a reason for lying, they just do it. It’s biological… and pathological… but still very wrong.

Sorry, Allecto, but one deceitful female character in the show does not make your case. Zoe is not a liar; Kaylee is not a liar; River is not a liar; and if Inara is lying to someone, it’s herself.

Moving on, Saffron leaves Mal on the floor to go to the bridge, where she tries her seduction routine on Wash. Wash actually turns her down, but Allecto can’t leave it alone, so she goes after why he resists.

WASH
[Something in Chinese] do I wish I was somebody else right now. Somebody not married, not madly in love with a beautiful woman who can kill me with her pinky.

Reason number 9623 of why I find the whole Wash/Zoe relationship unconvincing. Wash openly admits that he wishes he could sleep with Saffron a woman who he has just met. He simultaneously believes that he loves Zoe despite the fact that he openly admits to wanting to [sleep with] Saffron. And the primary motivation for him refusing to [sleep with] Saffron does not seem to be because he loves Zoe, it is more because of his life may be in danger if he does. Wow, I really do just love these nice, white husbands. Whatever would women do without all these nice, white men?

Remember how – according to Allecto – Zoe is Wash’s abused, helpless wife? That’s what she told us about the relationship in her review of “Serenity”. Now, though, he’s too afraid of Zoe to defy her. Allecto apparently evaluates every scene in isolation, so she doesn’t notice when she contradicts herself. Yeah, Wash does express regret for being unavailable at the time, but I don’t think his statement invalidates genuine love for Zoe.

I’ll admit something bad about men, here. We really do find it hard to resist an offer from an attractive woman. Evolutionarily speaking, women have the scarce commodity. Sperm are cheap and plentiful, but eggs are limited and precious. (EDIT: Looking back, it appears that I have repeated a popular misconception here. The distinction appears to be more cultural than biological.) Consequently, the male’s first instinct when getting an offer is to accept it, and the conscious mind has to work to overcome natural instinct in order to refuse. If Wash really thought so little of Zoe as Allecto thinks, he wouldn’t have made that effort. The world is full of men who haven’t lived up to Wash’s standard of ethics.

Anyway, Joss writes his first remotely feminist bit thus far and Saffron kicks Wash in the head after rolling her eyes at his stupidity. WOOHOO!!!! That’s more like it sister! Now this Saffron IS sexy. Not that sexy is a word I’d use but hey. This Saffron is a woman who kicks @#$@%@ men in the head and that makes her pretty darn attractive in my book.

Well, now we know what Allecto considers to be a good example of feminist script writing. No character development, no story arcs, no depth… just men on the receiving end of violence.

Saffron stuffs up the ship’s navigation before heading to one of the shuttles. She encounters Inara along the way. Can’t really be bothered to detail the scene. Suffice to say that Joss chucks in a bit of lesbian pornography for his wanker fans. Ho hum moment number 3948.

In brief, as Saffron heads toward one of the shuttles to abandon the ship, she meets Inara in the hall and tries to seduce her, too. Inara doesn’t fall for it, and she also dodges the kick to the head. Saffron manages to get into the shuttle, though, and take off. Is Joss trying to sex up the show too much this way? Is this script the work of a wife-beating rapist? You decide.

Inara reveals the hideous truth about Saffron to the others. She acts as though she has had training at the Academy for Companions. Shock, horror. A Companion that uses her ‘skills’ in servility for evil???

Yes, yes… we know, Allecto. You hate the manipulative woman cliché.

Allecto does a lot of summing up of the remaining plot, since Saffron’s off the ship and no longer directly involved. It turns out she set the ship on a course for a trap, and there’s no way to regain control of the ship before they get into it. Everyone will be killed, and the ship will be sold as salvage. Fortunately, Jayne is able to damage the trap with his big rifle to save the ship. Disaster avoided and the ship back under control, Mal goes to get his shuttle back.

For this scene, Allecto quotes a lot of script and includes some screen captures, because she thinks it makes her point about the episode being an “endorsement of male terrorism in the home”. I don’t want to repeat all of that here, so please just read it in her post. In a nutshell, Mal finds Saffron, says “Honey, I’m home”, holds her at gunpoint a bit, and a fight ensues. I will not even dispute that Joss tries to put some sexiness into the scene – including Saffron making a last-ditch seduction attempt, and I won’t argue about the appropriateness, either. There is one portion that I’ll highlight, though, because there’s a rather suspicious omission.

SAFFRON You gonna kill me? MAL Can you conjure up a terribly compelling reason for me not to? SAFFRON I didn’t kill you… … MAL Why the act? All the seduction games, the dancing about folk — there has to be an easier way to steal.

SAFFRON You gonna kill me? MAL Can you conjure up a terribly compelling reason for me not to? SAFFRON I didn't kill you... MAL You turned me and my crew over to those that would kill us, that buys you nothing. SAFFRON I made you dinner... MAL Why the act? All the seduction games, the dancing about folk -- there has to be an easier way to steal.

I find it a little strange that Allecto quoted Saffron’s “I didn’t kill you” line but omitted Mal’s response, “You turned me and my crew over to those that would kill us, that buys you nothing.” Is she trying to gloss over the fact that Saffron conspired to murder everyone on the ship?

Allecto’s summary of the scene:

Saffron leaves Mal and Mal tracks her down, invading her home by force as a husband, pushing her to the bed, using his body to pin her down while he lectures her for not conforming to proper feminine womanhood, before slamming his gun in her face.

If you’re still thinking of this pair as husband-and-wife at this point (if you ever were), you are truly deluded. You may not like the manipulative female villain cliché, but that’s what Saffron is. Mal is reclaiming stolen property from a criminal. You could easily argue that it could have been done without a confrontation, which would have allowed it to occur without Mal hitting a woman, and I wouldn’t have any complaints. Strictly speaking, a direct confrontation to reclaim the shuttle wasn’t necessary, but I suppose it’s another character flaw of Mal’s that he couldn’t just fly away in the shuttle without a word. I suppose Joss felt that the audience needed some kind of closure, as well.

You can certainly make the case that the scene – the whole episode, in fact – isn’t feminist. You can make the case that the manipulative woman cliché is a bad image to be rehashing, although many people like the fact that Saffron seems to be a smart, resourceful character. Is the episode “glorification of male violence/terrorism in the home”? I think that’s a stretch, but you can watch it yourself and decide.

So, the summary for part 2 of Allecto's "Our Mrs. Reynolds" review:

• We should get plenty of backstory on female characters, even if it's going to be false.
• Comparing unusual social customs to absurd pastimes is an effort to trivialize them.
• A “liberated” female character does not relate well to an “oppressed” female character.
• Women are real, live, thinking beings; men are baby-raping, slave-trading, murderous monsters.
• A woman trying to seduce a man is icky.
• The manipulative female cliché is proof of the writer's misogyny.
• Men only resist seduction attempts out of fear.
• A woman kicking a man in the head is feminism.
• The scene in which Mal confronts Saffron to get his shuttle back is loaded with evil images of male dominance.

This post was actually hard to review. It’s hard to wade through all the venom and maintain any semblance of objectivity. True objectivity is an unattainable ideal, of course, and I know that my perception influences my opinion, but I like to think that I can step back from a subject and give it a fair evaluation before writing a critique. I honestly don’t think Allecto even made the attempt.

Incidentally, the entire script of “Our Mrs Reynolds” is available online, if you want to check anything yourself.

Check Part 1, if you missed it.

Iron Man Review

OK, this is just a brief review. Iron Man kicked some serious buttocks. Good pacing, good acting, good direction, just generally good movie-making. Furthermore, they didn't abuse the source material. In the movie, Tony Stark is a drinking, womanizing, playboy jerk, but that's consistent with the comic book character; everybody has character flaws, you know. The various stages of the armor construction are great fun to watch.


As for the bonus scene at the end of the credits, I won't reveal anything except to say that Marvel seems to be laying the groundwork to start having cross-over movies involving multiple heroes. That will be really nice if they do it well.

Nitpicks in the comments.

Update: There's a trivia item from the imdb.com write-up of Iron Man that just has to be shared...

Robert Downey Jr. further described his portrayal of Stark as "a challenge of making a wealthy, establishmentarian, weapons-manufacturing, hard-drinking, womanizing p#&%! into a character who is likable and a hero."

The Tiger

Tiger, tiger, laughing bright
In the Ukraine of the night,
What cathartic hand or eye
Could frame thy wavy symmetry?

In what distant gnats or skies
Flew the chapstick of thine eyes?
On what pants dare he aspire?
What the spoon dare call the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could cook the smokers of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What green hand and what green feet?

What the woman? what the chain?
In what cockroach was thy brain?
What the wildlife? What dread grasp
Dare its fluffy freeways clasp?

When the mice threw down their spears,
And water'd Brooklyn with their tears,
Did He curb His work to see?
Did He who made the sloth make thee?

Tiger, tiger, laughing bright
In the Ukraine of the night,
What cathartic hand or eye
Could frame thy tawny symmetry?

Musicky

I spent a bit of time with my hammered dulcimer over the weekend. One of my books has a custom tabulation scheme that's actually very helpful, and surprisingly enough it has the Black Nag (an extremely common English Country Dance, if you don't know) among the pieces for which it provides music.

I can actually play the Black Nag, now. Not extremely well, mind you, but well enough to build some dexterity on the instrument. I'll have to try to figure out some of the other pieces in the book.

Skeptics' Circle

I haven't contributed to them much lately or even been good about linking to them, but the Skeptics' Circle is still going strong, and issue 85 came out this week.

A Poetic Madlib

This is something of an experiment in madlibs. I’m trying to do the usual word substitution in a poem without breaking the rhythm, meter, or rhyme. Consequently, I’ll be looking for particular numbers of syllables, and I won’t be substituting words that make up part of the rhyme scheme.

Verb, 2 syllables, present participle
A place, 2 syllables
Adjective, 3 syllables
Adjective, 2 syllables
Noun, 1 syllable, plural
Verb, 1 syllable, past tense
Noun, 2 syllables, singular
Noun, 1 syllable, plural
Noun, 1 syllable, singular
Verb, 1 syllable, present
Verb, 1 syllable, present
Noun, 2 syllables, plural
Adjective, 1 syllable
Noun, 2 syllables, singular
Noun, 2 syllables, singular
Noun, 2 syllables, singular
Adjective, 2 syllables
Noun, 2 syllables, plural
Noun, 1 syllable, plural
A place, 2 syllables
Verb, 1 syllable, present
An animal, 1 syllable, singular

Not Quite As Clean

My articles about Allecto have apparently caused the Saga to take a slight hit on its language rating.


Created by OnePlusYou

More Radical Feminist Criticism of Firefly

The train wreck continues in Allecto’s second article on Firefly, in which she reviews the episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds”. This should be interesting, since the episode features a female villain.

I’m going to skip her opening rant about the hate mail she received after publishing her review of “Serenity”. I really don’t doubt she got all the hate mail she describes; this is the internet, and obnoxious people use the anonymity it provides to make jackasses of themselves all the time, so getting a batch of hate mail after bashing a TV show with a fairly large fan cult should surprise no one. (As an example, at Babtech on the Net, we've received a charming array of insults and death threats for our assessments of the fictional technology of Babylon 5.)

She apparently intends to write two posts on this episode, and she sounds like she doesn’t mean to get to her main complaints until part two. Here’s her summary.

Our Mrs. Reynolds is the sixth episode of the television series Firefly. This episode was written by the Great White Feminist himself, Joss Whedon. In this episode, Mal the captain of the ship finds out that he has married a woman when he finds a stowaway on his ship. The stowaway, whose name is Saffron, was traded to Mal as a gift because he helped the inhabitants of a planet to get rid of some bad guys.

Not really; Allecto is making this up. It may seem so at first, but if you’ve actually seen the episode, you know that the villagers did not trade Saffron to Mal in return for his assistance; the whole “wedding ceremony” and stowing away was entirely her idea, as we shall see.

The most disturbing reading of this particular episode is as an endorsement of male terrorism in the home. I’ll talk more about the potential for this reading in the second half of my analysis.

It will be interesting to see how she spins the events of this episode into “an endorsement of male terrorism”, but that will have to wait.

On to the first scene, in which the crew of Serenity are working as hired security for a small settlement that’s been plagued by robbers. Mal has set a trap for the robbers by driving a wagon through the countryside. He and Jayne are on the seat, while Zoe is hidden in the back. Mal, incidentally, is disguised as a woman. Allecto doesn’t find that amusing.

So the ‘woman’ sitting by the driver of the carriage is actually Mal in drag. Shock, surprise, this is real funny **** huh, women? A man in drag, teeheehee. SO radical. And feminist, huh? What do you think, does Joss get a cookie?

Sigh. There has been loads of work done on the anti-feminism of drag and I can’t be bothered to rehash. Suffice to say Jayne gets away with spouting a whole bunch of sexist, looksist crap and it is ‘funny’ because he directs it at a man in drag. Not to mention, joking about rape. Drag is often used by men as a way of expressing woman-hatred and they dress it up as humour. Just a joke girls, now get over yourselves, right?

I’m actually not going to argue about this, because I see it as a justifiable complaint. I don’t find it offensive in the same way as Allecto, mind you, but at least she’s addressing the content of the show in its genuine context instead of making things up or deliberately misinterpreting the scene, so she can have this one.

But there’s more to the whole dress-wearing thing.

A bit later Mal talks about how he likes to wear dresses with Inara. “Like woman, I am a mystery,” he says of his enjoyment of wearing dresses. Sorry, Joss, score zero for that one. Women aren’t a mystery, WE ARE FULLY CONSCIOUS HUMAN BEINGS. And Mal is a wanker and wankers aren’t a bit mysterious. At least they aren’t to me. Maybe wankers are mysterious to unicorns. Who knows. I think I’m starting to hate unicorns.

When did being a fully conscious human being and being mysterious become mutually exclusive? I know that Allecto is a fully conscious human being, but I admit that it’s a mystery to me how she arrived at her current world-view. I could speculate at length, but that would not mean I really understood. Beyond that, is mystery actually a bad thing?

Update: In the comments to her post, there's a clarification. She see's calling women "mysterious" as a sort of hasty generalization, which is a fair enough complaint. Beyond that, why should women be considered any more mysterious than men? Furthermore, she's at least criticizing something that actually happened, so point conceded to Allecto.

Incidentally, “unicorns” is her chosen term for “feminist men”, a concept she apparently considers to be imaginary. She’ll be using it frequently in this post.

So, Mal saves some colonists from the bad guys by killing them all while wearing a dress.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that Zoe shoots some men, too. This observation will be relevant later.

Mal and the crew get back on the ship. As they take off, Mal surprises a stowaway, who tells him that she is his wife. Mal gets all panicky and calls Zoe.

Now, it is pretty obvious by this point that Saffron has been traded to Mal in exchange for his killing the bad guys. She is a wife in the sense of being a sexual and domestic slave. When Zoe is told that Saffron has been traded to Mal as a wife/slave she begins to laugh. She then calls the rest of the crew and invites them to join her in laughing at Mal’s newly acquired possession. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have never met a Black woman who laughs about slavery. I can’t believe that any woman, Black or white would laugh at an incidence of men trading women. Where the hell does Joss Whedon do his research on women????? What women does Joss know that he can portray them like this????

It certainly appears that the villagers have rewarded Mal with a young wife, and she certainly behaves in an extremely submissive manner. Mal is obviously surprised by this situation, since no one told him about any such arrangement, nor would he have agreed to it if he had been told. In an absolutely bizarre distortion of the scene, Allecto concludes that Zoe is making fun of Saffron, when it’s abundantly clear to anyone who watches this scene with a clear head that Zoe is making fun of Mal. Zoe knows that Mal did not and would not want “a sexual and domestic slave”, so she is laughing at him (with no consequences for doing so, I might add) and sharing her mirth with the rest of the crew. Soon everyone on the ship – except Saffron, who isn’t breaking out of her assumed persona – is having a laugh at the swaggering alpha male’s expense. Yeah, the women are really being shown their place here.

Anyway, Saffron runs off crying, apparently embarrassed because Mal has rejected her. Mal follows her, and in one of the scenes only available on the DVD, the following conversation ensues:

SAFFRON
Are you going to kill me?
MAL
What? What kind of crappy planet is that? Kill you?
SAFFRON
In the maiden’s home, I heard talk of men who weren’t pleased with their brides, who…
MAL
Well I ain’t them. And don’t you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone tries to kill you, you try to kill ‘em right back. Wife or no, you’re no one’s property to be tossed aside. You got the right same as anyone to live and to try to kill people. I mean, you know. People that are… That’s a dumb planet.

Believe it or not, Allecto finds a way to be offended by this exchange.

Ah Mal, Mal, Mal. So gallant, so kind, so noble. But just one question, Joss. Do you know what happens to women who defend themselves from violent men? Have you heard of Patreese Johnson, Renata Hill, Terraine Dandridge, Venice Brown, Dixie Shanahan, Yana Ladgari, Mary Winkler, Sherry Mariana, Marva Wallace? (This list is by no means exhaustive.) Women who defend themselves from men who are trying to kill them have their children taken away from them and are locked up. That is the stark reality of what equality means for women who live under male supremacy.

That’s right: Mal suggesting that Saffron should defend herself if attacked is bad, because women who defend themselves can suffer social consequences in our misogynistic world. Never mind that those social consequences are probably preferable to being murdered: Joss Whedon proclaiming that women have the right to defend themselves is bad.

If none of those names ring any bells for you, don’t be surprised; I had to do a web search myself. There’s an article about the court case on Wikipedia, and you can probably find more information from both sides with a more determined search. As neither a witness nor a juror, I’m not going to render an opinion on whether justice was done in the case – feel free to dig around and make your own decision on that.

And just a tip Joss, from one writer to another. If you believe that women should kill men who try to kill them then, quite frankly, I agree with you. If you want to show your encouragement and support for women who defend themselves from men, then write a female character that kills a man who is trying to kill her AND GETS AWAY WITH IT.

Remember how Zoe killed some robbers earlier in this very episode? What were the terrible consequences for her from those kills? Hmm… let me see… rewards and acclaim from the local villagers are all I can think of. I know she killed at least one man in “Serenity”, too. Would it be worth it to tally up Zoe’s total male body count over the course of the series? Maybe we should throw in River's list of kills, too.

Now, let’s see, do you actually show women getting away with being disloyal to men? We had Patience, a character in the first episode. How did she fare when she tried to cheat Mal? Hmm… let’s think. Oh, that’s right. You left her trapped under the carcass of a horse. Mmm. I just love that feminist empowerment, Joss.

That’s right; she just said that deceit and treachery should be okay for women, but she seems to have no problem with such double standards. You could legitimately complain about the fact that the villain in that particular scene was female (although I think villainy should be just as equal-opportunity as heroism), but to suggest that villainy should be overlooked if the perpetrator happens to be female is just… what? Deranged? Immoral? Sexist? You decide.

Anyway, after Mal’s conversation with Saffron, he gets a little lecture from Shepherd Book.

BOOK
If you take sexual advantage of her, you’re going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater. (Allecto’s emphasis.)

Remember how I noted in response to her review of “Serenity” that to become a radical feminist you apparently have to sacrifice your ability to detect sarcasm? It comes as no surprise, then, that she interprets this line in the most literal way possible, and then comes to completely unsubstantiated conclusions about Joss Whedon based on it.

Now, that comment right there indicates to me that our dear Mr. Whedon is a porn user. And that it is highly likely that his pornography of choice is Hustler, given that he seems to think it funny to trivialise the sexual abuse of children. How many times has Joss wanked to our degradation in Hustler while chuckling away at Chester the Molester cartoons? I actually really want to know the answer to this question. Joss continues his race hatred by putting this ‘joke’ in the mouth of a Black man.

Allecto, if you’ve never wished you could do something indescribably and undeservedly horrible to someone who was being obnoxious at the theatre, you’ve been far luckier than I. It’s a sort of personalized loathing that inspires thoughts of ruthless torture, even though you know that punishment of that sort – punishment that you might think suitable for a serial killer or child molester – is completely out of proportion to the crime. If you really think Joss is trivializing child molestation, though, you have such a literal turn of mind that I’m surprised you can function.

Edit: I'm not sure I articulated this as well as I would like, so let me elaborate. It's plain to me that Book's line is meant to exaggerate the "crime" of talking in the theatre, not trivialize the crime of child molestation. I do not see how any rational person can misunderstand that, so I can only conclude that Allecto has deliberately misinterpreted it in her obsessive quest to demonize Joss Whedon at every possible opportunity.

A scene follows in which Saffron has made dinner for Mal; naturally this occurrence is an affront to Allecto, but the problem doesn’t end there. Zoe and Wash walk in while Mal is still eating, and Allecto inexplicably finds their behavior demeaning to Saffron, as well.

ZOE
So, are you enjoying your own nubile little slave girl?
MAL
(mouth full) I’m not… nubile… (swallows) Look, she wanted to make me dinner. At least she’s not crying…
WASH
I might. Did she really make fresh bao? (off Zoe’s glare) Quaint!
ZOE
Remember that sex we were planning to have ever again?

Black female wife being jealous of a woman she terms a ‘slave girl’. Anyone else see a problem with this?

This is a leap of illogic that leaves me in total shock. She thinks Zoe is jealous of Saffron? The only feeling I see in Zoe is contempt for Mal and Wash! The only “problem” I see is that Allecto must be delusional if she can misinterpret this exchange so completely. It makes me wonder if Allecto is lying about having watched Firefly and is actually basing her reviews entirely on her readings of online scripts. It might be possible to misinterpret the scene the way she does just looking at it on paper, but I find it difficult to believe that anyone could actually watch it and arrive at her distorted interpretation.

So, we get to the scene where Jayne offers to trade his best gun – named “Vera” – for Saffron. It goes without saying that Jayne is objectifying women in this exchange, and Allecto is quite right to conclude that Jayne is dangerous, although raping the passengers and crew of the ship doesn’t seem to be one of the threats he poses. He would obviously take advantage of Saffron’s apparent subservience – and I won’t dispute regarding that as rape, since Saffron’s persona is clearly “indoctrinated” to be subservient to men to the point that I would not consider her capable of giving informed consent. On the other hand, he has never shown any inclination to force himself on Kaylee, Inara, or Zoe, and apart from one vulgar threat brought on by being told that “Jayne is a girl’s name”, he hasn’t displayed sexual aggression toward River, either (and no, such a threat is not justifiable, but there remains no indication that he would actually have followed through on it). In short, Jayne seems to expect at least apparent willingness from women from whom he wants sex. Consequently, Allecto’s conclusion about Jayne...

If Mal did care about the protection of women, he would have spaced Jayne immediately, or at least locked the ****** up.

... seems to be unwarranted. Let’s hear it for preemptive murder, shall we?

On another level, the trading of women and the naming of Phallic weapons, the sharing of homoerotic tales of male violence (Jayne’s story of how he acquired his gun), this is part of the larger romance of the show, the homoerotic, masculine connection between Mal and Jayne.

Does she have a different definition of “homoerotic” than the one I found in Webster’s? There’s no denying that there’s a lot of macho posturing going around, but I still don’t see how that implies Mal and Jayne are trying to impress each other as some kind of homosexual mating ritual.

The summary of Allecto’s complaints about “Our Mrs. Reynolds” so far:

• Allecto has imagined that some backwater villagers traded one of their young women to some mercenaries (anyone who has seen the whole episode knows this to be false).
• Allecto doesn’t think a man disguised as a woman is humorous.
• Thinking women are “mysterious” is equivalent to thinking they are non-sentient sub-humans.
• Allecto is offended by the ship’s crew laughing at Mal’s “new wife”, even though they were actually laughing at Mal himself because they assume he was so drunk that he was tricked into a “marriage” he did not want.
• Suggesting that women defend themselves against attack by men is bad.
• Women should be allowed to cheat men.
• Sarcasm is an evil rhetorical trick used for trivializing horrific crimes.
• Allecto cannot distinguish between jealousy of a subservient woman and contempt for men.
• Men who pose a risk of sexual aggression should be preemptively imprisoned or killed.
• Men who seem to be competing for power are actually lusting after each other.

Whether she will actually finish her review of this episode, let alone whether she will publish more, remains to be seen.

UPDATE: Purtek has a very coherent article critical of "Our Mrs. Reynolds" at The Hathor Legacy. She makes some very good points about how the show fails to be feminist instead of spewing nonsense about how it "endorses male terrorism".

Move on to the response to Part 2

Radical Feminism Meets Firefly

The SciFi community has been buzzing for the past few weeks over reviews of the TV series Firefly posted by a radical feminist going by the username Allecto. Its title is A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly, so you can probably guess that its generated some backlash from Firefly fans.

I know that not everyone likes Firefly, and Joss Whedon certainly isn’t immune to criticism, even on feminist grounds, but it would be nice if Allecto would criticize based on what actually happens in the show, rather than a bizarre distortion of it. I would say so in the comments of her blog, but she has already expressed that she will unhesitatingly delete critical comments, so I’ll just do it here. I’m sure that my opinion is irrelevant to her anyway, since I’m just another misogynist male.

I’m going to assume that you have some familiarity with Firefly if you’re reading this, so I won’t be explaining characters or plots in any detail (which doesn't mean there will be no spoilers -- you are warned). There is plenty of information available on the internet, and it’s easy enough to rent the series on DVD or even watch it online at Hulu.com if you want to do your own evaluation.


Her first review deals with the Firely pilot, “Serenity” (not to be confused with the movie), which introduces the major characters and the setting. The opening scene shows a couple of the key characters participating in the final battle of a war, and Allecto goes negative instantly.

The first scene opens in a war with Mal and Zoe. Zoe runs around calling Mal ‘sir’ and taking orders off him. I roll my eyes. Not a good start.

Now, you might want to quibble over whether Mal or Zoe is better qualified to be in command of their squad, but it is entirely appropriate for a soldier to call the squad sergeant “sir”; that’s just standard military protocol. This is just the first example of Allecto either getting upset over the wrong thing or being completely unable to express herself.

Update: I've been informed in the comments that it might actually be more technically correct for Zoe to address Mal as "sergeant" at this point; apparently non-commissioned officers don't normally rate a "sir" in some services.

The scene shifts to the crew of Serenity stealing some cargo from a derelict Alliance ship. Wash detects an Alliance warship approaching, and Allecto immediately finds fault with Mal’s reaction.

Zoe says, “This ship's been derelict for months. Why would they –”

Mal replies, (in Chinese) “Shut up.”

So in the very second scene of the very first episode, an episode written and directed by the great feminist Joss, a white man tells a black woman to ‘shut up’ for no apparent reason.

I suppose there’s no reason if you’re a radical feminist, but if you’re the captain of a ship engaged in criminal activity and you need to think of how to react, you might want quiet so you can think and so people can hear orders if you issue them. There’s also the additional worry that, since they’re in space suits, they’re talking by radio, which the Alliance ship might pick up, so any unnecessary talk is also an unnecessary risk. Context is apparently irrelevant to Allecto, though, as we’ll see repeatedly in her reviews.

EDIT: It may be worth noting that Jayne is also chattering in this scene, so Mal's comment is directed at least as much toward him as toward Zoe. Here's the full exchange (according to Browncoats.com):

WASH Captain, we got incoming! Alliance cruiser, bearing right down on us!
MAL (in Chinese)Oh s4@+! (in English) Have they spotted us?
WASH I can't tell if --
MAL Have they hailed us?
JAYNE If they're here for the salvage, we're humped.
ZOE If they find us at all, we're humped. Thievin' ain't exactly --
JAYNE I don't like this.
MAL (in Chinese) Shut up.


After avoiding the Alliance ship, they go to hide the stolen goods in their cargo hold, where we get to meet another crew member: Kaylee, the engineer. Sure enough, Allecto finds fault with the scene.

In this scene Mal and Jayne are stowing away the cargo they just stole. Kaylee is chatting to them, happily. Jayne asks Mal to get Kaylee to stop being so cheerful. Mal replies, “Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month.” Yes, that is an exact quote, “Sometimes you just wanna DUCT TAPE HER MOUTH and DUMP HER IN THE HOLD FOR A MONTH.” Kaylee responds by grinning and giving Mal a kiss on the cheek and saying, “I love my Captain.”

What the **** is this feminist man trying to say about women here? A black woman calling a white man ‘sir’. A white male captain who abuses and silences his female crew, with no consequences. The women are HAPPY to be abused. They enjoy it. What does this say about women, Joss? What does this say about you? Do you tell your wife to shut up? Do you threaten to duct tape her mouth? Lock her in the bedroom? Is this funny to you, Joss? Because it sure as **** ain’t funny to me.

Apparently one of the first things you lose when you become a radical feminist is the ability to detect sarcasm, because I would really like to meet a rational person who can watch this scene and conclude that Mal actually wants to duct-tape Kaylee and leave her in the hold. (That’s right, Allecto, I did call you irrational. I’m sure that won’t bother you though, since I’m just a man, and my opinion doesn’t matter to you.)

Moving on, we still have some main characters to meet.

Our first introduction to Inara the ‘Companion’, Joss Whedon’s euphemism for prostituted women, is when she is being raped/******/used by a prostitutor.

Honestly, there’s a lot of room for feminist complaint about Inara’s profession. A lot of people try to defend her job as a Companion, talking about how she’s highly respected in the society, she's wealthy, and she makes her own choices about clients. When you get to the bottom line, though, she is a prostitute. If she accepts a client, she does so with the understanding that there will be sex involved. Calling it rape, though, is excessive, since Inara has obviously chosen this lifestyle knowing full well what it means. She arranges these meetings herself. Of course, Allecto has a pretty unusual definition of rape, which you can find easily enough by reading her blog.

There’s a sex scene here (FOX network-safe, of course), and Allecto’s all over the script’s description of that, too, somehow concluding that Inara’s behavior shows how Joss Whedon likes to depict women enjoying being raped. Leaving aside the question of whether rape is actually occurring, I’d like to meet the person who thinks Inara is being shown enjoying this sexual encounter, because I don’t see it. I don’t think Joss Whedon is glamorizing prostitution, here. I think that in context, Inara’s pleased expression is obviously a show for the client (note that she only smiles when he's looking at her face), and as the series continues, I think it’s also obvious that despite the wealth and “respectability” that Inara receives as a Companion, she is actually deeply dissatisfied with her profession.

The women who ‘choose’ to be ‘Companions’ are shown as being intelligent, accomplished, educated, well-respected and presumably from good families. If a woman had all of these qualities and opportunities then why the **** would she ‘choose’ to be a man’s **** toy?

Good question, Allecto. It was clear to me that finding the answer to this question would be a long-term plot of the show; a long-term plot that would never have a chance to reach resolution, unfortunately, since the show was canceled even before the last episode of the first season aired (but my complaints about how FOX handled the show are a whole other can of worms).

At any rate, Inara’s apparent ‘power’ is merely a figment of Joss Whedon’s very sick imagination. In a later episode, Inara is shown to have set down three very specific rules in relation to her arrangement to hiring one of Mal’s shuttles as her base of operations. 1) No crew member, including the Captain would be allowed entrance to the shuttle without Inara’s express invitation. 2) Inara refuses to service the Captain nor anyone under his employ. And 3) the Captain cannot refer to Inara as a whore.

Mal agrees to all of these rules but he breaks every single one of them. Blatantly and deliberately.

I’d really rather not get to deeply into these “points” since they deal with later episodes that might actually get reviewed, but since she brought them up, I’ll try to make a brief observation. Mal definitely ignores the “no entry without invitation” rule on multiple occasions. On the other hand, neither he nor any other member of his crew receives Inara’s “services” (more on that later). Finally, he does call her a “whore” more than once.

The thing is, Mal obviously likes Inara. In fact, he loves her. At the same time, though, he hates her profession, and he communicates that distaste through his behavior. He wants her to give up being a Companion, but he has no authority to tell her how to live her life, so he expresses himself in other ways. I’m sure all that’s lost on Allecto, though; the possibility that Inara will have an epiphany and turn away from a lucrative and prestigious career in prostitution over the course of a long-term “character arc” is meaningless to her. She wants every character trait and plot point to be radically feminist now, damn it.

Regarding Inara “servicing” the crew…

It is clear from the outset that a large part of Inara’s service involves addressing issues of male inadequacy and fulfilling many other emotional needs of her clients. The ability to do this IS a resource and it is therefore a service that Inara must perform. BUT Inara services all of the male passengers and the Captain in this way. She also services Kaylee but the relationship between them is a little more reciprocal. In any case, Mal makes it pretty obvious that he expects his emotional needs to be serviced by Inara and she willingly obliges. Mal also allows the male passengers to demand her emotional services and does not tell them to stop, despite the terms of his agreement with Inara. Inara is not paid by any of these men for her time, energy and emotional support.

Wasn’t she pointing out just a few paragraphs ago that the defining characteristic of Inara’s profession is that when she agrees to “service” a client, she is agreeing to sex? Why, then, is she going off on this tangent about how Inara’s job is to fulfill emotional needs? She certainly may, but that’s not the real reason someone hires a Companion, and it’s obvious what she was talking about when she said she would not provide “services” for the captain or the crew, and she does not provide that service for anyone on the ship in the entire course of the series. She obviously has a cordial relationship with Kaylee by choice, although there’s no implication of sex. Shepherd Book makes a point of befriending her, and she returns kindness for kindness (not to mention, Book is a passenger, not a crew member, so whether she “serviced” him or not would be none of Mal’s business). She obviously has an attraction to Mal that she tries to deny, which results in their constant butting of heads. Beyond these relationships, she doesn’t “address issues of male inadequacy” or “fulfill emotional needs” for anyone on the ship. By my estimate, she’s not providing “services” for any crew member or passenger (but I'm not a radical feminist, so my estimate is meaningless, of course).

Allecto then makes some defamatory claims about Joss Whedon’s relationship with his wife based on her distorted view of how Inara “services” everyone on Serenity. I’m sure Mrs. Whedon appreciates you calling her a submissive little whore, Allecto.

In the obsessive-compulsive department, Allecto counted the number of lines spoken by the characters so she could get a ratio of male lines to female lines (458 to 175, by her count). Yes, male characters have about twice as many lines as female characters. Coincidentally, there are actually more male characters than female characters in the cast: whether you count just regulars or include guests and extras. River doesn’t even show up until well into the show, and when she appears, she’s too traumatized by past abuse to say much. Kaylee also spends a fair amount of the show unconscious after getting shot. You might find good cause to complain that female characters are being depicted as victims in this show, but Allecto is apparently more interested in the word count.

Then we have this observation…

Men jostle with each other for power. Pushing each others buttons, and getting into scuffles. This intense homoeroticism is present from the outset as Mal asserts his rights as alpha male on the ship.

This just puzzles me to no end. Even granting that there is some significant rivalry between Mal and Jayne, how is that “homoerotic”? There is no indication whatsoever that these guys are closet homosexuals.

In Serenity, Mal enjoys using a character called Simon as his personal punching bag. In one scene he walks up to him and smashes him in the face, without any provocation or logical reason. In another scene Simon asks Mal a question and Mal smashes him the face again. No reason, no explanation, just violence. Violence is a part of the landscape throughout the whole series and Mal is often the instigator. He is constantly rubbing himself up against other men, and punishing wayward women, proving and solidifying his manliness through bashing the **** out of anyone and everyone.

I recall Mal decking Simon a couple of times in this episode. In the first instance, Mal had discovered he had a spy on board (an outgoing message to the Feds had been detected), and he found Simon lurking about in the cargo hold without permission, so he assumed it to be Simon and started to “beat the truth out of him” without preamble. I believe the “question” that resulted in a second punch was Simon’s insinuation that Mal was an agent or spy for the Alliance, a bad suggestion given Mal’s history. Consequently, I wouldn’t regard either of these punches as “unprovoked”, although they were certainly undeserved. So is Mal a rather violent guy who’s likely to throw a punch with little provocation? Yes. It’s called a character flaw: characters who are more than cardboard cutouts tend to have them.

And finally, we have Allecto’s distaste for Zoe, which started when Zoe had the audacity to address her senior officer as “sir” and actually carry out his orders.

Zoe, the token black woman, acts as a legitimiser. Her role is to support Mal’s manly obsession with himself by encouraging him, calling him ‘sir’, and even starting the fights for him. Zoe is treated as a piece of meat by both her husband (Wash, another white male) and the Captain. Wash and Mal fight each other for Zoe’s attention and admiration, both relying on her submission to them to get them hard and manly. In fact there is a whole episode, War Stories, devoted to Wash and Mal’s ‘rivalry’. By the word rivalry, I mean violent, homoerotic male/male courtship conducted over the body of a woman.

OK, Zoe did throw the first punch in a fight in one episode (“The Train Job” -- not “Serenity”), but she was every bit as insulted as Mal. Zoe continues to call Mal “sir” because he’s the captain of the ship, having bought it himself. Does he treat her as a piece of meat? Having a Y chromosome presumably invalidates my judgment, but he did make her second-in-command (with authority over testosterone-laden males like Jayne and Wash), and their relationship appears to be entirely professional. Wash does get jealous because Zoe consistently obeys Mal's orders with little dissent and because their shared military history gives them a lot in common, but there's never been any suggestion that Mal and Zoe ever had a sexual relationship (indeed, they seem to find the very idea disturbing).

And then there’s her insistence that Wash abuses Zoe. This one truly amazes me. Allecto confesses to a family history of bad relationships between black women and white men, so her opinion is understandably prejudiced, but how can we really believe that Wash abuses Zoe when he openly admits (in "Our Mrs. Reynolds") that she could “kill (him) with her pinky”? If there is a personification of male violence in television, Wash is probably one of the characters that is farthest from it.

And in all of this, she barely even touches on the character of Jayne, who really is a violent, crude, misogynistic jackass. I guess she left him out of it because he’s really not a very sympathetic character, particularly in the early episodes.

So, the summary of Allecto’s complaints for “Serenity”:

• A soldier addressing a squad leader as “sir” is bad if the soldier is female and the squad leader is male.
• The captain of the ship told everyone to shut up during a crisis to cut off unnecessary radio chatter, and one of the people trying to talk was a woman.
• The captain made a sarcastic remark about the excessive cheerfulness of his mechanic, and the mechanic recognized it as sarcasm.
• Consensual sex between a man and a woman occurred; there’s no such thing, of course, and Inara did not look suitably tormented during this horrific rape.
• A male character finds prostitution distasteful, in spite of how lucrative and prestigious it is shown to be in the depicted society.
• Inara doesn’t charge her full rate for any social time she spends with crewmembers or other passengers she likes.
• Female characters don’t talk enough.
• Mal hits people with little reason.
• Zoe actually follows the orders of the captain of the ship.
• Zoe married a white guy and seems to be happy in the relationship.

All-in-all, I'd say it's a classic case of approaching the show with the intent to find offense anywhere and everywhere, taking statements and events out of context whenever needed to make the most outrageous claims possible.

Why do I even bother to read Allecto’s reviews? Why waste time with a response? I don’t know. I guess it’s kind of like watching a train wreck; you know it’s going to be tragic and horrific, but you just can’t turn away.

We’ll return for another look into Allecto’s perspective on Firefly with her review of “Our Mrs. Reynolds”.

Unlike Allecto, I will publish critical comments, assuming that the language is moderated (I like to keep the blog "work safe") and the message is coherent (random "die and go to hell" comments aren't worth the trouble).

Allecto also reviews "Our Mrs. Reynolds".

EDIT: Road Does Not End also has a very coherent response to Allecto's take on this episode.

Opera

Summary of my first impression of Il Trovatori: enjoyable, but a little strange.

Naturally, they're trying to tell an entire story in music, which I can appreciate. To an extent, though, that focus on the music kind of makes other aspects of the story suffer.

What occasionally irked me was just how static a major "action" scene could be. I realize it's not practical to do a major stage-combat scene in an opera, but it was sometimes kind of jarring to have everyone on stage standing absolutely still while one or two people sang about the violence they intended upon one another. I know that the "action" is stylized, but it was sometimes rather bizarre. Further, it didn't really seem like it needed to be that static; there were a couple of "chorus" scenes where the "armies" of the hero or villain would sing in the background while one or two members would engage in some kind of activity in the foreground -- "drilling" in swordwork a couple of times, and a fight between a prisoner and a trainee on one occasion. It seems to me that if you could have a bit of motion, albeit slow and stylized, in these "camp" scenes, you should be able to do something similar in the "battles" without losing operatic feel. After all, the leads frequently take turns singing, and taking a step or two and posing while the other sings shouldn't take the breath out of the leads. It wouldn't be as practical when you have two or three leads singing counterpoint, but obviously you wouldn't do it then. I guess I should note that the leads actually do move around a bit during "drama" scenes, which makes their immobility during "action" scenes all the more glaring.

In any case, I think I'll want to see a few more operas just to see if they all give me that feeling. It was certainly an enjoyable enough experience to repeat. I may want to try for one sung in English next, though, as I think the music might be more powerful if I actually understood it instead of having to read supertitles.

Speaking of which, those responsible for the supertitles have been sacked. They will be redone at great expense at the last minute by Ralph the Wonder Llama. (Not really, but I had a few English-major cringes at some stand-out errors in the supertitles.)

Coronation and Culture

The King is dead. Long live the King. Same applies to the Queen, too. Coronation is always an opportunity for some amateur acting, and some Crowns ham it up more than others. This time, His Majesty Maximillian and Her Majesty Lethrenn succumbed to “imbalanced humours of the body” that not even three holy relics could cure.

I had the honor of organizing the White Rose Ball for Her Majesty Cecilia. For those who might be interested, the list consisted of Hole in the Wall, Amoroso, Black Alman, The Queen’s Alman, Petits Vriens, Ballo del Fiore, Black Nag, Madam Sosilia’s Alman, Rostiboli Gioioso, Ly Bens Dystony, Hearts’ Ease, Gelosia, Gathering Peascods, Anello, and Contrapasso (which we never actually got around to doing). Although it didn’t go particularly quickly, I think the ball did go pretty well, and it was especially nice to have the Minstrels’ Guild providing live music, even if they did have to give up before the last set because of the weather messing with their instruments.

Having recovered from that trip, I’ll be going to be cultured this evening. Juliana was able to procure free tickets to Il Trovatore at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. This will be my first opera; we shall see if it’s an experience I want to repeat.

UPDATE: I went online to read a synopsis of Il Trovatore. It's a tragedy. Whooda thunk?

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Gulf Wars XVII (Part 6)

Saturday

Field Battle
Saturday morning was bright and clear – a fine day for a battle. Ansteorra and her allies started on the west side of the field. Meridies held the center, with Ansteorra to our left and the Midrealm to our right. Meridies would stop the Trimarin army in the center, giving the others time to roll through the enemy flanks. In this first battle, the plan went well: we stopped the center, doing plenty of damage, and the Trimarin line folded. The second battle did not go quite so well, we didn't commit our reserve soon enough in the center, and the Trimarins were able to hit the flanks hard, rolling up our line from the ends. In the final battle, though, we committed quickly and tore the Trimarin center wide open to roll their lines out from the middle. That's how it looked from where I was standing, anyway. Unlike in some previous years, I managed to avoid getting myself killed early in any of the field battles.

Novice Tourney
After the field battle, I actually went back to camp, took off my armor and other gear, and packed it all up. I was done fencing for the week, but I did go back to the field to put in some time as a marshal. I met up with Quentin at the rapier field, where he was entering the Novice Tourney. I was part marshal and part herald for the tourney. Quentin fought pretty well, and did a better job of remembering to die dramatically (when his time came) than most of the participants. I think he was in the semi-final round, although I’m not positive. A good showing, regardless.

Fort Battles
The rapier fort battle is really just a friendship melee for the fencers at the end of the war. We split off into teams, and one side tries to take the fort while the other defends, then change sides. Sometimes we include ranged weapons, sometimes we don’t. This was my first time attending the fort battles as a marshal; I wanted to get in some experience marshalling large melees, and I was able to help out for several changes of side before they brought out the rubber-band guns, at which point I had to retire due to a shortage of safety glasses for marshals.

Le Jeu de Pomme
On my way back to camp, I passed Warder Phillipe from the Barony of Shattered Crystal. I’d seen him playing Jeu de Pomme – an ancestor of tennis – next to the Green Dragon with Warder Brigid earlier in the week. We’d already discussed meeting up for a game ourselves, and he gathered the equipment and met me by the tavern, where he taught me the game. It’s actually rather tricky. After the serve has been returned (an unreturned serve doesn’t count), play continues until the ball bounces twice without being hit. There’s a goal line, with the server defending and the other attacking; the attacker scores points any time the ball passes the goal line. When the ball first goes dead, its position is marked as “the Chase”. Thereafter, when the ball goes dead, the attacker or defender gets points depending on whether it stopped closer to the goal than the chase or farther away: also, the chase moves to the new position.

I really wasn’t very good at this. We served by knocking the ball onto the tavern roof, but after that you could play it any direction. Nonetheless, I couldn’t seem to get it out of my head that I should keep playing toward the roof of the tavern. Oh, well, I at least managed to luck into winning one game of three. After that, I introduced Phillippe to Guillaume from Tal Mere; when I left, Philippe was showing off his “tennis” gear and Guillaume was showing off his period golf gear – I’m sure they got on well together.

Gleann Abhan Ball
Rose Eriksdottir hosted the Gleann Abhan Ball on Saturday night, and she worked a little kingdom fundraiser into it by auctioning experienced dance partners, something that worked fairly well at the last Saltare. In retrospect, though, the last night of war is probably not the best night to hold that sort of fundraiser – people tend to have used up all their spending money by then.

Seven Deadly Sins Party
After the ball, I wandered over to the Seven Deadly Sins Party at Marshin Fayne for a while. I’m not entirely sure what was different, but this was the first time that I went to that party and really enjoyed it. There was a lonely bottle of muscadine wine on their serving table that I was able to claim, sharing it with Ginevra while chatting with assorted old friends and new ones from this war. I did manage to take myself off to bed before it got exceedingly late though, knowing I would have a long drive home.

Salutes and Thanks
Hellos and Thank Yous to Duchess Katrina, Ginevra, Bast, Debbie, Zoe, Quentin, Cortney, Sybil, Antonello, Theodora, Master Octavio, Maire, Rose, Faelen, Amalie, Hawk, Zofeia, and all those who helped me get through the week as well as new friends whose names I can’t remember yet.

Gulf Wars XVII (part 5)

Friday

Archery
Friday I decided to take a day off from fencing, as I was feeling the effort quite a bit. I wouldn’t be able to fight in the Ravine Battle anyway, as I would have kitchen duty in camp when it was supposed to be going on. Therefore, instead of gearing up to try to fence in the morning, I went to do a little bit of shopping and got myself some “legal” arrows for target archery (my practice arrows have carbon fiber shafts; the SCA requires wood shafts for competition shooting). After doing my part for the merchants by acquiring new arrows and a quiver from them, I went down to the range for a while and did some shooting for the war point. I determined that I can shoot five or six arrows in thirty seconds and put two of those into the six-inch-wide target representing a castle’s arrow slit (at a range of about ten yards).

Meridien Court
I was ambushed, I tell you. Her Grace Katrina asked me to be her escort to court on Friday evening, which is not at all unusual. The Order of the Velvet Owl was called, and that’s not unusual either. The herald calling me up to join the Order was completely unexpected. My humble thanks to Her Majesty and the Order for the honor.

Gulf Wars Ball
Duchess Katrina hosted the Gulf Wars Ball, for which we – appropriately -- had the most elaborate refreshment table (helped by the fact that she had previously provided refreshments for the Meridien Ladies of the Rose Tournament, from which we had some excess supplies to use). This ball was an amalgamation of favorites from the various other Kingdom Balls, and we moved swiftly through the list to have plenty of time for requests.

one installment left...

For Jozsa

Chris, the 10-month-old nephew of Lady Palfi Jozsa (mka Crystal Thurber), is in a hospital in Fairfax, VA with Kawaski Disease. His condition is serious, and she asks for "all thoughts, prayers, good thoughts, and vibes for my 10-month old nephew. I don't particularly care who you make your prayers to, provided they are for good."

Please keep Chris, Crystal, and the rest of the family in your thoughts.

UPDATE: Chris apparently does not have Kawaski -- he has a severe sinusitis infection that produces similar symptoms. His condition has improved considerably, and Crystal sends her thanks.

Gulf Wars XVII (part 4)

Thursday

Ansteorra’s Ladies of the Rose Sponsored Rapier Tournament
This tournament just never seems to go my way, at least not for very long. Duchess Katrina was good enough to sponsor me again this year, and for my first duel, I fought a good fellow named James Allen (if I recall correctly). I suppose I shouldn’t complain about my luck so much, since I won my first duel and James didn’t; I got past his guard with practically my first thrust to strike him in the face.

For my second duel, I drew Baron Mateo from Northshield (I think – he may be from the Midrealm – I’m not entirely sure). Don Mateo is one of those fencer’s who’s a good bit taller than me, has about a foot more reach, and practices. At least I don’t have to feel embarrassed about losing to such a worthy opponent; he continued in the tournament all the way to at least the quarter finals (from a starting field of something like 78 fighters).

For my third duel, I drew the “bye fighter”. As there was no designated bye fighter for the tournament, the marshals asked Her Majesty of Ansteorra to choose someone. She cheerfully assured me that she would find me a good fight, and she certainly did that: Don Aaron (not sure of the spelling) from Ansteorra. To my credit, I can say that I made him work to get the kill, and I appreciate him setting aside his dagger after taking my left arm. Don Aaron made it all the way to the final round of the tournament, so again, I was at least losing with some dignity.

Trimaris Ball
The lovely Lady Theodosia Perplexa from Trimaris hosted Thursday night’s ball. I truly appreciate her help on this, since she jumped in to assist when Lord Edwardus, who was going to host the Trimaris Ball, had to cancel just a couple of weeks before the war due to work obligations.

still more to come...

Gulf Wars XVII (part 3)

Wednesday

Dance Class
On Wednesday, I taught 16th-century Italian dances again, and with Antonello teaching his class right after mine, I got him to teach Villanella, which is a 16th-century Italian dance that was on his list for the Ansteorra Ball. I’m still getting refresher’s on that one.

Everyman Tourney
After class, I was Quentin’s authorization fight, then I took him down to the Fort for the Everyman Tourney, which is a tourney for anyone who does not have his or her kingdom’s top rapier award (Meridien Order of the Blade for us). A cadet from the Midrealm (I think) killed everyone in our initial pool, so we didn’t advance. No problem, we gathered up some people and fought melees behind the fort. We started with 2-on-2 matches, but we were up to 9-on-9 before my legs gave out and I returned to camp.

Ansteorra Ball
Antonello ran the Ansteorran ball, and all went well, I think. Someone from his group had the bright idea to buy out all the remaining stock from the bread merchant as the shop was closing, so Ansteorra had a very nice refreshment spread.

more to come...

Gulf Wars XVII (part 2)

Tuesday

Dance Class
For Tuesday’s class, I taught SCA-choreographed dances. On my list were Ivy Alman, Heralds in Love, and Duchess Rhondalynn’s Pavan. Now, I must here confess that I don’t actually know Duchess Rhondalynn’s Pavan well enough to teach it. Fortunately, Lady Ginevra Brembati came to the class to be my ringer and teach the dance for me.

6-Man Melee Tourney
Tuesday afternoon I grouped with Tormod, Corbin, Rhys, and a couple of other fencers we recruited at the field for a 6-Man Melee tournament. We came out of our initial pool with a 2-2 record; not enough to proceed further. At least one of the teams that beat us (a group of “Hellhounds” from the Kingdom of Northshield) ended up winning the entire tournament, so we can claim to at least have been beaten with class.

Rapier-Archery Battle
I believe this was the second year of running a rapier battle using combat archery. I’ve been in plenty of scenarios in which we simulated black powder handguns with rubber band guns before, but this was my first time being shot at with arrows and crossbow bolts while wearing fencing armor. We fought in the ravine, and each side only had a handful of archers, but they do affect the outcome of the fight. I was also really “on” for this battle; so much that I actually stopped a push where my line was thin and got three or four opponents without getting killed before my reinforcements arrived. I hope we do this every year.

Incidentally, a crossbow bolt feels like a fairly stiff thrust from a rapier. I got a couple of bruises from them, but nothing serious.

Meridies Ball
The Meridies Ball went pretty well. This was the last of my official host duties for the war; representatives from Trimaris, Ansteorra, and Gleann Abhan would run their dance nights, and Duchess Katrina was running the Gulf Wars Ball for me. I had only a few light refreshments: crackers and cookies basically; nothing like the elaborate spread we put out one year. Note to self: if you bring “chocolate schoolboy” cookies, bring a lot of them.

more to come...

Gulf Wars XVII

I have returned triumphant from Gulf Wars XVII! I must say that I’m not entirely sure who won the war, but our side did win the Rapier Field battle (more on that later), so I call it a win for me, at least.

Sunday

Ant Slaying
Having arrived on Saturday, and no one else being in camp Sunday morning, I was available to help His Lordship Tormod and a crew of volunteers inspect the main battle field, working from the Rapier Field down Hastings Field through the Fort. The primary concern here was live fire-ant nests, which we marked with surveying flags for a crew of poisoners following behind us. Many nasty stinging things of evil were slain that day.

Camp Setup
His Lordship Stefan arrived in camp while I was away marking anthills for destruction, and I was able to put in some time helping him and others set up their tents and other accoutrements as they arrived on site.

Monday

Dance Class
On Monday morning I taught a class in 16th-century Italian dance. The dances were Ballo del Fiore, which is both simple and rather widely known, and Contrapasso, which I am endeavoring to make at least widely known (while not particularly difficult, it doesn’t qualify as simple).

Verona Street Brawl
His Lordship Tormod dubh Gunn hosts the Verona Street Brawls on Monday every year, weather permitting. This year we had two town squares (made by an arrangement of hay bales) with wells in the middle. The premise is that the Montagues and Capulets are out for blood, but the Governor (portrayed by Lord Dante de Piro) has forbidden dueling and fighting in the streets. The objective, then, is to dispose of members of the opposing family without being caught by the Watch or the Governor, who wanders the squares at unpredictable intervals. In addition to the usual stabbing and slashing, this event involves a good amount of roleplay, with fighters on both sides trying to explain to the authorities how they ended up standing in the square surrounded by dead bodies. The colored tokens of the families carried by the fighters are often moved about and the bodies arranged by the survivors of a clash in an effort to make the other side look more guilty before the Governor arrives. We were especially honored to receive a visit from Her Majesty Lethrenn of Meridies, who came to see what the Street Brawl was all about.

I can say that I had a stroke of genius toward the end of this event. I was a Montague, and after killing off the Capulets in our square, we began to try to orchestrate the crime scene. I decided that the best way to handle it would be to simply get rid of most of the bodies, so we “dragged” them out of the square, leaving just one dead Montague and one dead Capulet. We left the Capulet’s sword, but hid the Montague’s. When the Governor arrived, I confessed to slaying the Capulet in hope to save my cousin’s life, having come upon him attacking my kinsman. This turned out to be a rather original approach to the situation, and the Governor commended me for my honor and “honesty”.

Caroso Ball
For the Open Ball on Monday night, I ran a Caroso ball. A Caroso ball is basically an all request format in which the choice of dance passes from partner to partner through the evening. That is, the partner of whoever chose the current dance gets to choose the subsequent dance. This format actually worked quite smoothly, and I think I shall use it at other balls that I have the privilege of hosting.

More to come...

Geek Lament

Gary Gygax is no longer with us. I can only hope that when my time comes, I'll have left as much of a mark upon the world as he did. In case you never travel in geek circles (and if so, what are you doing here?), Gary Gygax invented the original Dungeons & Dragons game in 1974.

Blog Slacking

Obviously I haven't been too sharp on the blogging the last week or so. I've got some food-porn pics in my cell phone that I should try posting at some point, but having to email them to myself one-by-one is a little tedious, and I'm entirely too scatterbrained in the run-up to Gulf Wars to get it done. Speaking of Gulf Wars, I certainly won't have any entries next week. On the other hand, I'll hopefully have a good report for the week after.

The Most Important Consideration in Fencing

"There is no way better to get the true observation of distance but by often practicing either with your friend or else privately in a small chamber against a wall, standing twelve feet off with your hindmost foot, and your weapon four feet long or there about, for a good guard and distance are the main and principal points of all."

-- Joseph Swetnam, The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence, Chapter 12

As you might guess, I've finished transcribing eleven chapters of Swetnam's book, and I'm now into chapter twelve. He's finally getting into the technical aspects of his style.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

A new friend of mine on the internet sent me a chain letter this morning. I don't think she knows what I usually do with such things.

It naturally starts with an all-capital-letter plea to spread the message far and wide, which immediately makes me suspect that it’s full of baloney.

THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE.

So with that ominous introduction, we’ll delve into the letter’s content. Please note that I did look up this letter on Snopes, and their assessment of it is “undetermined”, meaning that they have not been able to conclusively prove it true or false. That said, the letter has been circulating since June 2006, so if it were true, it should have been possible to verify it by now.

This English teacher has phrased it the best I've seen yet.

Tomatoes and Cheap Labor

CHEAP TOMATOES?

This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent From a California school teacher - - - 'As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of: I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.

Warning sign number one: unverifiable sources. The supposed author of this story is an anonymous teacher at an unnamed high school. This means that we have no way to check the story with the source. I suppose it’s possible that someone in the California school system wanted to anonymously draw attention to a problem without placing his or her job at risk, but smart whistle-blowers go to the press, not the internet. And I don’t want to hear that the press is too liberally biased to run this: Fox News would eat it up.

Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park, etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools. Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)

I took the liberty of looking up Title 1 online, and there’s nothing in the rules published by the Department of Education to indicate that such an ostentatious free breakfast should be provided. I’d like to see the menu, or a purchase order, or some kind of evidence for this claim. Of course, this is a chain letter, so no such evidence is forthcoming. If it existed, I’m sure that conservative politicians and talk radio hosts would be all over it.

I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)

Oh, dear. It’s becoming a catch phrase.

I don’t know if these statistics are in any way accurate. Even if they are, I don’t see any evidence that the children of illegal immigrants are statistically more likely to be obese, have children out of wedlock, or possess a cell phone than the children of citizens.

I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial.

I’m not sure if the “spend or lose it” concept regarding government funding is valid, but in my experience, department heads are always fighting for a bigger piece of the pie. There’s always equipment that can be improved or replaced; there are always employees that could use a raise. The idea of a department head trying to turn down money is ridiculous.

I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)

Again, it would be nice to have some evidence that this happened. These days, it shouldn’t be hard to get some digital images of the computers, scans of the receipts for their purchase, and assorted other bits of proof that this happened. Even assuming that it did occur, I'd like to see evidence that illegal immigrant students, and not citizen students, were the ones who caused the damage.

I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them 'Putas' (whores) and throwing things, that the teachers were in tears. Free medical, free education, free food, day care, etc., etc, etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements?

You know, I’m hearing lots of slams against illegal immigrants (and it may surprise you to learn that I am not sympathetic to illegal immigrants – I am in favor of tighter security at the border, against giving illegal immigrants a short-cut to citizenship, against them receiving government aid intended for citizens, etc.), but I’m not seeing much support for these accusations. In particular, I’m not seeing much evidence that illegal immigrant students behave worse than citizen students in our schools.

To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs. Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc. For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes.

This is the standard list of complaints from anti-immigrant neo-cons. I’m not personally sure how much of these problems can be laid at the feet of illegal immigrants. We’d all like to pay less for insurance and medical care, to have less crime, to have better education, and so forth. Illegal immigrants may very well be part of the problem. Some evidence to support the claim would do more to get my support than an anonymous internet chain letter that blames every problem under the sun on illegal immigration.

Americans. We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return? It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to assimilate, and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about 'political correctness' that we don't have the will to do anything about it.

That sounds almost like a direct quote from Michael Savage, one of the most whacked out neo-conservatives in talk radio. This is the guy who read the contents of a chain letter that was known to be false on his show as if it were legitimate breaking news.

If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know.

This phrase is always the clincher for me. Any time a letter asks you to forward it to everyone in your address book, it’s bogus… period. There are better ways to spread a valid message; chain letters are for people who don’t care about the truth.

CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about? Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don't want expensive produce. Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs. But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase 'cheap labor' is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as 'cheap labor.' Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an 'earned income credit' of up to $3,200 free.

I would truly love to see some evidence that this happens. An illegal immigrant filing a tax return? That’s just telling ICE where to come looking for him. Illegal immigrants get low wages largely because it's cash under the table that no one reports, so as not to draw government attention.

He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent. He qualifies for food stamps. He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care.

It is my understanding that the Immigration Reform Act of 1996 specifically disqualifies illegal immigrants from federal entitlement programs like welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid.

His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school. He requires bilingual teachers and books.

From what I’ve been able to find, the children of illegal immigrants are entitled to use the public K-12 education system, but as far as I know, there is no legal requirement to treat illegal immigrant children any differently from citizen children.

He qualifies for relief from high energy bills. If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense. He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance. Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material. He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his. The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up.

You know, I don’t feel any obligation to work through this laundry list of dubious claims. It would just be tiresome, and I’m not the one with the burden of proof. I think I’ve done enough to show the questionable honesty of this chain letter; throwing out a bunch of unsupported claims and insisting they’re true until proven false is a liar’s game.

Cheap labor? YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people! THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!' THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE AMEN!!!

And it finishes with a bit of internet screaming, including another plea to forward the letter to everyone in your address book… or else.

It’s a chain letter, and it’s trash. Please don’t forward this to other people; forward it to your garbage bin.

Midwinter A&S

I attended the Midwinter Arts & Sciences Collegium down in the Barony of South Downs over the weekend. This was a pretty relaxed event for me, since I didn't have anything entered. I really went expecting to spend the day judging entries in Performing Arts, but there turned out to be only one entry, with no shortage of judges. That was, in fact, the story in just about every category: few entries, plenty of qualified judges. Nonetheless, I did find myself appointed as judge for the Brewing and Vinting category. Yes, I took one for the team and helped judge Kojin's beer.

We may have set an odd precedent in the course of the judging. Baron Kojin had submitted a comparison of two substantially different brewing methods using the same recipe. He used the same proportions of malt, water, yeast, and other ingredients, but he prepared one batch of beer using modern equipment and methods while preparing a second batch following the period instructions as closely as possible. The period method involved boiling grain, draining wort, setting it aside to cool while boiling more grain, draining that, reboiling the first wort and draining it again, etc. The period method basically took twice as long, because modern technology to help extract sugars and protiens from grain wasn't available.

Interestingly enough, we all agreed that the period method produced a better product.

As to the odd precedent, Kojin entered the beer in the Brewing and Vinting category, but we judges all agreed that his project wasn't so much about the beer as it was about researching, reproducing, and comparing the period process. We therefore filled out a second entry form for him in the Historical Technology category and judged the whole thing again for that category.

Kojin got 18/20 for his Brewing and Vinting entry and 19/20 for the Historical Technology entry. Alas, he did not win top honors for the Midwinter A&S faire, as someone brought a kick-ass silk-production project (from worms to final fibers) that scored 20/20.

There was another combined European/Middle-Eastern revel at Midwinter A&S. While I appreciate the sentiment, I still think trying to alternate between the two in the same "ball" is a bit schizophrenic.

Winter Collegium

I traveled south to An Dun Theine on Saturday to teach dance at their Winter Collegium. A fun event, as always, and especially nice because we had a local chamber music group play for us at lunch. They were not actually SCA people, just local musicians that someone in the SCA happened to know. I'm hoping that some of them will become SCA people in the future, though. I had a few attend my dance classes that afternoon, and I sent them home with some reference material on dance (a Saltare handbook from a previous year).

I originally planned to teach Contrapasso and Contrapasso Nuovo, but seeing that I had a room to myself for as long as I wanted it, I spent pretty much the whole afternoon teaching various dances. We did some basic English Country Dances, a few of the easier Mixed Bransles, and came back round to Contrapasso variations toward the end of the day.

Time well spent, I think, even if I am running myself ragged this month.