Pennsic

[cellio]

I'm home from Pennsic. Brief notes in the form of bullet points:

• My good friend Yaakov HaMizrachi was elevated to the Order of the Laurel! Yay! The Laurel is the SCA's highest award (peerage) for arts and sciences. He's also now known (additionally) as Yaakov HaMagid, Yaakov the Storyteller. The ceremony felt like a reunion of old friends, and it was a nice touch that they had his son chant the scroll (in Hebrew).

• The part of Atlantian court that I attended (because of the previous) was very well-done and engaging. I don't live there, I don't know most of those people, and yet I was not bored. They moved things along without it feeling rushed, and everybody speaking from the stage could be heard clearly. They also mixed it up, instead of doing all recipients of one award and then moving on to the next. Sprinkling the peerages throughout the court works well and, really, it's not a big deal for order members to get up more than once in an evening. (Also, if peerage ceremonies are burdensomely long -- theirs weren't; ours sometimes are -- it's nice to be able to sit down between them.)

• I don't think I've ever heard "we're ahead of schedule; let's take a 10-minute break" in the middle of court before, though. I wonder if someone on the stage had an urgent need?

• They elevated another bard to the Laurel, and that one sang his oath of fealty. While he was doing so I wondered if the king would respond in song -- and he did. That he used the same melody suggests some advance coordination (beyond "we're singing"), I wonder which of them wrote the king's words.

• I had long, enjoyable conversations with both Yaakov and Baron Steffan. I miss the deep email conversations I used to have with both of them, before the great fragmenting of the digital-communication world (some to email, some to blogs/LJ/DW, some to Facebook, some to Google+, some to Twitter, some to places I don't even know about). It's harder to track and stay in touch with people than it used to be.

• No I am still not going to start using Facebook. It's frustrating that by declining to do so I miss more and more stuff, but I'm not ready to let yet another thing compete to be the center of my online life. Also, Facebook in particular is icky in some important ways.

• SCA local group, that means you too. Plans for a baronial party at Pennsic were, as far as I can tell, announced only on Facebook. (I've checked my email back to the beginning of April, so no I didn't just forget.) And thus I did not bring a contribution for your pot-luck. I do not feel guilty about that.

• The Debatable Choir performance went very well. I conducted a quartet singing Sicut Cervus (by Palestrina), which I think went well. Two of the four singers had not previously done a "one voice to a part" song with the choir, and I'm proud of them for stepping up and doing a great job. I hope we got a recording.

• I went to a fascinating class on medieval Jewish astrology (taught by Yaakov in persona). I've seen zodiacs in ancient (and modern) Jewish art and in synagogues, and a part of me always wondered how this isn't forbidden. It turns out that astrology is more of an "inclination", a yetzer, than a hard-and-fast truth -- there are stories in the talmud where astrology predicted something bad but the person, through good deeds, avoided the bad outcome. Also, in case you're wondering (like I did, so I asked), the zodiac signs get some solar smoothing, so if there's a leap-month (Adar Bet) there's not a 13th sign in those years.

• Our camp has two wooden buildings (besides the house on the trailer, I mean), which we wanted to sell this year because we're making a new kitchen trailer that will replace both of them. We succeeded in selling the larger one (yay!). Maybe we'll be able to sell the other next year. (We'll set it up and use it for something else, because potential buyers would want to see it set up.)

• Overall the weather was good. There were big storms on the first Friday ("quick, grab snacks and alcohol and head for the house!" is our camp's rallying cry), but only occasional rain after that and it wasn't sweltering-hot, which makes a huge difference.

• The last headcount I saw was around 10,500.

Comments

[gingicat]

Always nice for Yaakov to have a break from his mundane crusades, too.

[minoanmiss]

*beams delightedly*

[asher553]

Wow! Very interesting.

[thnidu]

Sounds wonderful. One of these years I hope to get to Pennsic.
In service,
Márkus of Bhakail

[luscious_purple]

I confess ... I was told a few months ago that Yaakov was going to get his Laurel at Pennsic. It's one of the reasons why I attended. (Of course, I *camp* with both Yaakov and another new Laurel, Master Richard Wyn, in Southwind, block N30.)

Actually, having *two* soon-to-be Laurels in the camp made vigil planning easy ... each thought the other was getting the Laurel, and that illusion persisted right up until Their Majesties called both men before them simultaneously.... :-) :-)

What a relief that I no longer have to keep the secret!

[cellio]

I found out the day after the vigil. :-( I'd seen Yaakov earlier that day and he'd invited me to a bardic circle, but after the commedia show I was feeling tired and anyway I didn't have anything ready to perform so I figured, eh, I'd stay in camp. Then the next day I ran into Mistress Dorigen who said something about a vigil. Vigil? Sigh... but at least I knew in time to go to the elevation!

I hadn't realized that Richard was in the same camp. That must have been fun! Do you happen to know how the king came to sing his response to Richard's oath of fealty? Did Richard write that for him or is the king also musical?

[jducoeur]

The ceremony felt like a reunion of old friends, and it was a nice touch that they had his son chant the scroll (in Hebrew).

Oh, that's excellent. I prefer it when folks put in the effort to customize the ceremony to the recipient in an appropriate way.

And yeah -- Yaakov's Laureling is the only thing I've heard about so far that makes me *really* regret missing Pennsic this year.

They also mixed it up, instead of doing all recipients of one award and then moving on to the next.

We've been doing that sometimes. Ed and Meg (my King and Queen) in particular were very explicit that Court should ideally have a "three act" structure, with a rising and falling cadence throughout, to keep it interesting.

[magid]

This sounds so interesting, and it's great to read about Yaakov's elevation.

Also, the phrase 'solar smoothing' is entertaining.