From: tbarnes@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (thomas wrentmore barnes)
Subject: Re: Dancing at Pennsic
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 19:10:14 GMT

In article <BrsyJ9.x2@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> aryk@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (A.J.S. Nusbacher) writes:
>In article <BrsvIM.KCx@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> tbarnes@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (thomas wrentmore barnes) writes:
>
>>	I put on my herald's tabard, stood on the dias next to him, let
>>forth my best series of "oyez'". (1 oyez = I'm making announcement, 2
>>oyez = please quiet down 3 oyez = I SAID pipe down!  4 oyez = SHUT UP
>>DAMMIT, I'M TRYING TO GET YOUR ATTENTION AND YOU MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING!!
>>5 oyez = Lothar goes thermonuclear...) It took me 4 oyez to get the
>>crowd noise down to the point that I could speak and be heard. Two lines
>>of instruction later, I had to call 2 oyezs to settle them down again.
>>In an hour my voice was shot too.
>

Sorry, actually I probably should have heavy ;-) 'd that paragraph. I
would never address anyone like that, especially not a crowd (there's
more of them than there are of me ;-)). But, I do get frustrated, as
does any herald, or anyone, who is being persistantly ignored while
trying to make an announcement. Afterall, I am trying to be useful! (Of
course, the road to hell is crowded with people who were just trying to
be useful...and they all walk on the good intentions it's paved with
;-)) The count-off is entirely silent, and when Lothar goes
thermonuclear, he just throws up his hands and gives up, I certainly am
not intentionally rude (Being unintentionally rude I'm all too good
at...).

>Perhaps you should consider passing around cards as a convenient ready
>reference for participants.  Strange tho' it may seem, most of us don't
>realise that when you say "oyez" you are really saying something that
>begins with "SHUT UP DAMMIT".  Actually, that is probably just as well.
>Most of us don't respond well to being addressed that way.
>

 I agree. See my above remarks. but people are often unintentionally
rude when they ignore someone who is trying to make an announcement.
            
>When I joined the SCA, they told me that when heralds shouted "oyez" while
>wearing a tabard, they were acting as the voice of the king, not the voice
>of a dancing teacher.  While most of us will accept the idea of piping
>down for a message from the king (or the Pennsic Autocrat), the idea of
>paying the same attention to the dance teacher's herald just doesn't have
>that sort of widespread acceptance.
>

You are technically right, but many heralds, myself included, tend to
act as the voice of the "person in charge". I guess I could have gotten
approval from the King of the Midrealm and the autocrat (after all, my
friend was "official" in some minor capacity) to make it legal, but it
didn't cross my mind at the time. In that case I should have probably
taken off my tabard, until I was"official". At was, I was trying to be
expedient. 

	I think that you are right that having an "official" herald is
sort of silly (the sca tends towards official officiousness ;-)), but
having a loud, reasonably trained voice to help the dance teacher's is a
cheap substitute for a lot of expensive (or not so expensive)
electronics. 


>Aryk Nusbacher
>
>One of those weird folks who considers the Barn to be a multi-purpose
>facility.

Good milord, you missed the last paragraph of my original posting! I
said, in essence, that the barn is inadequate for both dancing and other
forms of socializing. Also, dancers tend to socialize and socializers
tend to dance so blame can't be affixed to any one "group". I love to
have the barn as a place to talk, to write and to be warm. I like to see
people's faces and people's garb, which I can't do around a campfire. I
also like to dance. I really wish that we had a place with a good wooden
dance floor, where refreshments were served (or various groups sponsored
refreshments) with good acoustics and a place nearby where people could
sit and talk. The bathhouse and the barn are the only places to do that
now and they get more and more crowded every year. Ideally, I would like
to see a sort of Pennsic Inn, which combined the best aspects of the
barn and Cariadoc's Enchanted Ground. This is of course impossible. :-)

Lothar von Katzenellenbogen \|/
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