From: tip@lead.aichem.arizona.edu (Tom Perigrin)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: On the Nature of Armor ...
Date: 23 Dec 92 18:00:05 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona UNIX Users Group

I write with a heavy heart.  This topic and the discussion has lost all
semblence of joy to me.  I have received email from more than one person
that can only be called hateful.  I have been told that I am a clueless 
fool,  that A&S types shouldn't talk about fighters,  and that
my faux-medieval speech patterns are rotten.   For the first - I don't
know if I am a fool, but I do know that I am not wise.   As per the second -
although I am an A&S type now, I have swung my share of rattan, although
it was more than a decade ago when I fought my last.  As per the last, I 
am sorry that I am not perfect, but at least I am making some sort of 
attempt.  (and my attempts are faux-rennaisance)

I have read several posts today about armor, and good reasons for making it
out of inauthentic materials - namely poverty and paucity.  I concur
with these reasons, having lived under both of them myself.  When I was a
grad student learning to fight I too used carpet and plastic armor because
of poverty.

My complaint is not leveled against those who aspire to fight and are FORCED
to "make do" with inauthentic materials.   My complaint is against those
who aspire to use inauthentic materials as a method to improve their chances
to win in battle, and who don't care about the fact that they look like Darth
Vader with a stick.    At first I read O'Connor as one such person.  Of late
I have come to the conclusion that I am not sure what his real motivations
are...  from time to time he seems to be very interested in authenticity in
form if not material as his primary goal, at other times his goals seem
harder to pin down.   

Perhaps I am over sensitive to this point because Atenveldt seems to have
a fair number of Lord ABS and Sir Poly of Ethylene types...   People whose
primary reason for being in the SCA is to beat on each other with sticks,
and who don't really give a toss about the middle ages, and are happy to tell
you that is the case.  I guess it's a continuation of the "lets go to the bar
and get drunk and get in a fight" mentality, which I have never understood.
I have stood around camps, listening in aghast horror, as these people
would sit around drinking brewskies from a can, talking about ways to
inauthentically improve armor for the specific purpose of winning the
fights. There is no "dream" for these people...  they seem to live for
for the joy of physical mayham, and have found a convenient outlet for it.


I am sorry if I gave people the impression that I didn't appreciate people who
made an attempt, although imperfect.  I think that anyone who strives to
acheive their level of authenticity should be applauded and encouraged.
As some one said, let us not make the best the enemy of the good.


As a final note, I posted a few days ago about inauthentic intrusiveness, 
attemting to explain a bit of these feelings from anotherr viewpoint.
However, there has been no response to that post, and I don't remember
seeing it.  Did anybody else see it?  No comments?  Or am I on everybodiess
kill file by this point? *weak attempt at humour*