Windfalls

How can you take anyone seriously who plays in sheep dung?

Making Dull Events Fun: A How-To Primer

by Mathilde and Caterina

Food can be a delightful medium to alleviate the tedium, in fact. The old-fashioned food fight will always inspire a lighthearted youthfulness amongst the players, especially if you assure the autocrat that you'll clean up afterwards. Making a surprise subtlety out of your leftovers and sending it to high table can be very rewarding, especially if you know the royals well. Who could forget the "pea-man" that Vanessa sent up to Morguhn's table back in the olden days? She also was a proponent of "Hold out your hand," feeling that anyone stupid enough to follow these directions deserved to have something awful squished into their palm.

I once attended what could have been the world's worst feast, a Kingdom Twelfth Night in Massachusetts. The wretched entrees came out excruciatingly slowly and were served stone cold on soggy paper plates. Fortunately a gentle sitting near us brought the whole table out of its misery by holding up the plates, wriggling his hands underneath, and pretending that, say, the frumenty was an alien being.

Arranging the food properly in the kitchen before serving can also cheer the feasters. I won't describe in this publication exactly what Danny did with the roasted geese, the sauerkraut, and the smoked sausages at the Club Noir event, but everyone was amused at the results (and we have photos, if you're over 18).

Mathilde: Don't forget the time in Myrkfaelinn that the cook served some authentic type of German peas. The puree was so stiff that we used it to make a model of a Viking ship, with a little dead Viking and everything. Everyone at the table got involved and made a sail out of the skin off our roasted goose. Then we set it on fire and sent it back to the kitchen with our compliments.

Thinking more globally, if you plan ahead, one approach I've always found to be successful in spicing up a "same old, same old" event is the use of historical documentation, no matter how shallow or spurious. Humming "Don't Know Much About His-tor-y" under your breath, look up some factoids about the event's location, time, or notable characters. Or, better yet, ask your SCA friends about the period while you're getting lubed at drinking practice. Then, put your knowledge into action! One of my favorite events was based on the ascension of the Habsburg heartthrob, Maximilian, to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire in 1495. This could have been a real yawner as an event theme, but a quick scan of the known facts about Max revealed that he was totally crazy about hunting. Since royalty were always getting their huntsmen to bring them warrantable fewmets of game animals wrapped up in green leaves, we thought we would bring some of our shires's nicest fewmets along as an imperial gift. The chocolate in the bulk bins at the store made lovely fewmets. There were unwrapped Tootsie Rolls for the fewmets of the wild boar; pecan clusters for the fewmets of the great elk; chocolate kisses for the fewmets of the ravening wild bunny, and so on. We made little leaf-shaped green velveteen bags for the various offerings, put them on a lovely brass tray, and presented them in court to the "emperor" along with indescribably awful blasts from a "hunting horn" (one of those cheap brass French horns you hang up for Christmas decor) blown by Sir Haakon Oaktall. The "emperor" was absolutely speechless, and when John the Pell tried to say something about the suitability of our gift, I shut him up by saying, "So, Johnny, did you want imperial gifts in good taste, or imperial gifts that taste good?" The fewmets went out on the dessert table, and those of us who'd shopped for chocolate shaped like animal droppings, sewn little green bags to hold same, or just made idiots of ourselves in court, had a wonderful time.

Caterina: When all else fails, herešs a rule going back to Aristophanes: bring on the drag acts. Dressing up some rugged fighters in ladies' grab always hits the spot. And it's illuminating to see sword jocks quarreling over who gets the corset and who gets the hoop skirt and pearls. They seem almost human. Once at Camp Barton (why is it always Myrkfaelinn that we feel so compelled to toy with?) we dressed up Wulfstan and Boldo in lovely girly outfits. The irritating part is that Wulfstan looks good as a woman, and his appearance that evening produced quite a few dropped jaws as guys checked him out, then realized who "she" was. Boldo, on the other hand, was simply horrifying, and his award of arms presentation was, I'm sure, unique in the annals of AEthelmearc. Just ask Yngvar.

Mathilde: Our best event picker-upper combined all these themes, except maybe guys in drag. It had everything else, though, including a five-foot blow-up iguana.

"So, they're holding a Viking Wedding event in Mexico, New York? You know, I don't think they've thought this through." With these ominous words from my sister, who has a low boredom threshhold, a bunch of us set out to put our own spin on a local event, which had been designed by an effiency expert who made the event her graduate business seminar project. The result had been a lot of flow charts, really low-interest meetings, and a paper-heavy plan for a simplistic tourney and feast that sounded as though it had been worked out by the New York State Senate Budget Committee for Paper Clip Expenditures.

These planners had forgotten, though, about those legends about how the Aztecs greeted the first white explorers as the returned god Quetzlcoatl and his troop. After all, these were Vikings coming to Mexico, weren't they? At my sister's request, I served as the primary research person, since I'd spent a student summer in Mexico at age seventeen. Okay, most of my research involved El Bar Jaguar in downtown San Luis Potosi, where they'd serve anyone who could reach up far enough to put money on the bar. But what I didn't remember from a summer made hazy by tequila could be supplemented with a little on-line searching.

We picked Dan to be the Aztec High Priest Huatthefucl. He had lovely black robes from which skulls and bones were supposed to dangle. I found that Milk-Bones come with little holes in them which make them ideal for attaching to priestly garments. Dan decided that the other props he needed were a big nose ("Didnšt those Aztecs all have really big honkers?"), a clipboard, and a wretched Hispanic accent, "Hey, mang" style. Other dramatic personae included MJ, the Bride of Quetzlcoatl, and her entourage.

The prop list got really silly. It included the sacred Quetzal bird. No problem, we picked up a rubber chicken from Switzes' Craft Emporium and hot-glued shrimp-pink and lime-green feathers onto its naked body. The effect was stunning, especially when I found that I could blow into the chicken's mouth and his feet would flutter out behind him while the feathers rippled. This brought fight practice to a complete halt because the fighters were laughing too hard to hit each other. The sacred feathered snake of Quetzalcoatl was, of course, a rubber snake from Switzes' with feathers hot-glued on.

We found the perfect statue of the dread god Chac-Mool, a reclining deity whose belly made a handy repository for the still-quivering hearts ripped from the chests of living sacrifices, at Pier 1. The swell costumes for the handmaidens of Huatthefucl were made from really bright cotton sewn into a plain, sleeveless tube garment that started out too wide at the top and ended up too tight around the hips. With a stupid little square of fabric sewn diagonally at the front of the neckline, the "huipils" were guaranteed to look bad on anyone. For those ladies whose hair was long enough, we braided it and twisted it around their ears in a "squash blossom" style that Julia said made her look like a cocker spaniel. This wasn't a problem until Dan's Milk-Bone trim started to look good to her. I made a badge for my sister that read "Iguana Inspector #23," with a lovely lizard writhing around the letters, to which she added a drab olive cexcametl ornamented with plastic "turquoise" beads and dyed red feathers.

The Aztec snack tray consisted of some guacamole and Doritos, a squash, Corona beer, and heaps of chocolatl. For pets we had my five-foot plastic blow-up iguana, and for music, conga and bongo drums.

The Greater Aztec Co-Prosperity Sphere paraded up to the lists, complete with priest, maidens, giggling attendants, inflated lizard, and snack trays. Sir Ogami came to full attention and saluted as we passed (he later explained that, in the military, when you couldn't immediately identify something it was safest to salute it). The High Priest, wearing the sacred snake draped around his neck, a big plastic nose, and a superior expression, welcomed the 1,000th visitor (Boris) to Aztec shores. The stunned Boris was instructed to sign off on the form on the clipboard to get the great free gifts awaiting him. When he did, he was informed that one of the free gifts was MJ, playing the Bride of Quetzalcoatl, and that he had the great honor of marrying her. Boris, with his Viking bride Mair next to him, had to refuse, and the Aztecs, deeply insulted, declared war on the white guys. We recruited volunteers with promises of beer and lots of Aztec snacks, and tied lovely "ocelotl-skin" favors on them.

Caterina: in my first real encounter with the Regnesfolc, I asked them if they'd like be Aztecs, fight for Team Ocelotl and destroy the Vikings. To a man they agreed instantly and tied on their chintzy favors. Wulfstan even duct-taped Dan's Groucho Marx glasses to the back of his helm, causing some recognition problems in the melees.

Mathilde: After a lot of fighting, Team Ocelotl died under the weapons of a lot of white guys, thus preserving historical integrity, and everyone had a great party afterwards.

Avoid dullness whenever possible!

Index

Antarctica: bet they complain that the Royalty doesn't visit them often enough.

I don't care if they do it in their camp at Pennsic, but the barn is a bit much.