Contemplations of a Closet Curmudgeon

The sky shakes out sleeves
In varied layers of grey
Against greyer hills.
The trees wait like sentries in
Their black liveried rows.

It's 3:50 PM. I need to apply one more cloud to a sleeve. Then I need to do second coats on two clouds on the body and the sleeve clouds once they're completely dry. I can neaten up edges with a paint pen, but I'm thinking I might just outline the clouds in gold paint pen once everything's dry, just to give it a bit more pop.

What I need now is a red obi. A red obi would look great with this.....

Third Best Buck In The Bay rodeo for me, first time I got to camp it. Some random thoughts and observations:

Plan to rock the Old West/vintage look. Got a lot of compliments and The Boys looked so handsome. Special props to Bryan for his Kid Curry re-creation. http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/sets/72157631562758425/
(I, on the other hand, need to drop some ballast!)

Pack a rake and a broom. They put us out in a dusty cow pen and it would've been nice to be able to rake some of the cowpies out of the way before pitching my tent. Thanks to Jo for helping me shake out and fold things during tear down.

Try to remember to pack an extra fleece jacket or sweatshirt in a big size - someone will invariably forget something and get cold. Not that anything I have might have fit Jo, but he didn't have a coat and it gets chilly that close to the coast at night.

You CAN wrap an RV in fake plastic barn siding and stick fake cacti on it and win best decorated camp. My tent is still prettiest, though. Impressed the RV and dome tent crowd a lot.

Check for gaps that need sunscreen. I though the bandanna covered more of my chest than it actually did.

Kevin and Andy will always bring more food than the entire group can possibly go through, but Kevin and I both had a few digestive issues Saturday evening. Some carrot sticks or fresh fruit would have been a good option.

Offer to make Saturday dinner in camp - the vendor they chose for the $20 steak dinner was disappointing. (The $10 chicken dinner on Sunday was much better).

Bringing one's own water means not having to buy it from the vendors. I don't mind supporting the vendors, but it adds up fast. Having a stash in my tent leftover from Mists Cynagua war meant people could grab bottles or fill their own.

Bring more cash than you think you'll need - the gay rodeo folks sponsor lots of charities and they're always collecting for various causes.I tossed $20 to a campmate to support her AIDS Lifecycle ride and got a useful and colorful turquoise bandana out of the deal. (She's a nice lady and she's doing a good thing. Click on the link if you are inclined to make a donation.)

Beware the Liam-Neeson-only-cuter bartender and order a beer instead of a gin and tonic: I think he waved the tonic bottle over the party cup of gin and ice he passed me.

Learn to two-step properly before next year! I'll happily waltz with Kevin any time, and we did some swing, but we haven't made two-step work and it can't be THAT hard. If I can swing, I should be able to freakin' two-step.

Look for a compact solid fuel backpack stove. Bryan brought one to make coffee and chili with in the morning and I was impressed with it. 

As usual, met some great folks, got to admire horses and cowboys, hang out with friends I don't get to spend  nearly enough time with and do some dancing.

I freely admit that it will be anachronistic enough for a Japanese to be fighting with a European style rapier - however, I have to get proficient at the form before I can even think about pursuing the use of a rapier katana. (Besides, the merchant who carries them is currently having trouble getting appropriate blades, so there's no rush on that.)

I can hide most of my protective gear under existing (or new) garb. What I cannot hide is the fencing mask. SCA rapier rules require: "The front and top of the head must be covered by rigid material to below the jaw line and behind the ears. Standard 12 kg fencing masks are known to meet this standard......The rest of the head and neck must be covered by at least puncture resistant
material."

While I was at West An Tir, I saw some masks that had been painted, some to interesting effect. However, it's still a fencing mask. It's an anachronism, and most of the paint jobs simply draw attention to the mask.

The past several weeks of wearing loaner gear decided me in favor of the drape-off-the-mask vs. a separate hood to go over or under the mask: everything goes on or comes off in one step. I toyed with a couple of ideas for making it look vaguely period and Japanese....

1. A wig which will trap heat and become a tangled mess
2. Sohei cowl (an option we're looking at for James), which makes no sense as I am not portraying a Buddhist monk
3. Zukin likewise makes no sense unless one is dressing as a Buddhist nun.
4. Kendo bogu is distinctly post-period - and the real thing doesn't actually cover the back of the head because that's not a legal target area. Technically nobody ought to hit me in the back of the head anyway, but it probably happened to someone once so it got put in the rapier rules.

So, knowing it was going to be a complete anachronism anyway, I came up with the following compromise.






I covered the glaring white bib with a scrap of shibori fabric someone had wrapped a Twelfth Night gift in. The brown spots are actually pretty close to the color of the gloves I have.

I made the outer layer of the hood out of 3.5 oz/yard handkerchief linen. The mask frame is steel mesh over the top of the head from ear to ear and I wanted to keep what ventilation I had as the mask's foam stuffed, synthetic liner is likely to be hot. (If you look at the topmost photograph, you can see that the padding completely covers the forehead at the front of the mask.)
The portion covering the open back of the mask and the side flaps has two layers of the 7.1 oz unbleached linen sewn into it. The side flaps are sewn to the top of the bib.

My device and motto ("Honor, harmony, knowledge.") are displayed on the back.

Had a cracking good practice Thursday night. The new gorget fits well, the new gloves fit well and don't smell like someone else's pheromones. First few minutes of each practice it takes me a few minutes to get my brain in gear, but after that, I seem to be getting a little more effective. Emphasis on "little."

Sylvia's getting over a tweaked back, so she didn't play. Got some fighting in with Staffan to start, including some clueless flailing with a belaying pin and little cluage clues offered by Staffan, who probably just wanted to see what I would do with an object in my left hand.  (There's a stick in my hand! What do I do? O-daiko solo Duh, try to parry with it, dumbass!)

Had a blast fighting Brian. Brogan and Staffan have been oh-so-careful about not chasing me around because they know about my old knee injury. Brian's been playing maybe as long as I have, experience-wise, but he's young, quick, likes to fight in close and didn't know not to rush me. I'm pleased to say I was able to deal with him reasonably well (we killed each other about the same amount) and prove to myself I can move a bit faster than I thought.

Fought James a bit, but he was headachy and tired and knocked off a bit early. Brogan put a dagger in my hand and taught me a little about what to do with it, then called everyone in and did a tutorial on various parrying implements for those of us who are still traveling the road to authorization. After that, he suggested I fight Sylvain.

Sylvain is Brogan's White Scarf. For non-SCA readers, take that as "master," "sensei", "Legolas with a freaking rapier." He's that good. I've seen him fight before and I should've been way more intimidated* than I was because I know he could hand any of us our asses quite easily should he choose to.  Then again, he teamed up with me for those bridge and gate mini-melees at the event in Napa a couple weeks ago. He pretty much let me dictate the pace because he wanted to see what I could do. It was toward the end of the evening, so we didn't do a whole lot, but we ended things on a good note.

*Part of it was definitely him, of course, but I haven't been particularly intimidated by anyone I've faced yet. I've experienced some bruisingly hard hits and it wasn't traumatic, I'm sufficiently inexperienced that I KNOW anyone can "kill" me at any time, and I'm so busy trying to remember what to do I just plain don't have enough room in my brain for intimidation too.
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In an exchange of messages yesterday, I discovered that Lash thought Debardchery was THIS week. They're going to come down for that in a couple weeks instead - save themselves some gas money and get more stuff done at his Mom's place. I'm going to get a little sewing on my rapier gi done this morning, then meet James and Sylvia at the Oakland Museum of California as there's a show there we want to check out.
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Drove down to Santa Cruz last night, picked up Dad and had dinner at the Davenport Roadhouse on Hwy 1. As per usual and his amoebic time management skills, he's renting a car today and who knows when he'll appear on my door step as he has friends in Berkeley and Sacramento that he's going to see. Might be tomorrow, might be Monday evening. I'll hide a key for him and we'll figure it out. He calls it spontaneity, I call it lack of plan..... At least there's fresh fruit in the fridge for him to snack upon and I'll leave the coffee and French press on the counter where he can find it if he turns up while I'm out.

Got a message from Brogan on Wednesday to call him, so I did - he had to go out of town suddenly and would I be willing to portage loaner gear to rapier practice and then bring it to the event on Saturday? We made the exchange on Wednesday, I got it to BART last night and we were able to kit out the Usual Suspects.

James had checked out Young's Trading Co. (where I got my jika tabi) and showed up with his new kendo gi and hakama, jika tabi and a red martial arts belt. (Yet I am not allowed to order linen for rapier armor because I don't know how much we'll need for whatever it is Sylvia is intending to wear to fight in. I'm going with a modified shitagi for me and James - lengthening sleeves to provide underarm protection and necessary 3" overlap with gloves and other garments. WANNA SEW!)

Without Brogan there, it was just Staffan doing marshal/coaching duty. I fenced with Sylvia, Brian, James and Emma (but somehow missed fighting her dad). We're all in various stages of rank beginner and it's hard to know what to do sometimes. Still not seeing things fast enough, if at all. Finally got some work in with Staffan towards the end (of course, when it was getting hard to see and when I was tired). One thing I have seemed to figure out and use with reasonable effect is the draw cut - if all else fails, I drag my blade against whatever part of my opponent is handy as I try to retreat. I also came home with an exercise on practicing disengaging my blade which involves me, my trusty wooden dowel and a nearby doorknob.

Both the guys are good coaches - always have positive, encouraging things to say, so one feels like one is making a little progress.  Brogan tends to keep things simple, while Staffan doesn't mind getting a little more technical. Technical is actually good - I'm not a natural athlete, so being able to break down a process into more than just, "Do this!" is as useful as "Do this!" to me.

Met up with J&S at their place Saturday AM and headed up to Napa for the War of the Relic. James got authorized as a rapier marshal. (I watched and paid attention as I may very well do so myself at some point.) The rapier tourney used a positively diabolical format (designed by Staffan), a round robin in which each participant had to roll D12 dice which would determine which weapons they had to use in which hand for a given round. Crazy, fun and plenty challenging for the four authorized fencers who played. They also decided to do a few barroom brawl scenarios on the gazebo.

More photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/sets/72157630690395420/with/7619926348/

It was easily in the 90s, so J&S had brought several flats of water for everyone to avail themselves of and I'd contributed some snacky bits. When asked if we still-unauthorized fighters wanted to do some pickups, James and Sylvia declined - they're still relatively unacclimated to the hotter, drier inland microclimates, but I felt fine, so I geared up (I was wearing my linen hakama and plaid kosode over a sports tank and capri length yoga pants, so I just dropped it all, stepped into Lady James'* modern fencing jacket and pulled my stuff back on over it). We went down the hill to a shady spot on the trail with both a rustic gateway and a small wooden footbridge for some two-on-two melee. Sylvain was kind enough to pair up with me, and Brogan and Angharad were our opponents. I died a lot, but did manage to trade my life for Angharad's a couple times and even nailed Brogan with a sneaky slow thrust while defending the gate - I just waited for him to be focused on Sylvain and then slowly closed with him. I may never get away with that one again, but it was pretty neat at the time. It was also a good test of fighting in existing garb - the hakama didn't trip me up or get caught on anything and I felt comfortable, if hot. (*Brogan's lady's SCA name is James Bacon. It's completely documentable as a female name late in period and it suits her - it's just going to make this blog entry confusing!)

We all went down the street after the event to the Black Bear Diner. Plans have been made for a field trip to Victory Fencing in Millbrae next Saturday so J, S and I can get masks, with a gorget-making party at their place to follow. I got measurements and put in a linen order last night before bed. After wearing a nylon fencing jacket under my garb on a 95 degree day I WANT MY LINEN! And James has been very kind and tolerant about my stinking up her kit, which makes me all the more conscious that I should get my own together as soon as possible so she doesn't need to share it with me. (Though she had just finished a heavy linen leine to fight in.)

Gonna meet Sylvia at Civic Center BART at noon and take the bus out to Golden Gate Park for the Cloondara practice this afternoon. Should be a beautiful day for it.

Yeh, I'm hooked, can you tell?

In other news, my phone bleated at me at the diner. It was Ishida, texting to tell me he'd received his AoA. (Still can't believe it hadn't occurred to anyone locally to recommend him, so I was glad to instigate.)

This little girl and her father happened upon me while I was flying my kite, so I held out my reel of string and asked her if she'd like to help. The reel is bigger than her hands. (And yes, I did reel the kite in a bit so her father could get it in frame.)

LOVE this picture, by Chris Auld, AKA juan_guthrie on Flickr.