*sigh*

[patgund]

morgan_gw posted this on another list. I agree with her, someone just doesn't get it. And I may add, is a git to boot.

A pretty penny for your thoughts

"The Faire makes it easy to spend money, too. It sells season passes that are good for every day the Faire is open: 25 days. Can you imagine seeing the same play 25 times in a month and a half? Also, by giving the necessary elements of modern money exchanges quaint names, a disillusioned squire can buy, buy, buy all day without ever breaking "character." In one pottery shop, I heard this conversation-both parties using fake British accents-between the clerk, a 300 pound. woman in a bonnet and bodice, and a customer with a ponytail, cape and two samurai swords crossed in an X over his back.

"Excuse me, m'lady, do you accept Lady Visa and Master Card?"

"We do, good sir. Your total will come to 89 pounds, 28 cents, including the Queen's tax. I'm curious, do you use those swords often?"

"No, sadly, no. I don't have the time with work and the baby."

I almost puked from the irony.

So who is to blame for this? The monk? The ninja? No, they are just the victims here. Like I said, everyone needs an escape. The actors and vendors and the Renaissance Faire as a whole take advantage of these people (and there are a lot of them) as they walk in looking for a comfortable place to live out their dorky fantasies.

Maybe the monk has no luck with the ladies in real life, but if he buys a dozen silk roses ($4 a pop) and gives them to a maiden stuffed into a corset she may give him a kiss on the cheek and all of a sudden Larry from accounting is Casanova. "

I would say not only doesn't get it, doesn't want to get it, and doesn't care how rude he is, just show he can show how "cutting" and "edgy" his writing is.

This is the type of writer that needs to be invited to coffee and rapiers at dawn.

Comments

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

Uh, if it's a guy, and he has work and "the baby," he's already stuffed a... bodice... (there's a euphemism for ya) at least once, successfully...

[cormac.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think he gets it rather well. The Renaissance Faire is a play. It's a total immersion play, and relies heavily on audience interaction, but it is a play, and unless you're just as heavy into being a member of the interactive audience, buying season passes doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Also, things at Faire are ridiculously expensive, and when you convert dollars and cents into "pounds and cents [sic]" for the sake of suspension of disbelief, the cost becomes even more obviously astronomical. $4 for a silk rose sounds about right for Faire economy, and becomes crap-your-pants expensive when you convert that to a Renaissance "Four pounds," or the equivalent of about two years' salary for a clerk in the office of the Signet (if I remember my research from earlier this year correctly).

And you can't claim that there aren't vendors at Ren Faire who are there just to make money, to exploit those who attend the Faire with the understanding that they'll be spending more than necessary for things that they can get elsewhere for a reasonable price. Apart from not getting the "magic" of Faire and similar hobbies, I think he's hit it dead on.

[henglaar.livejournal.com]

With respect, skip the coffee: I don't want his reflexes any faster than they ought to be at dawn, and given that I'm a night owl, they ought to be slower than mine. :-)