Maugorn

And I find all my online social sources utterly swamped too. I can't possibly get to it all, so if I missed something really important, please tell me.

So, Swamp Thynge was mostly good with a couple of smudges.

The good was the usual stuff that goes into a good event:

-The people were so friendly and nice (that's why it's my favourite non-Pennsic SCA event).
-I reinforced alot of good connections/friendships and made some excellent new friends.
-I did some excellent playing and participated in some good jamming and even got to record some of it. How good the recordings are is not very likely album quality, but there are a couple of things worth preserving, and some moments captured too. oh, and got to play for some dancing and which resulted in some high quality time with my pretty new flute.
-I found out in no uncertain terms how much I am valued by the folks (especially the landowner) who put this on. I kept having to be very stoic as I heard all that, 'cause it would have made me bawl like a baby otherwise.
-I was very flattered to be repeatedly asked my opinion of things by some of my fellow musicians "...'cause I really value your input, Maugie". Wow!!
-Sold some CDs. Not as many as I would have hoped, but many of the folks who love my music there already have everything I've done. And the economy is bad.
-Good, mellow, relaxing time.

The downside:
-Nonetheless I over-did it. I got FAR to little sleep, and kept not really sleeping in in the mornings, and so I am Wiped with a capitol Z now.
-Dagnabbit, why does everything have to be completely taken over when bellydancers and drummers show up?
Don't get me wrong, I LIKE drumming and drum circles, and I LIKE watching belly dancers (even tho I wish that there were more of the "not just another underclothed underfed waif who thinks that a slow, clumsy shimmy is her ticket to fame, fortune and/or free drinks"
But I'm also a performer, and I also am good, and I'm also deserving at a place at this table especially at *this* event. I started coming because I was specifically and pointedly and repeatedly INVITED to come and sing at their fire at night- by the landowner, and by the previous autocrats who'd heard me at Pennsic. And I'm told that it's been since I started doing that, that the fire has been *the* looked forward to social nexus of the event. I'm really happy and honored by that and really am happy to share that role with other performers. But time and again, this weekend, once the drummers showed up, that was it. No more "bardic circle". It was now a drum jam where sometimes, if I was tuned up and ready to play AND IF there was a lull, I could *sometimes* get a song in. And even then, that wasn't always enough. And when I did, I could look around as the night wore on, and see fewer and fewer and fewer of the Caer Adamant folks hanging around by the fire where, in previous years the place would be packed and the party going until *I* had to leave or couldn't play anymore. The folks I'd come to play for were gone in short order once the drummers showed up. My invitation to this event, and how I'm treated by it's staff (and the site-owner) has caused me to pencil this event in and treat it as if it were more an actual gig and not just something I happen to go to. But to have most of the folks who put the pressure upward on the staff organisers to make this happen leave before I really get much opportunity to play for them, makes me and them sad.

I'm torn (as is the site owner/host) about what to do about this. I am and want to be a champion of egalitarianism and inclusion. But it's hard to feel that way for a contingent for whom it SEEMS that inclusion is an afterthought if it's not more of *their* thing. And harder still when I'm repeatedly asked if I'm coming to this event by folks whom I ultimately don't get to play for in the venue I'm invited to come and play for them in.

The easy solution would be to just let the noisy drummers and the shimmying skinny girls have the damn campfire and go play for my folks elsewhere on site. But Padraigh (the site owner/host) really doesn't want it to come to that because he feels so strongly about building community, which not only do I agree with, but is actually one of my personal attractions to these folks and their event. Again, torn.

All in all, this snag wasn't enough of a drag to undo the whole event for me. I *did* get do some GREAT playing nonetheless.
I had a lot of good and great times doing what I was invited to do and just enjoying the event as well.
Right now this is still one of the VERY FEW SCA events where a gig will not necessarily come first.
But if this is marking a trend, then the choice between attending this event and viewing it as one of *my* weekends or finding/taking a gig where I'm getting paid for my work is going to be re-balanced.