Anachronism!

To the tune of "Oh, Susanna!"

I come from the mundane world with my laptop on my knee,

And I'm off to Pennsylvania for medieval revelry.

Ten thousand of my closest friends, a joyful little war,

If that seems paradoxical it's what the 'A' is for.

Chorus

Anachronism! Is what we have to say.

Where we take the best of yesteryear and mix it with today.

My tent is bigger than my car, it's fit for king or queen

The rope bed is from woodcuts and the mattress L. L. Bean

Of course the folks of long ago electric power had none,

So I'll charge my kindle and my phone with panels of the sun.

Chorus

The county had a blackout and we didn't even know

Until some actors asked for lamps to help them light their show.

I tried to sing a little song to please a worthy crowd,

But I forgot the lyrics, so thank God they're on the cloud!

Chorus

Notes

Pensic 44 went well, with two minor exceptions (entirely my own fault; see Devil's Deal and Ode to Fermentation) and ended on a high note (and, while I like to brag...it's unseemly, and I'm more likely to confess my failures...so I won't tell you what the high note was). However, I performed so many times that I found myself repeating my material. So at the end, I made a vow to come back to next Pensic with 12 new performance-ready pieces. I just had to write them. I started to write one piece on the way back (I'll post it when I finish), but switched to this one around Wilkes-Barre.

Along the way, I developed a theory of filking (have you noticed I like to philosophize?). It's this: Don't filk modern popular music. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because 90% of what's popular now will be forgotten within a few years, which renders the music unsingable. So I can sing Summer of AS 9 and Blue Passant Tyger, but today, very few know the tune, so there's little to no chance it will be sung by anyone else. On the other hand, SCA Grove and Are You Trying to Pass your Device? are based on old standards which everyone knows, so anyone who wants can sing them readily enough.

So I was thinking about the fact that when I tell my mundane friends I'm going medieval camping for two weeks, they have an idea that it's two weeks of mud, hard tack, and no baths...while the reality is that in many ways, our camp at Pensic gives camping in a modern RV a run for its money. No complaints, here: it's actually rather humorous (and, lest it be unclear, I like the humor of the situation). While thinking about that, I remembered that Stephen Foster's Oh, Susanna! also has this juxtaposition of opposites: It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry; the sun so hot I froze to death, Susanna don't you cry. So that made the song a natural fit, and the rest was done while driving (and sitting in construction traffic).

Some notes:

- Yes, I know there's a difference between paradoxical and ironic. I blame Alanis Morisette.
- The original line was "Pensic tourney," but while I call it a tournament (and, insofar as the greatest health risks are self-inflicted and related to non-martial activities, it is closer to a medieval tournament than a medieval war), everyone seems to want it to be a war.
- This actually occurred during Pensic 44. The Known World Players put on Merchant of Venice, but when the power went out they had to set the stage outside, with torchlights.
- While I didn't bring my laptop, I did bring my phone...which has my entire research library on it. It helped, because I had to finish writing my classes.
- This also happened. See my notes on Ode to Fermentation.