Quest-f-Scotch-art - 6/19/05 "Quest for Scotch - A Pennsic Tale" by Philippa Ferraria. NOTE: See also the files: New-2-Pennsic-msg, P-history-msg, P-stories-msg, P-tale-MWIFO-art, BPThingie-art, SCA-Sociology-art, A-Study-o-SCA-art, SCA-stories1-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 00:24:43 -0400 From: "Phlip" Subject: [Sca-cooks] Gender identification was a bunch of stuph- LONG To: "Cooks within the SCA" >>> Poor Phlip probably gets gender misidentified more than I do, because of her name and because she likes to do smithing and to butcher animals; to activities not typically thought of as being feminine. <<< Well, while I feel entirely feminine, and I'm certainly heterosexual (not that that's necessary, for a woman to be feminine), I learned, long ago, that gender is completely unimportant. Our language is structured so there is no polite term for another human being that is gender neutral, and that causes for more problems than it solves. I've just decided that _I_ know who I am, and _my friends_ know who I am, so anyone else's opinion, being based on incomplete data, is just about what it's worth- incomplete and therefore faulty. And, my name is, in fact, quite feminine, but it's unusual, and I got so tired of people mispronouncing it, I shortened it to Phlip. It's Philippa, in SCA and out, which is the feminine of Philip, and using "Phlip" as my nickname is no more unusual than referring to "Roberta" as Bob, or Bobbi or Bobby, or to "Stephanie" as Steve or Stevi or Stevie, but being an unusual name, has no commonly comprehended diminutive, so I don't worry about it. Calling me "Phippy", which was my beloved grandmother's nickname for me (as mine for her was "Mimi") is grounds for me decking you- that was HER name for me, and YOU are not Mimi. Understood, Gideanus? A Pennsic Epiphany I had thought that I was pretty easygoing in this regard, until Pennsic XXV. One night, sitting up at Tchukka's camp, we were sitting around, finishing up a bottle of good single malt Scotch, and a young man, Dave stopped by. He was a student, at, I believe, a university in Chicago, and had convinced his profs that he needed to do a study of Pennsic, and had convinced them to send along a couple of grad students to assist with his studies. The first one lasted 2 days, the second lasted through Land Grab Week, and the third, at the time he was discussing this with myself and Tchukka, was still on site, camped with Great Dark Horde, but every time anything happened, would pull out his notebook and be a "Studying Anthropologist". Anyway, somewhere in this melee of freaqued grad students, our friend Dave had decided that it might be interesting if they had a God to worship, and upon discussion, Cip became the new God of the Great Dark Horde. Horde being Horde, they all went along with it, so The Great God Cip, wherever he went, was greeted by bowing and praying Horde members. Dave then decided he wanted to be a demigod, so he asked The Great God Cip how he might attain that desired station. The Great God Cip declared that in order to do this thing, Dave must learn deviousness, so sent Dave out on a Quest into the Wilds of Pennsic, at midnight or thereabouts. The Quest was to find a full bottle of good Scotch. At this point, Dave arrived at Tzukka's camp, and told us the tale of his quest, and Tzukka and I looked at each other and said, "Well, we have a bottle of Scotch..." "Yes, but it is an almost empty bottle of Scotch..." "Well, we can fix that..." and, after further discussion, we decided that we needed to refill the empty bottle of good Scotch, so that Dave might fulfill his Quest, and that in order to do so, he must beg potables from whoever he encountered in his journey. Further, in order to assure that everything that went into the bottle was potable, I agreed to become Dave's Guide on his Quest, since I knew most of the people just down the hill (back side of Horde Hill), and could be assured that the contents of the bottle remained potable. Besides, in case you missed it, I was on the outside of half a bottle of good single malt Scotch, and I figured I could do anything ;-) Well, we had a start. We had the bottle, and in fact it had a few drops of good single malt Scotch in it, and obviously that was enough for the Great God Cip to transform the rest of the contents, once we had them, so we first passed the bottle to the two other guests at the fire, and one donated some GoldSchlager, and the other donated some Godiva Chocolate Liqueur. I then stashed a couple of beers for the journey down the hill (I figured I needed to sober up a bit, if I were going to be a Guide for a Quest), and off we went. The first two camps we approached were empty, and the next camp was our camp. Now let me digress a bit, and describe the entry way to my camp. There is a dirt road leading into it, and, right at the entrance, two deep ruts, which we had named the Classic Swimming Hole, and the Family Swimming Hole, with a narrow, slippery ridge between them. So far, that Pennsic, every time I had come into camp after getting a snootful of good Scotch, I had managed to fall in one or the other- I spent much of that Pennsic during daylight, doing laundry. This didn't occur when I was drinking beer, or for that matter, anything else, but every time I got into the Scotch, I fell in either the Classic or the Family Swimming Holes, so I had determined, to save my remaining garb, that, henceforth, when Tzukka (or whoever) fed me good Scotch, I wasn't going home, I'd crash at Tzukka's. That magical night, I managed to make it into camp without falling into either Swimming Hole. When I got there, the only two people there were a couple of Blue Feather ladies who were camping with us that year, and we presented them with our Quest. As they were Southerners, and teetotalers, they added some sweet tea to the good, but empty, bottle of Scotch, and by now, it was not quite so empty. Since we were in my camp, I also added some stale beer, and some red wine from my stash, and stocked up again on beer (remember, I had to stay relatively sober), and we ventured forth again into the night, looking for more donations for our Quest. The next camp we went to, the only people home were a couple of young ladies who were underage, so they quite delightedly, after we told them about the Quest, added Diet Pepsi to the mix. Now, I was getting quite concerned, at this point, because most of what we had acquired recently was of low or no alcohol content, but I needn't have worried- the next camp we came to provided us with a healthy dollop of Everclear. Our next camp was rather interesting. The gentleman who lives there is a VERY straight arrow, likely as conservative as any SCAdian can possibly be. It turned out that he was a long time friend of Dave's, and, in the discussion, Dave pulled up his shirt to show his friend his new nipple piercings, and I discovered that while Dave was quite male, he had a female body. Dave's friend donated to the bottle (to this day, he won't tell me what he put in it, but there after, it smelled rather fruity, and he's a non- drinker, so no telling) and we went on. I did, however, learn, that he and Dave had been lovers at some point in the past. Now, I was getting fairly tired by this point, particularly considering that I knew that I had to hike back up the bloody hill to Tzukka's, AND I was running low on beer, so I suggested, that since this was in essence a Water Quest, if a Fire Water Quest, and since the bottle was getting close to full, that we finish up at that campfire I could see in the middle of the Lake, on the Peninsula, where my friends from Mugmort camped. We went out, and Mugmort added some bourbon to the bottle, but it wasn't quite full. Dave wanted to continue, but I said the bottle was almost full, and that we ought to return to Tzukka's, relying on Serendipity to fill the rest of the bottle. As we walked, we had quite a conversation- Dave was in the process of changing his physical gender to match his mental and emotional gender, so since he was the first transgender I'd ever met, it was quite interesting. As we walked up the Hill, we met some people coming down, and told them of our Quest, and they invited us back to their camp to finish up the bottle. I wasn't about to go back down that bloody hill, that I was already halfway up, so in desperation, I asked if they had ANY potable liquid, with which we might finish our Quest. As it happened they did- one of them was carrying a canteen, so we topped the now full bottle of Scotch... with Cooper Water.... We had finished our Quest, I stopped at Tzukka's, and we sent Dave on his way. But, the reason for this long tale is this- during our conversation, one remark Dave had made rather stuck in my mind- He said that he was homosexual. Now, admittedly, I was well lubricated at the time, but even the next morning, when I was quite sober, understanding the English language as I do, I still couldn't quite figure out, just who would be the same gender as Dave (other than another transgender). After a while I gave it up. And that's why, to this day, I really don't care what gender someone else is, or what gender they think I am. It really isn't very important- Dave was a nice person, so let's leave it at that. Saint Phlip, CoD Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 09:00:33 -0400 From: "Phlip" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gender identification was a bunch of stuph- LONG To: "Cooks within the SCA" > So did Dave ever become a demi-god? > Huette I'm not quite sure. Next morning, we discovered that The Great God Cip had accepted that part of the Quest as fulfilled, however, apparently his transubstantiator was on the fritz, and he presented Dave with Part 2 of the Quest- to enter a camp where there were people up and awake, and to leave the bottle within the camp without being caught. As I was not assisting in this part of the Quest, I can't verify it, but I heard that Dave did, in fact manage to accomplish it, and left it in Vlad's encampment- and knowing that crew and the partiers therein, I have no doubt someone drank it. Saint Phlip, CoD Edited by Mark S. Harris Quest-f-Scotch-art Page 4 of 4