(no subject)

[learnedax]

Catching up on the olympics, thanks to TiVo, has made me realize how many strong parallels they have with Pennsic. From the athletic core which revives ancient tradition (with champions contesting points ranging from archery to fencing) to the strong cultural representations of diverse homelands, there's a big cognitive similarity. When landscape-transforming temporary construction, ingrained rivalries, and a healthy dose of pomp and circumstance are taken into account, I begin to seriously wonder whether the two events serve similar psychological purposes.

This nicely dovetails into two longstanding discussions that came up again at war: first, is there any significant difference between Pennsic and a large sci-fi convention, and second, is the role of martial activity within the SCA truly a critical element, or merely a historical quirk?

Specifically, if fighting, as the Olympic tradition seems to, serves a higher purpose than being yet another fun thing that people do, it represents a qualitative difference between the SCA and other things that the counterculture does... And if it's just a diversion for a bunch of stick-jocks, then what is Pennsic but a themed con?

Thoughts?

Comments

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

SMOFs are (VERY approximately) equivalent to Pelicans. But there is no group which "awards" SMOF-ness. It's just a term that gets used to describe a certain class of person. Not all Staff are SMOFs, and not all SMOFs at a con will automatically be staffing it.

I guess that the fannish equivalent of a peerage *award* would be to be selected as Fan Guest of Honor. Or possibly winning a Hugo in one of those fandom-related categories.

I should also note that this usage of SMOF seems relatively recent to me. When I was getting started in fandom, the term SMOF was used ironically, as a way of commenting both on occasional fannish paranoia, and on the sense that fandom was far too chaotic to *actually* have Secret Masters.

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

Well, they do appear in the first addition of Illuminati!, so it must have been a common term by 1982. I sort of recall hearing it during the 70s as a joke with a point behind it - i.e. that it was funny to think of people doing the work as the "Secret Masters".

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Oh certainly the term *existed* then. But my impression was that the Illumnati game intended SMOFs as more like "Orbital Mind Control Lasers" (funny due to non-existence) than "Boy Scouts" (funny because of lack of real-world clout).