(no subject)

[ppfuf]

A link, gakked from this is an excellent piece on how difficult artistic criticism is
Read it first.
Screenwriter Josh Olson has summed up exactly why I hate judging sca competitions. He's also summed up the parts of my job that I hate too.

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Interesting read. I don't judge competitions, either, because of the kicked-puppy look I got from the non-winners. And then one of them wanted to argue with me. Submitted had been three pages of documentation on a fairly obscure art form.

Me: You documented your methods and so on, but did not document the existence of Item X during the middle ages. Did they have Xs in the first place?
Them: But they had Xs! Lots of Xs! I can go get you some documentation!
Me: If it wasn't in your submitted documentation, how is a judge supposed to know they had lots of Xs?

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

"But they had Xs!" Ha. That's the basis of every cordial *documentation* I've ever read. Sadly, people in the middle ages did not create every possible permutation of the materials they had available.
Someday, future re-enactors will be saying we must have eaten dogs, after all, there's so many of them in the early 21st century.