Category: SCA

SCA culture is largely built around a model of Courtesy. As the model of courtesy has evolved organically, it has, to my eye (and not only mine), tended to emphasize an avoidance of confrontation and public embarrassment a lot of the time. When someone takes note of what someone else is doing, there is a standard but unwritten rule we follow: If they did something good, praise them to their face if you can. If they did something not so good…find their mentor, and pass the feedback along to them, generally with the understanding that it will be shared anonymously.

There is, in my experience (and not only mine), a rather serious side effect to this informal model of feedback. If a gentle doesn’t have a mentor, or you don’t know who the mentor is, or if you don’t have access to or a relationship with said mentor…what do you do with your feedback? Sometimes, the feedback starts circulating in whispers behind the gentle’s back. And by the time the gentle finally becomes aware of these circulating whispers, it can be incredibly upsetting and painful.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell
Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.

Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2

Rest In Peace, your Grace.

As most people in the SCA are no doubt aware, Kenric æt Essex, aka Michael Perry, went out kayaking on Friday January 12 around noon, and was not heard from afterward. A day later, at 5 pm, the Coast Guard called off the search, and he has since that time been presumed lost. [UPDATE: His kayak was discovered in the water on Sunday.]

Like so many, I did not know Kenric as well as I might have liked.