Adieu Rendezvouz!

It's been a very long time since I posted last. I sort of optimistically expected to have free time just oozing out throughout the summer, but with work, that didn't really seem to pan out. From time to time, I'd log on here and start a topic, then just sort of trail off as I was too tired to think. In any case, I'm here now and want to be more diligent about keeping up with this thing.

First off, quite a bit has happened since I posted last. I have completed several projects that I failed to document here as planned- a handsewn linen canvas doublet, a handsewn pair of Venetian hose, and a hand-finished prototype pair of unpaned trunkhose, and have been a part of or visited several multi-time period events that I've yet to review. In the last 24 hours, I was more or less recruited to contribute to a friend's blog with a related goal of documenting historical projects, so I'm going to try keeping up with both. I will definitely continue posting here. Here's a link to the new one- www.coempiricart.blogspot.com

Without any further ado, I'd like to review a Rendezvouz I attended in in early August.

This was my first time attending the Pike River Rendezvouz, conveniently held on the lake right next to downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin. It was a pretty sizable, and was quite literally sprawling. That said, it was rather unremarkable. The same or similar vendors as all the other Colonial-era events held in this region, rows of cookie-cutter campsites, and more homemade rootbeer vendors than you could count on your fingers and toes. There were a few highlights, including getting to spend time with someone really special to me, running into another living historian I'd met a few years ago at Reenactorfest in Chicago, finding a bargain priced leather drinking jack (there's really no such thing as "bargain-priced" when you're as obsessed with getting things period correct as me, but it was $30 cheaper than the retail price, so I'll take what I can get) and visiting the shop of William Booth, Draper. They always have incredible period materials that really make me wish I wasn't a poor college student. If you're a reenactor and haven't seen their stuff, check them out NOW www.wmboothdraper.com

Anyways, the event was overall stunningly disappointing in large part due to its participants. Hobbies like reenacting are just about entirely reliant on the efforts of individuals, and such a large event wouldn't be possible with only a few. I really do wonder why some people do it. There were many (but NOT ALL!- many had excellent impressions) participants that just set up a campsite and sat around shirtless in leather pants smoking a modern cigarette. They made zero attempts at demonstrating anything or interacting with the public in any sense of the word. Several of these same campsites prominently featured plastic wrappers all over the place or athletic shoes. Many of the camps also displayed the exact same goods and "set dressings", many less accurate than they might be and if nothing else over exaggerated in their commonality.

This is all well and good in certain contexts, but not here at a public event. Many of the participants may simply enjoy "primitive camping," but at an event which the public visits (whether they are there to learn or not) I don't feel this is appropriate. Much of the public/visitors take what they see at face value when it's billed as historical and walk away assuming what is presented is implicitly correct. They learn from what they see, hear, smell, and touch. This is a problem as they're misrepresenting the real people they're there to reenact and the contemporary public is suffering as a result. This goes a lot deeper than smoking a cigarette or consuming plastic wrapped goods (both of these can simply be hidden), but is instead a call to responsibly research and represent when people will be educated explicitly or implicitly.


Best,

-Dan