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Post by Banned on Jun 11, 2007 10:43:44 GMT -6
Well, well DC you show just what an educated fool can do when he shoots his mouth off about a subject that you have no knowledge or experience, before slinging off about something you know nothing about why don't you think about the folks you are gunna upset with your ill conceived barbs and generalizations. I have passed on your criticisms to some more groups to be used as a learning tool, a view of what the uneducated Rupert's like yourself see us as. We commonly call those that you place us serious living historians amongst, FARBS. These folks have been tarnishing LBH for years which has lead to the changes now going on over there. I for one applaud those that give up their time to demonstrate how things were back then. DC I find your comments bigoted in the extreme and offensive and I call upon the moderator to discipline this egotist. Failing that I will be in Hardin Montana June 2008 and would be more than pleased to meet with you and redress your grievances. But then again I wouldn't expect someone that hides behind words and a dictionary to accept a challenge of any sort. PS: I was just wondering that walk to the blood bank was it to give it or drain it....I doubt that you have given anything but cynicism in your life. Total agreement.
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Post by Banned on Jun 11, 2007 10:46:00 GMT -6
At the Alamo, at least by possible truth, they decided to fight to the last - although hoping for help - rather than leave or surrender while they could. That was a Last Stand and a half. I don't think Custer rises to that level, ironically. they killed their horses, used them as breastworks, fired at the Indians until the last man, did a man-to-man fight (even with hands).
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 11, 2007 10:52:44 GMT -6
Informed, professional performers, and you find them from Williamsburg to the west. I doubt many called themselves "Living Embodiments of the American Spirit Made Flesh". I'm sorry, that's coming, but not here yet. Still, "Living Historians" is pretty inflated.
There's a dif between the (cue chorus) "Living Historians" and the July 4th battle re-enactment where everybody and his brother and wife dress up cheer and huff around and can't get to the keg fast enough after the generals surrender. That's fun and only half serious, and that in regard to the fallen and not themselves as the embodiment of the fallen.
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Post by Banned on Jun 11, 2007 10:58:01 GMT -6
I don't see anything "funny" is recreating the 7th massacre at LBH and I don't see anything funny or laughable in the reenactments. You are just insulting the reenactors, ignoring their fine dressing and skills in recreating the battle. You're just a damn clown, and your +1'000 posts on this board, without any warning by the moderators, tells a lot about the objectivity of this board. Insults are only forbidden if they are targeting real Custer and LBH buffs. What a shame. I wonder how the real LBHA members could accept to see their association been distorted that much.
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Post by Tricia on Jun 11, 2007 11:05:08 GMT -6
CSS--
You're not getting the tone of the discussion. What's under discusssion is the motivation here ... I pretty much said to myself that when I attended my second LBH re-enactment in 2004 that I wouldn't patronise another one until the script--no matter its author, Indian or White--actually tasted realism. Instead of a true portrayal of the actions at LSH or anywhere else for that matter, instead, we're stuck seeing a Michener-inspired "tale" of the West. If the re-enactors are that devoted to the true telling of history, they'd pull their exacting uniforms, their horses, and their tack until someone gets the story rght. It shouldn't be hard, really. But you want to support this sort of tacit acceptence of "fake' history just for its glory.
But, that wouldn't be enough of a money-making propositon, eh?
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Post by crzhrs on Jun 11, 2007 11:07:06 GMT -6
It's actually 1,311 interesting posts . . .
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Post by crzhrs on Jun 11, 2007 12:23:33 GMT -6
Anyone ever go to a "living history" site. There are several in New England that recreate life in the 1600 & 1700s. Everything is authentic, even the "re-enactors" speaking the way the original people spoke.
We have a fantastic living museum in Portsmouth, NH called Strawbery Banke which includes houses from the 17th-20th century with detailed period furniture, appliances, landscape, gardens, etc.
Those I would consider factual and authentic, true to the way it really was.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jun 11, 2007 12:49:27 GMT -6
Okay, here's something we can follow.
from Slate:
The Washington Post fronts a literary take on a Reader's Digest-type survival story complete with the italicized contemporaneous thoughts of the survivor, this one of a Navy Seal badly wounded in Afghanistan. The story promises quite the payoff. "Out of that darkness comes this spark of a story. It is a tale of moral choices and of prejudices transcended. It is also a reminder of how challenging it is to be a smart soldier, and how hard it is to be a good man."
I have no clue what the story is about, have not read it, but we've been told how to read it and the conclusions we're to draw. I have no doubt it's a great tale, and true. Just saying.
When they read Last Stand early on about the LBH, a certain amount of thinking had been done for them. It was a willing sacrifice to greater good. It would be disgusting to question it, don't you know. Of course, superior people don't brag, and they don't have to when the media and public has been trained, willingly trained, to react a certain way to key words and phrases.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that wonders why "struggles to understand", "sends a message", and other mind numbing cliches appear in every newscast everywhere. Deliberately or not, we're being trained, differently, but for the same lazy reasons that the Victorians were. The three quarter video shot is replacing the revealed diary entry. It's sorta God's eye as if we're listening to someone talking to someone else truthfully just as we were to believe that anything written in a diary was true, but it's often a trained act or deceitful entry actually meant to be read by others. Have you noticed how all witnesses to certain types of events all sound like they're saying the same thing by detail free cliches and phrases we've heard so often they're meaningless?
It's not new. And when you read more history and old accounts, the stories that so many think are unique to Custer and the LBH will be revealed to be almost boilerplate.
Struggle to understand the implications. Will they finally understand? (Pregnant pause sufficient for Pachederm) Only time will tell. This is Dark Cloud on assignment.
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Post by wild on Jun 11, 2007 15:01:03 GMT -6
Have you noticed how all witnesses to certain types of events all sound like they're saying the same thing by detail free cliches and phrases we've heard so often they're meaninglessFortunately there is a movement away from this form of communication as I found out while surfing utube political commentaries not to mention DC's [who is sulking at the moment]Dark Endeavours site. The cliche is being replaced by the super sentence.This super sentence is in fact longer than a paragraph rendering it to all intents and purposes redundent.Without as much as a break to draw breath this sentence takes one through the full gamot of the flavour of the month hyperbole.Unlike the meaningless cliche it offers a selection of meanings.The listener also has the option of a quick nap in mid sentence and still awake in time to find something to suit his philsophical preference.
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Post by harpskiddie on Jun 11, 2007 15:28:30 GMT -6
And if they don't tell us beforehand what we are going to hear/see, they tell us afterward exactly what it was, who meant what, and what we are to make of it.
Thanks for that, dc, very much................
Gordie, this is the situation room, where breaking news is what we say it is, and we have lots of tvs on the wall, just like your neighborhood sports bar........................................................
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Post by wild on Jun 11, 2007 15:38:53 GMT -6
And if they don't tell us beforehand what we are going to hear/see, they tell us afterward exactly what it was, who meant what, and what we are to make of it It's user friendly.Its prechewed making digestion so much more effortless.
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Post by mwkeogh on Jun 11, 2007 16:15:03 GMT -6
As far as reenactors to me it is important to have a defined goal of the reenactment. Is the site the exact place where the event took place or adjacent to it. Are the reenactors similar in age and size to the persons they are portraying. I think it is important that people realize how small they were in general if portraying cavalry. Is it a production like a play or is there interaction with the public. I think an unknown trooper would much better in public interaction then say a Benteen. The questions would focus on the era rather than the person. Yet almost all that I have exposure to are Sgts and Officers. Who portrays private William Andrews? AZ Ranger As a matter of fact ranger, we do have a good number of reenactors who portray ordinary troopers in the 7th. One of our more prolific contributors at the Custer Clan site is a very well educated and experienced reenactor who goes by the moniker of Private Gump.
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Post by mwkeogh on Jun 11, 2007 16:22:49 GMT -6
CSS-- You're not getting the tone of the discussion. What's under discusssion is the motivation here ... I pretty much said to myself that when I attended my second LBH re-enactment in 2004 that I wouldn't patronise another one until the script--no matter its author, Indian or White--actually tasted realism. Instead of a true portrayal of the actions at LSH or anywhere else for that matter, instead, we're stuck seeing a Michener-inspired "tale" of the West. If the re-enactors are that devoted to the true telling of history, they'd pull their exacting uniforms, their horses, and their tack until someone gets the story rght. It shouldn't be hard, really. But you want to support this sort of tacit acceptence of "fake' history just for its glory. But, that wouldn't be enough of a money-making propositon, eh? You make some excellent points here Trish, and you should know that a very significant number of reenactors are doing just as you suggest. They have pulled out, myself included, as a direct result of the disgust we feel towards the ridiculous and historically inaccurate scripts that are used year after year. I and others had made several serious efforts to correct this situation over the years, but have now come to the conclusion that if we are to come anywhere close to getting an historical reenactment at LBH correct, it must come from the reenactors themselves and not from the profiteers or hucksters who use the event to make a buck off of an ignorant public audience. As it stands today, the reenactor has no say whatsoever in the scripts used at these events, nor are actual historians used to approve them.
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Post by Melani on Jun 11, 2007 17:20:04 GMT -6
As a reenactor myself, though certainly of different events and periods, I have to say that some of dc's observations are correct--the Civil War types I have met tend to be more middle-aged than anything else, and for some reason, my own Confederate artillery unit tends to run pretty high to extremely fat people--there are three or four out of about a dozen regulars. I certainly wouldn't fool anybody into thinking I'm a boy. I joined that particular unit partly because I was invited, and partly because they allow cross-dressing women--not all do, and they are probably the ones most devoted to accuracy, though there were certainly plenty of cross-dressing women who actually fought in the Civil War. The rules of our club say women have to be able to fool people at 30 feet--some do, some don't. It's up to each unit to enforce their own standards. I do the best I can to look shapeless, which at best means I come out looking fatter than your average Confederate in 1863. Of course, by the end of the war the Confederacy was starting to scrape the bottom of the manpower barrel--at least, that's my rationalization.
A lot of the motivation for reenactors has got to be the desire for time travel--I know I've always wanted to go back and see for myself. Until somebody gets the plans for the machine from H.G. Wells, this is the best I can do. It's also a lot of fun to get dressed up and pretend to be somebody you're not.
But the very best reason I can think of for any sort of living history presentation is to attract the attention of the public in an interesting and entertaining way. Even if the presentation is not perfect or totally believable, if one kid in the audience thinks, "I want to find out more about this!" the job has been done. The state of public education in many places is a disgrace, and history is often characterized as boring. The very first book I read about LBH was a young reader's novel that was not totally historically accurate, but it's absolutely the reason I am here now. If a fat, middle-aged guy (or a fat middled aged woman, for that matter!) can capture the imagination of somebody who never thought about that topic before, the degree of perfection in the performance is not as important as the creation of that new student.
The last Civil War event that I attended (where I met Private Gump, by the way) provided a field trip and workshops for about 1,000 schoolchildren. Apparently the president of the local school board is a Civil War buff, and decreed that all classes would attend. It's a pretty good guess that out of that number of kids, at least one or two will find their lives and interests changed as a result.
That said, I am totally in favor of achieving the highest degree of accuracy possible, and I applaud Col. Keogh's efforts in that direction. The bizarre scripts used for LBH reenactments and the reasons for them have been discussed elsewhere (see the "Reenactors" section). For a really interesting picture of a true "hardcore," check out Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz.
If reenacting is not dc's personal cup of tea, then I suggest that he not attend. But I don't think it's really necessary to ridicule other people's pastimes because you don't enjoy them yourself, or understand the reasons behind them.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Jun 11, 2007 17:54:24 GMT -6
At Fort Casper, they used to have a couple of troopers, who went about their daily duties, but who would stop to answer questions posed to them about their mounts, unis etc. I never asked if they were employees or volunteers. They certainly were authentic-looking in terms of size, clothing, scruffiness etc., and greatly added to the experience of visiting the site. Gordie, I hope that the train from Caribou, Maine runs over your new love affair................................ Exactly the kind that I feel contribute to a learning process. AZ Ranger
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