RE: Court is Good(tm) (Was: RE: I'm so p

[PETERSR@spiegel.becltd.com (Peters, Rise J.)]

Poster: PETERSR@spiegel.becltd.com (Peters, Rise J.)

Why should people need an "excuse" not to go to court any more than they 
need an "excuse" not to attend bardic circle? Do you want the room full of 
folks who would strongly rather be somewhere else?  I'll admit that it may 
be more period to have the back half of the room full of folks carrying on 
other conversations, children crying, dogs digging in the rushes, people 
picking each other's lice, and so on, but it's certainly more pleasant to be 
there with other folks who are in the mood to pay attention!

I'd be willing to argue that the "four excuses" you list basically all come 
down to one: people stay away because (or, to the degree that) they find 
court boring.  The reason I think that is because folks manage, somehow, to 
find a way to come to the parts of an event that interest them, even if it's 
crowded (try merchanting) or conflicts with setting up for dinner (try 
fighting) or doesn't directly involve them (try bardic circle, or the A&S 
exhibit, or fighting).  If they don't go to that extra effort to find a way 
to come to court, it's because court doesn't interest them the way these 
other things do.

And the complaint that "it's boring" basically breaks into three parts: 
 first, it's usually impossible for someone seated in the back/side to hear 
what's going on (this past 12th Night was a fine exception to this, for the 
most part)(sometimes you can't even hear if you're sitting near the front); 
second, people take way too long to get through simple things, or insist on 
doing extended "schtick" for folks who, again, usually can't hear, or aren't 
 "in" on the "in" jokes; and, third, it looks a lot like a group that (the 
hypothetical court non-attender) doesn't belong to giving each other awards 
and patting each other on the back.  This is why one hears as an 
enthusiastic compliment that "[insert name here] runs short courts."  Short 
is a lot better than long if you can't hear or understand what's going on. 
 This is why the usual approaches to "make it more interesting" fail:  if 
your version of "more interesting" involves more schtick (and thus greater 
length), that makes it worse, not better.

Your final point, though, also indicates the solution to your problem.  Of 
course most folks would go to court to watch their friends win honors.  So, 
to the degree that people get more involved in the Society, which tends to 
happen over time, and know more people, they'll have more reason to be 
there.  And to the degree that they know the folks who are being honored, 
they'll be less bored once they are there.  And if the Crowns and Heralds 
will remember that everyone wants to hear them, we'll all be able to follow 
what's going on as well as we could at this 12th Night.

==Caitlin (who didn't used to go to Court<g>)

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