>Nick does not appear to regard the word Gypsy as a slur.
My observation has been that this seems to be more of a US thing. Possibly because the UK travelling population is a mixture of Roma, Irish Travellers, Scottish Travellers, et al whereas the US seems to be majority Roma. So (caveat: reductive) in the UK Gypsy has tended to be a Not Ideal but useful catch all term used by travellers even outside of those communities that specifically identify as 'Gypsy' (and there's been a wide variety of explicit slurs to be grabbed when people were throwing slurs) and in the US it's almost entirely been a word used *at* or *about* people while disregarding their own wishes. Hence active rejection of it.
(I'm sure you already knew all this - I just think about it a lot due to Traveller family members)
The man giving the talk (not a gypsy, but married to one and for some time a traditional caravan painter) mentioned in passing that "travellers" were people who had assumed the travelling lifestyle but "gypsies" were people who were born to it.
Is it wicked of me to see the word "traveller" capitalised and instantly think of the Free Trader Beowulf?
Thanks. (I genuinely type these things in cafes while waiting for my bacon roll, so if I don't have a Fact to hand I don't look it up. I think going back and correcting it spoils the spontaneous feel.)
9 August 2022 at 12:54
I am back in the Rincon coffee shop on the high street. There is a barber shop and an estate agent over the road. People from the other local shops come and order coffees ion sixes, the staff know them by name. I have had a bacon sandwich and a flat white.
Yesterday I heard a talk by the aforementioned Nick Dow and the afore afore mentioned Cohan Braithwaite Kilcane about gypsy music. Nick points out that many of Cecil Sharp’s anecdotes don’t conform to actual gypsy culture, and Cohan points out that some of the fiddle tunes have flattened octaves. That bit went over my head, truthfully, but the tunes were nice. I also learned that the Gypsy language is properly a “cant” a word I have previously only heard in the context of Les Miserables and Dungeons and Dragons. Nick does not appear to regard the word Gypsy as a slur.
The soon to be renamed English Folk Dance and Song Society, as founded by the aforementioned not entirely reliable Cecil Sharp runs morning concerts for break out performers in a cellar every day. I heard two very good very traditional singers. Mossy Christian opened up his set with Where Are You Going To My Pretty Maid which I think of as a nursery rhyme. My heart sometimes sinks when trad singers say they are going to do something they wrote themselves, but Megan Wisdom’s nature poetry, about Conkers and Dandelions was genuinely clever. Conkers are shiny when you get them home but soon go dull. Life is like that.
The Melrose Quartet are always excellent. They did a close harmony variant of Green Grow the Rushes, possibly from Newfoundland. They did their death denying take on Dominion of the Sword. Its a civil war song, possibly on the Cavalier side, to which Carthy added verses about South Africa and Green Peace and they have added verses about military drones and trident missiles. I cannot remember the names of the two performers who are not Nancy Kerr and James Fagan. This will haunt me.
Someone in the ballad session sang about s hundred verses of Earl Brand. Girl meets boy, girl and boy elope, boy kills girls entire family but one, survivor kills boy, girl marries survivor as consolation prize. It is distantly related to Jim Morays Lord Douglas. These kinds of things are really the highlight of the festival.
The Spooky Men are always absurdly good. There was no interval in their set but this didn’t stop them singing Welcome To The Second Half. The song about their favourite male body part turned out to be about eyebrows. It is usually feet. Vote The Bastards Out got the biggest round of applause pf the night. They don’t sing political songs, they just sing them because they sound nice. They normally do some serious Georgian chanting, but this time they did two Ukrainian song, one of which roughly translated as something like Cheer Up Ukraine. This got the biggest round of applause of the night. The set as a whole was less silly than it sometimes is. If you haven’t heard Bohemian Rhapsody ad s thigh slapping yodelling number then you haven’t. They disperse into the audience as the chorus of pour out love on the one you love fades away. They really are just about the best live act in either hemisphere.
I drank beer in the Bedford and talked to actual humans. The same humans have come into Rincans so I should stop.
(This is a lie. I stopped writing and finished the diary after lunch in a different cafe. Who can blame Cecil Sharp if he sometimes made stuff up.)
[Image]Hi,
I'm Andrew.Thanks for reading.
There are other things of mine you can read, if you want.
"Monday"
4 Comments -
>Nick does not appear to regard the word Gypsy as a slur.
My observation has been that this seems to be more of a US thing. Possibly because the UK travelling population is a mixture of Roma, Irish Travellers, Scottish Travellers, et al whereas the US seems to be majority Roma. So (caveat: reductive) in the UK Gypsy has tended to be a Not Ideal but useful catch all term used by travellers even outside of those communities that specifically identify as 'Gypsy' (and there's been a wide variety of explicit slurs to be grabbed when people were throwing slurs) and in the US it's almost entirely been a word used *at* or *about* people while disregarding their own wishes. Hence active rejection of it.
(I'm sure you already knew all this - I just think about it a lot due to Traveller family members)
2 August 2022 at 07:58
The man giving the talk (not a gypsy, but married to one and for some time a traditional caravan painter) mentioned in passing that "travellers" were people who had assumed the travelling lifestyle but "gypsies" were people who were born to it.
Is it wicked of me to see the word "traveller" capitalised and instantly think of the Free Trader Beowulf?
7 August 2022 at 04:05
The other two members of the Melrose quartet are Jess and Richard Arrowsmith.
9 August 2022 at 03:32
Thanks. (I genuinely type these things in cafes while waiting for my bacon roll, so if I don't have a Fact to hand I don't look it up. I think going back and correcting it spoils the spontaneous feel.)
9 August 2022 at 12:54