Dressing/Rituals Visual....
All right, will try and combine a couple of recent topics. Over the last 2 months, I've been to 2 funerals/memorial services. One was for a lesbian friend of mine, non denominational (though one of her good friends was a Christian priest so the general service was Christian), and the other for a colleague.
There were a lot of colors and a basket of funky hats for people to wear at Janet's memorial, a low key space and food Brought By ALL. It also had some lead time to organize.
Yesterday's service for Paul was a mostly corporate affair. Lots of suits and black (I wore a dark purple blouse because I look good in purple). People in the office worked very, very hard to pull this together within a few days. The casket was obvious. Some food was made by one of the attorneys, the rest was catered by Whole Foods.
I suppose you'd call this different "class" rituals, or different milieus. One artistic, one business.
So there's a great deal of variation in our American culture, consider that for your own writing. How much class structure? How much variation? I don't see almost any on Lladrana, and not much in variation on Celta. The basic ceremonies would be the same. Of course, it's easier to write a culture with no variation, or a world with clashing cultures that would handle rituals differently.
The people were dressed differently, ate homemade v. catered food, looked differently, interacted differently -- the patterns of mingling and status were different. These are all things that you can use in your writing.
May your next description of a social gathering be unique.
Robin
There were a lot of colors and a basket of funky hats for people to wear at Janet's memorial, a low key space and food Brought By ALL. It also had some lead time to organize.
Yesterday's service for Paul was a mostly corporate affair. Lots of suits and black (I wore a dark purple blouse because I look good in purple). People in the office worked very, very hard to pull this together within a few days. The casket was obvious. Some food was made by one of the attorneys, the rest was catered by Whole Foods.
I suppose you'd call this different "class" rituals, or different milieus. One artistic, one business.
So there's a great deal of variation in our American culture, consider that for your own writing. How much class structure? How much variation? I don't see almost any on Lladrana, and not much in variation on Celta. The basic ceremonies would be the same. Of course, it's easier to write a culture with no variation, or a world with clashing cultures that would handle rituals differently.
The people were dressed differently, ate homemade v. catered food, looked differently, interacted differently -- the patterns of mingling and status were different. These are all things that you can use in your writing.
May your next description of a social gathering be unique.
Robin
posted by FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens | 7:28 AM
2 Comments:
It seems right that Celta has homogeneous rituals, with only slight variations, since they descend from a group that left Earth to be able to follow their own and there has been slow growth since they arrived.
However the different visual clues, the only really important thing is the sadness and sorrow of family and friends when losing a person that touched their lives in a loving way.
This is true. I looked at Paul's widow and the grief and horror of being in her place shuddered through me. So hard, to lose someone you love so quickly.
And plenty of stories (and we've lingered among ourselves and told stories) of those who have gone. That was good -- the telling of stories, how they were seen, how they touched lives.
Robin
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