Scenes from 'My Life as an Artichoke'

The costume is fantastic. It's a mailbox-sized artichoke. It's gorgeous…except I'm a yard wide, can't lift my legs, can't bend at the waist, and my arms are trapped at my side, just sorta waving there. I'm Swamp Thing meets Tom Servo.


My partner-in-mascotting, Aga the Beet, has been mistaken for an eggplant, a turnip, a radish, a fig, an onion, a space alien, and a Hershey's kiss. (Personally, at certain angles the costume looks like a giant purple nose.) The constant need to re-affirm her identity has taken its toll. Walk, wave, smile, yell "I'm a BEET!", wave, walk, have picture taken, yell "No, I'm a BEET!"…it's grueling.

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The Parade went almost perfectly. The plan was simple--march down the bike path to the heart of the Square, find the rock band (already in progress), let the Mardi Gras-style musicians in the parade climb onstage and join the band while the parade-freaks dance with the crowd. QED.

No one's fault at all that there were actually TWO rock groups playing in the Square, and that our mob went for the band who didn't even know a parade was going on that night.

Wish I knew what they were thinking when they saw 7 unicyclists, 4 stiltwalkers, 2 giant vegetables, a giant brain-pinata and the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble heading right for them, though.

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The thing to remember about stripping in a vegetable costume is this: YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY LEAVES.

Reason 1: You lose them faster than you expect. I chose my music partly with an eye for speed, and wound up with 2:48 of brassy, sassy fury, and I went onstage disciplined and focussed and fully intending to pace myself….and then, I don't know, the crowd and the yelling and the rhythm, yeah, blame the rhythm, but leaves start flying and at the 2:02 point I've shed all the leaves my stubby little Tom Servo arms can reach. Which is especially bad because of

Reason 2: Leaves are where the money gets put! I'm out the price of a triple-espresso because I couldn't keep my cash where it got inserted. And damnitall, I may not be a woman in clown make-up drinking an entire bottle of what looked like bourbon without pausing for breath once*, but still, I earned that cash.




*God, I love the Burlesque Revival folks.**


**And the Handstand Command. In fact, that whole night rocked.