(no subject)

[oakenguy]

Yesterday morning, pausing only long enough to eat high-quality doughnuts and stop at one of the world's worst yard sales it's possible to have without actually setting customers on fire, a hearty band of friends and myself set off for the Connecticut Renaissance Faire!

But first a little more about the yard sale because it still pisses me off. If you say you're going to open at 9, don't be offended when people want to buy things at 9:10. Have money ready to make change. Maybe (and I know I'm going a little crazy here) have prices on things, or at least try to keep the "if you want it, it must be worth something, so I'm going to make up a price based on your interest level" look off your face when someone asks what something costs. And don't, don't, DON'T be rude to your girlfriend as she's trying to help you.

So the day had nowhere to go but up! And up it went, as we headed down for Opening Day. The sky was clear, the town was Woodstock, and the streets had....art deco calf statues everywhere?



My travelling companions looking for the Faire inside the calf's belly. Stupid Mapquest directions.


I kid. Because I love. We got there and plunged neck-deep into the interactivity--I'm not sure if it's the presence of r4venp1x1e or general joie de vivre, but this is the type of faire where if you stand still for more than a minute, you run the strong risk of having two maidens decide you're looking too pensive and start singing for you.

There were fewer Fae and more Vikings (ooo, sorry, NORSEMEN...they get tetchy about the distinction)

this year, which was a little disappointing only because I'd seen just enough of the Fae Court last year to get really curious about how it worked. For example, I'd been looking forward to asking one of the Animal Fae how it felt about the fact that their rulers seemed to be exclusively vegetation. (Not that I would've fomented revolution or anything. Not me. Not even for the chance to hear characters yelling "Up Mammalia! All we have to lose is our agriculture!")

Anyhow, the Fae that were there were high-quality.
They were doing something that might just've been a street bit, or might be interesting foreshadowing for future shows: devout Christian members of King Arthur's court apparently can't perceive them in any way. I'm not sure the Faire circuit is ready for a Fae vs. Christianity plotline, but it would certainly be entertaining. In general, I thought they did a *really* good job at coming across as otherworldly--not just neutral to human politics, but having different modes of thought altogether.

Speaking of different modes of thought being emitted from alien brains, I caught the Pope and Cardinal performances twice, first at the sing-along and then at the deeply scarring Poprah! show, where they spent time holding a competition to see which attractive woman would be the next Pope:




EDIT: My mistake, I labelled the picture wrong, the proper photo should have been this one:

There were many more good performances, too many to list (and some of them by vendors!); additional photos are up at www.nerennies.org .

Anyone sane would have ended the day after 8 hours at a Faire, but such a term has never been used to describe anyone in our car--while at the Chinese buffet we stopped at for supper, we noticed that our place mat had an ad for MONSTER MINI GOLF. Eighteen holes, balls glowing in the dark, each hole dedicated to a different monster.

We. Were. So. There.

It was amazing. Blacklight, fog machines, a DJ ("DJ Minigolf" is a name that needs to exist), a fake camel in the middle of the room for no apparent reason...this is the way golf is meant to be played. They even had an air hockey hustler! (Actually, that was my friend ldyfyrefly. And by "hustle" I can include her clever tactic of taking pity on me and lifting her hands from the table for a round, cleverly setting me up to SCORE AGAINST MYSELF with my own ineptness. She's sly like that.)

And they're having costume contests through the month of October, bad_gustav. Can I describe how utterly happy watching the Faire cast play minigolf in garb would make me? With '80s music on? No, I cannot. I can only express it with white chocolate. Think about it.