I woke up this morning in my parents' house to discover that their neighbors across the street were harvesting summer squash from what I had always assumed was a vacant lot, to the strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner." They are still trundling wheelbarrows of squash out from the weeds and winter rye; their radio is now playing Harry Chapin's "Cat's Cradle." I have no explanation.
Yesterday was King Richard's Faire, which was fantastic. I will put up photographs when and if my brother ever sends them. It was bitterly cold, which didn't seem to hinder the amounts of cleavage I saw all around me; perhaps half the people we saw were in garb, some with great dedication to historicity, some damn the anachronisms and full speed ahead. There was at least one elf in the crowd, and one faceless Death with a scythe, and a young couple with ivy wound up and down their arms and wreathed in their hair. And a fair number of pirates, of both genders. My brother probably could have been mistaken for one, albeit the more heroic sort played by Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.—the three days of beard didn't hurt him, either. We saw a show of great cats from a conservation institute, including eleven feet of sandy-striped liger named Hercules who this year officially became the world's largest cat; a display of hawking with a red-tailed hawk, a peregrine falcon, and an eagle owl; several rounds of a tourney, where we found ourselves backing the Spanish Champion; there was a booth for archery, which reminded me how much I missed the sport; and we kept passing a seller of wax roses who had elevated heckling to a noble art.
In between, we wandered around and looked at shops and listened to music, and met up intermittently with two friends of my brother and his girlfriend. My brother now owns a swaggering cavalier hat with a plume. He looks spectacular in it. (On our way back, we stopped at a rest area and as he walked past, a small child sitting with its father started up, "Dad! Dad! Look! That's the man from—" and then the father hurriedly shushed the child, so we never got to hear who it thought my brother looked like. The current bets are either on Will Turner or Antonio Banderas' Puss in Boots, neither of which I think he minds.) I am still considering a belt—probably a girdle, in the original sense; a ζώνη—made from chain-link and malachite, that I may have to go back for. The dress I wore had actually come from the Faire a couple of years ago, as a present from my brother, and it had never been worn or washed before: so while I am given to understand that it looked fantastic, the material also developed a distressing tendency to shed black dye all over me, so that I came home and took it off and looked rather like a photonegative suntan or an exhibitionistic coal miner. (Somebody blasphemed the aspidistra.) And my brother's girlfriend dressed in purple and looked totally anachronistic and very lovely, so that I think we fit right in with the crowds around us. I do wonder if any of the people who looked familiar, at whom I waved and who waved back, actually were people I knew: or if they were just polite . . .
Definitely going back next year.
Yesterday was King Richard's Faire, which was fantastic. I will put up photographs when and if my brother ever sends them. It was bitterly cold, which didn't seem to hinder the amounts of cleavage I saw all around me; perhaps half the people we saw were in garb, some with great dedication to historicity, some damn the anachronisms and full speed ahead. There was at least one elf in the crowd, and one faceless Death with a scythe, and a young couple with ivy wound up and down their arms and wreathed in their hair. And a fair number of pirates, of both genders. My brother probably could have been mistaken for one, albeit the more heroic sort played by Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.—the three days of beard didn't hurt him, either. We saw a show of great cats from a conservation institute, including eleven feet of sandy-striped liger named Hercules who this year officially became the world's largest cat; a display of hawking with a red-tailed hawk, a peregrine falcon, and an eagle owl; several rounds of a tourney, where we found ourselves backing the Spanish Champion; there was a booth for archery, which reminded me how much I missed the sport; and we kept passing a seller of wax roses who had elevated heckling to a noble art.
In between, we wandered around and looked at shops and listened to music, and met up intermittently with two friends of my brother and his girlfriend. My brother now owns a swaggering cavalier hat with a plume. He looks spectacular in it. (On our way back, we stopped at a rest area and as he walked past, a small child sitting with its father started up, "Dad! Dad! Look! That's the man from—" and then the father hurriedly shushed the child, so we never got to hear who it thought my brother looked like. The current bets are either on Will Turner or Antonio Banderas' Puss in Boots, neither of which I think he minds.) I am still considering a belt—probably a girdle, in the original sense; a ζώνη—made from chain-link and malachite, that I may have to go back for. The dress I wore had actually come from the Faire a couple of years ago, as a present from my brother, and it had never been worn or washed before: so while I am given to understand that it looked fantastic, the material also developed a distressing tendency to shed black dye all over me, so that I came home and took it off and looked rather like a photonegative suntan or an exhibitionistic coal miner. (Somebody blasphemed the aspidistra.) And my brother's girlfriend dressed in purple and looked totally anachronistic and very lovely, so that I think we fit right in with the crowds around us. I do wonder if any of the people who looked familiar, at whom I waved and who waved back, actually were people I knew: or if they were just polite . . .
Definitely going back next year.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}