No Fever, No Withdrawal

I used to get "faire fever" after an extended time of not going to renaissance faire. Used to. Last year jmaynard and I decided that we wouldn't get season passes to MNRF. He didn't make much use of his last year, though that was a result of his work and his Jimmy Kimmel appearances rather than avoidance. I found I went every weekend as sort of felt I had to to get value out of the pass. Also, I did visit with rillaspins and others.

I didn't even go opening weekend of MNRF this year, and I like the opening weekend as it's generally the least crowded and the most enthusiastic (others still have faire fever, and haven't lost their voices yet on the first day). Rilla isn't doing her spinning demos this year, I've seen many of the acts, and as for most of the shops, well, it is like paying to walk around a mall. The magic I used to feel, isn't quite there. Maybe it's the sausage problem: I know a bit too much about what goes into it. Or maybe it's something else.

Jay and I did see Zilch, who is good as ever (and one of the trees shed an acorn or such onto a wooden bench in perfect rimshot timing at one of his non-story comments). We saw the Dew Drop Jugglers who had some new stuff and it was good to see them on dry land, even if they did keep the torch count down to nine then. Vilification Tennis had an unexpected zinger as the first group started with a "Your mother is so fat..." insult, and the guy's mother was in the audience (she got pointed out, and pointed herself out, objecting) this got quite a crowd reaction. We stayed late enough to catch the first Ten Seconds of Harmony show R-rated singing. They're good (though they could lose the "house band" intro bit which was more loud than good).

We also stopped and watched the end of a large walk-on (but not living pieces) chess game. It was mildly interesting, but something I could easily have walked away from. Somewhere in the day I encountered one of the faeries, who was playing a pair of recorders or such from time to time, as she went about, and giving some small trinket (I didn't get a get close look) to younger kids. I followed her for a while, seeing how long it would take for her to notice me or for someone to point me out. I was surprised at how long that took, but someone did eventually point me out. The faerie turned, acted slightly scared and more indignant, and then I went along with her playing music to lull me... so she could run off. That's probably the bit I'll remember most from this year.

Mistress Bawd was not performing at MNRF as she who plays Mistress Bawd has evidently had enough with some of the nonsense. She'd perform there again, but as she always had, not with some changes she sees as being disadvantageous for both her and her audience. I don't blame her. The surprising thing was seeing her at all, as she just moved to Ireland.

On the way out, Jay and I decided we really don't need to go back to MNRF again this year. We might, but we'd need reason to, which wouldn't be MNRF itself, but seeing some folks we might not otherwise see. I can't really point out any specific thing, as each act I saw was good, we did visit a few folks, and nothing was outright bad. Yet when we were passing time (Ten Seconds of Harmony's first show is at 3:00) I was looking forward to leaving. I'm not to the point of not going to faires anymore - I still enjoy Siouxland, and I wish Waterloo and Salisbury (Des Moines' last real renfaire, I think) and maybe another of the Iowa faires were still around. But when the idea is money first, and maybe someone will be entertained, well, it shows, and it's disappointing.