Monday, and a bit more.

[vakkotaur]

Sunday evening Bawd found her sunscreen and put it where she'd remember it, or hoped so. She jokingly asked what she'd do without me to remind her, as she had chided me for not reminding her Saturday (how was I to know, anyway?) though did mention it Sunday. So Monday morning when I figured it wasn't too early and maybe not too late I called her and wound up getting her voicemail.

Monday evening she called me and said she did remember, even though she didn't check her messages until the afternoon. I was also told things felt a bit different without me there, which is a bit of an ego boost.

That was the high point of Monday, as the rest was packing, driving, unpacking, and all the usual travel day stuff.

---

Mistress Bawd remarked on the very different feel of smaller faires that were reasonably well run (rather than, say, Rosenthorne - and there had to be a mention of That Mansfield Thing) and larger faires. There was general agreement that bigger is not necessarily better.

I found myself remarking that "the Iowa faires are back." That is, the feeling I had at Salisbury and Waterloo and Nishna and ARA had returned. It's not something that's easily measured. It's the effect of give-a-damn being important and not the absolute rule of make-a-buck by the organizer(s). This shows and participants are noticeably happy and it's genuine. It's not just "smile for the crowd" (cue Laugh, Clown, Laugh) and it sets up a neat positive feedback that builds on itself. Not that there is no complaint, but the downsides are dealt with and shrugged off rather than dwelt upon.

I will note that the Iowa faires have never completely left. There is Riverssance which took cues from Siouxland and there is Nodaway, both of which are faires I've heard good things about but have never (yet) been to myself.

Rob asked how ACRF compared to IRF or how the faire was for me sometime Sunday. I told him that is was like he took IRF's site and weekend (which he did) and performed a "radical suckectomy" on it. This was passed on to Gilroy and the term seems to have amused him even more than it amused me.

One thing I didn't notice, because it wasn't there, was the tired wooden poseable man figure with the sad "Blimey, this is free!" sign by it. That was always at IRF and while the poseable figure might not be bad, it wasn't maintained (some paint every few years and tightening the bolts doesn't take that much) and the sign to point out it was free just made the whole place look yet another bit cheaper. ACRF benefitted from the absence of that junk.

Comments

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

One thing I didn't notice, because it wasn't there, was the tired wooden poseable man figure with the sad "Blimey, this is free!" sign by it. That was always at IRF and while the poseable figure might not be bad, it wasn't maintained (some paint every few years and tightening the bolts doesn't take that much) and the sign to point out it was free just made the whole place look yet another bit cheaper.

Yeah...and the stuff by that sign, which I saw at every single Greg Schmidt fair I've ever been to over the past fifteen years (as well as the other signs), was the only thing I've ever seen at one of his fairs that was free—OK, the portapotties would be another thing. I remember seeing the pathetic little ring toss thing at Amana, pulled up out of the ground so that its stakes were pointed up—looked pretty darned dangerous to me, as did the poseable figure. It's all too easy to imagine fingers getting caught in one of the joints and mashed by the weight of the thing.

Suckectomy

[(Anonymous)]

ROFLMAO... can't breathe... can't wait to see it in OOED

Dang... I wish I knew

[irpooh.livejournal.com]

why in the blue blazes LJ keeps insisting on logging me off??????

I get tired of posting Anononymously and then having to explain...

I'm now going to return to ROFL over Suckectomy

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Not just any suckectomy, but a radical suckectomy.