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Scarborough Renaissance Festival
May. 19th, 2009 01:34 pmRenaissance Festivals! I've been going to them a long, long time - it's a family thing*, we all dress in garb, sneak a couple water bottles into our belt pouches, and make a day of it. Sunday was perfect - cool, sunny, with a nice breeze. Haven't been to a faire that temperate in a *long* time.
Some thoughts:
* This was pirate weekend and there were no pirates. The place was crawling with Jack Sparrows last year, the hell'd they all go?
* I was watching the (really terrible) jousting when, out of nowhere, Arthur bloody Pendragon pipes up inside my head. I don't have an Arthur muse - don't know if he's been lurking in my subconscious or came along for the ride or what - but suddenly it was all what the hell is going on here and these men are a disgrace and that lancework is fucking awful and I don't care if it's a play, this is *not* how jousting works while I sat there, kind of stunned, and nodded along. And then we went to see the Falconer, which he was much happier with. I don't even know.
* Y'all, and I know this comes as no surprise, RenFaires are veritable bastions of cultural appropriation (also bonus casual racism and misogyny). I knew this, but with(after/during) RaceFail everything was so fucking *obvious* - the white 'belly dancers,' the multiple henna booths (also run by white people), the rampant orientalism, the rampant Celtic fetishism. The sea of really white people.
Don't get me started on the elephant.
Is Scarborough worse then some? I was down at TRF a couple of months ago and don't remember it being *quite* this bad.
* A couple of bright spots - Mikael the Mime is always a joy to watch - his tricks are polished and he's got fantastic audience chemistry. Also Don Juan and Miguel (who've got movies these days, I'll have to get ahold of one).
* More bright spots - the food. Fried mac and cheese on a stick, mmmmm.
* There has been serious talk talk of bringing one of the donkeys and a couple of panniers (but we haven't actually done it. yet). Mom's garb!closets (yes, plural) are vast - we have completely outfitted a party of twelve on more then one occasion (twelve being the number of seats per table at the Iowa State Madrigal Dinner).
Some thoughts:
* This was pirate weekend and there were no pirates. The place was crawling with Jack Sparrows last year, the hell'd they all go?
* I was watching the (really terrible) jousting when, out of nowhere, Arthur bloody Pendragon pipes up inside my head. I don't have an Arthur muse - don't know if he's been lurking in my subconscious or came along for the ride or what - but suddenly it was all what the hell is going on here and these men are a disgrace and that lancework is fucking awful and I don't care if it's a play, this is *not* how jousting works while I sat there, kind of stunned, and nodded along. And then we went to see the Falconer, which he was much happier with. I don't even know.
* Y'all, and I know this comes as no surprise, RenFaires are veritable bastions of cultural appropriation (also bonus casual racism and misogyny). I knew this, but with(after/during) RaceFail everything was so fucking *obvious* - the white 'belly dancers,' the multiple henna booths (also run by white people), the rampant orientalism, the rampant Celtic fetishism. The sea of really white people.
Don't get me started on the elephant.
Is Scarborough worse then some? I was down at TRF a couple of months ago and don't remember it being *quite* this bad.
* A couple of bright spots - Mikael the Mime is always a joy to watch - his tricks are polished and he's got fantastic audience chemistry. Also Don Juan and Miguel (who've got movies these days, I'll have to get ahold of one).
* More bright spots - the food. Fried mac and cheese on a stick, mmmmm.
* There has been serious talk talk of bringing one of the donkeys and a couple of panniers (but we haven't actually done it. yet). Mom's garb!closets (yes, plural) are vast - we have completely outfitted a party of twelve on more then one occasion (twelve being the number of seats per table at the Iowa State Madrigal Dinner).
