A Head Full of Ideas that were Driving Me Insane....

Ah, just another dull Saturday of chores and catching up on paperwork at the office.

NOT.

We made it to the early 17th century by a bit before 3, happily delayed by a detour into Canandaigua to see a small coffee-bar show of art by a longtime friend of ours. We weren't costumed, but I'd say better than half the crowd was, and good times were everywhere. The driving rain of the trip there had settled down to an occasional mist before we sat down for the first performance, and we spent the next four hours wandering about the events, shoppes and occasional stoppes for "hearty drynks," as they're known.

I had to get the occasional line off in passing. Seeing a shop I didn't recall from previous visits, one titled "Highland Anvils," I felt compelled to stop in and ask if my order was ready. The puzzled artisan then learned it would be under the name "Coyote, W."  It was also necessary to comment on the small number of anarchronisms, particularly the one also involving arachno-ism.  Seeing a wooden sign in one of the artisan shops saying "visit our website" made me wonder if it would point to a pile of spiders rather than anything on Ye Olde Internette. And where one of the painters' inventory included a portait of a slightly out-of-century English kinnigit- Sir Paul McCartney- I found myself commenting, "I knew he was old, but not that old."

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I know, leave the comedy to the professionals. And we mostly did, until the very end. If you've never been, the actual entertainers are in two bands. Some are working the crowd in character throughout the day; because of the lateness of the day and the earlier rain, we didn't see much of this bunch. The others, with set-piece performances ranging from Shakespearean re-enactments to wench auctions, run in about 8 different venues scattered about the grounds, with performances scheduled every 45 minutes.  We worked in four of these: Daniel Duke of Danger, who performs acrobatic stunts mixed in with more true stories about Renny gigs than I've ever heard in one sitting (all of them hilarious); Jennifer the Falconry Chick, who was burdened with a wet-feathered falcon who wouldn't fly and one pissed-off greathorned owl named Boo who wouldn't do any stupid pet tricks, either; Emrys the Ratcatcher, featuring a couple of cat-toy rats, an equally dead Wilber the Dancing Weasel, several wooden sticks to make them perform, and a stuck-up assistant he picked from the audience named Liz who was, if anything, the deadest thing on the entire stage; and finally, the DaVinci Brothers.

Brother, in this case. Bob's the living one (Leo, who you may have heard of, does make appearances as a lifesize puppet who works the crowd, but not this time). I asked after the show, and this "Bob" (actual name: Ken) is not affiliated with the silliness that once went on at this Faire with three guys performing under the names "Engelbert! Humperdinck! BOB!!!")

The DaVinci specialty is opera, and the day's performance was one he calls "Yo! Figaro!"  The previous performer's selection of the unwilling Liz should have confirmed for me that the "audience participants" are not, in fact, pre-selected shills. Any remaining doubt about that was dispelled when Bob called me up onstage to play the part of the Count.


That IS Bob to the right, but the one in the middle is not me. It is, however, an accurate representation of the costume I was given, and of the costume of Susanna (real name: Ethan, who I'd never met in my life) who I was to fall in love with.

It was around this point that I remembered one of Daniel's stories from earlier in the day. The Sterling troupe is well-paid from our admission fees, and no hats are passed, but at other Faires, that's how the performers earn their keep. Daniel was buying groceries in an Ohio Kroger with a pile of crumply dollar bills, to the chagrin of the beyotch behind him whose time he was wasting. He said to her, "Lady, I'm an exotic dancer and I earn every one of these dollars." To which she replied, "If you were any good, you'd be getting fives!"

So THAT, as they say, was my motivation for reaching into my wallet while Bob was instructing "Susanna," pulling out what was literally my last dollar, and then, before assuming the position you see above, sticking it smartly between "her" prominent (other than their continually falling off) man-boobs.

Bob lost it.

It was rather a blur from there, but I'm told we all did well. That seismic activity you picked up from Western Europe was Mozart spinning in his grave as Bob worked "That's Amore" and the Godfather theme into the opera.

An hour-plus of Garrison Keillor and a whole Thistle & Shamrock later (see, in other places they don't conflict:P), we were home and happy.  Bob encourages his "celebrity alumni" to keep in touch with him, but I'm not sure he's looking forward to hearing from his problem Count.

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Unrelated PS: The Canandaigua coffee shop carries the Artvoice-ish local weekly from Rochester, where Strangers With Candy just opened at the Little. Its arts staff gacked a personal interview with Amy Sedaris, ranging from comedy to cupcakes. The online version is here, although it sadly does not reproduce the very pretty picture of her un-Jerriatric self which accompanied the text version.