St. Anthony Art Festival

Today we spent about 2 hours continuing our summer of craft experiment. Part one here. While the Edina Art Fair is going on, and it's billed as Minnesota's second largest art fair, we decided to take our chances with a smaller event.

The St. Anthony Art Festival on Como Ave. in St. Paul keeps things small - 80 artists in all. After our time at the last event - the American Craft Council Show - this one was a huge step down the crap hole in quality.

After parking the car and walking back to find wife, I passed a few booths. This one caught my eye.

I found wife and told her about the booth full of pottery that resembled birch trunks. 

"Birch pottery? This is what someone dedicated her life to?" I said. 

"Let's try positive husband," wife responded.

I'd like to say things got positive, but they didn't. We were done with half the art booths in 20 minutes. Wife's eye was caught by a few things, but usually the people in the booths would turn her off. One woman was selling necklaces, and we overheard her explaining the significance of salt and pepper shakers on the necklace as black slavery items. From what I could gather, white guilt was her selling point, but then I wondered what you do when you get home or wear it out later. "Nice necklace!" "Yeah! And it reminds me of how horribly we treated fellow human beings!"

But really, I need to be more positive. What did I like? I liked the atmosphere. Although the booths were sparse, and the quality of items circumspect, and the booth merchants overzealous (one calling out that she had my wife's size in clothing), the neighborhood was pleasant. I could imagine living there. Lots of old trees, bike paths, cute shops and access to the basic needs. And a nifty old library that was benefiting from the fair. It'll be under renovation starting Monday, but they had a used book sale. 

The book sale was pretty packed, but I nabbed a few choice books for the summer's reading. I got a historical fiction trilogy by Norwegian Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset, an early book by J.M. Coetzee and a John LeCarre novel. All for 6 bucks. 

We also stopped in a small wine shop, very small, like European shoppe small, but nice. We're drinkin' wine tonight!

By this point, wife's morning caught up with her. I had woken and done my normal morning routine of eating cereal. Wife, however, wanted to just get going, so she skipped breakfast, took some meds, and had half an energy drink on the way to the event. This led to feeling crappy. 

We got some fresh squeezed lemonade (which by the way is my favorite thing at any fair outside of turkey legs, and I will keep a running tally of our lemonade purchases over the summer on this blog). The lemonade didn't do the trick. Getting wife to make any sort of decision during such events just leads to frustration on her part and mine. "Do you want to sit?" "Um." "OK, how about I get a gyro?" "Or we could go to that cafe." "Sure." "But I don't know."

Eventually, we stopped at a food truck for spicy cheese curds, which wife could handle about four of before they became too much. We also found some mini cookies, but she didn't like them either. Food at this fair was difficult to say the least.

They also had activities for the kids. One such activity was helping kids to make their own pottery complete with clay and wheel. Sounds fun, but when you take a second to think, there's no way they have a kiln available or the time needed to complete the process, right? Right. This became apparent to parents after the fact. While I was getting some stuff back to the car to be less burdened, wife overheard this one between a man and wife who's young son was carrying around his newly created clay pot. 

"So, what are we gonna do with a bunch of wet clay?"

I also need to mention the abundance of lutes and mandolins. I swear to Christ every one who plays lutes in Minnesota outside of Ren Fest was at this thing. Now, I think it's great for lute and mandolin players to have a place to perform, where they can feel safe from the years of bullying, but you just can't unhear Beatles tunes being PBS-ified to death by straining them through a mandolin quartet. 

This guy was good though. 

Could be that he was playing a Greek bouzouki though, a point of order he made sure to note. 

I was not alone! Wife was severely disappointed at the quality of this fair. We were not 4 booths into our second half of the 80 art booths when I swear to god I heard our future selves behind us. A woman was saying to her husband "Do you think you could be more positive?" and the husband was saying "Maybe." 

Seriously though, I haven't described it well, but this fair felt like the castoffs of Minnesotans who couldn't get into the Edina fair. It's just not worth describing and I don't have the energy to do so beyond one more. 

We walked quickly past, but it was a booth of drawings and copies of those drawings, intricate pencil pieces of people. The elderly woman at the booth was busy arranging the pieces. You couldn't help but notice that she had talent. The pieces were intricate, but unsettling, like she was going for R. Crumb, but not on purpose. You felt bad for her, to have so much talent, but not quite enough to be really good, and knowing she was old enough that it wasn't likely to be a matter of needing more practice. 

At this point, wife said to go get the car. She looked ready to faint, so I found her a chair and went back to the car, passing by a booth full of homemade beanie babies and groaning while at it. 

While I was getting the car, wife heard this passive aggressive conversation take place behind her by a woman with a small child. 

"Oh, I just wish I could get a chair her so my child can sit down for a bit."

Aimed. Right. At. Her. 

Wife did get up eventually, but the woman is seriously lucky she didn't drop kick that kid. Wife has been known to shove misbehaving kids out of her way in public restrooms (she came charging out that time, grabbed my arm, and said "We must GO now" and we hightailed it out of the restaurant.) We're not kid people, and on top of that, we're not fans of people who feel their children should be entitled to everything at the expense of others. 

Tomorrow, if we can stomach another outing, we're going to the Edina Art Fair. Pray for us. 

2013 Lemonade Tally: 3

2013 Cheese Curd Tally: 1

Bipolar Life in 2012

In typical fashion I’m a day late on reflection. Seems that all the year of 2012 blogs are already out and done.

I was at a show the other night, the Vilification Tennis group doing their F**K 2012 show. They are a wildly inappropriate insult comic group and always a blast to go see. You will think “Oh, you didn’t” at least once during the show, often while laughing. Here’s a video of them at the renaissance fest.

 I cannot repeat the Red Hook jokes, but they did help me personally to find some way through that shit that has been weighing on me for the past month.

Well, during the show, one of the activities was to ask the audience who had the shittiest year. They asked people to raise their hands to share. I thought over the past year.

I started off the year 4 months into unemployment that would last another 2 then got some sort of contract-work-employed for a couple months. I would have declared bankruptcy if I’d had the $1,500 for a lawyer. I was 3 months into pre-foreclosure on the house. I told my mother I'd had thoughts of suicide in two emails, and she never responded. I broke off contact with my family. I’ve hit my heaviest weight ever in the last week. Wife is now living in the uncertain contract position life where we never know when she will be paid and how long she has a job. Wife’s years of school loans are coming due at a rate of $900 a month to begin with. We enter 2013 with no savings, no safety net, and capped off the holidays by walking out on Christmas weekend with wife’s family after her grandmother said one too many criticisms of wife (a long list 33 years deep that includes how she was too big to ever get a husband, too dumb, useless and now added too loud, so thanks for that new complex). Also had a fun fight with her family members who were complaining about homeless people begging for money, when we were literally weeks from being among them when I finally landed my job.

Yet. I didn’t raise my hand.

And not because I was scared to speak in public. I don’t have that fear.

I didn’t raise my hand out of some sort of “could be worse” thing.

For every piece of crap part of my life over the past year, I also thought about the things that went right.

We sold the house before it was foreclosed, without owing money. I got hired by an awesome company and doing what I love – writing and creating. I am doing better without my family, and now know they can’t manipulate me through money, even when times are at their worst, and no longer accept money from them. I do pretty well feeling like shit about life on my own without their help, and Wife’s work is uncertain, but it’s a fuck of a lot better than working for Lisa Larson et al. at Hennepin Technical College. She gets paid closer to what she is worth, is respected for what she can do, and has gotten to know my colleagues better than me since she’s more of a people person than me. We get to go to work together every day and eat lunch together. We got on a debt reduction program. We quit smoking in August and it has stuck. Once I got my job, we have been able to start fully participating in life in the Twin Cities by having fantastic dinner experiences at The Melting Pot, the Lexington, Mort’s Deli, and more. We spent our anniversary in the St. Paul Hotel, where we got upgraded to the poshest room where presidents, dignitaries and celebrities stay. We’ve gone to Twins games, Paul F. Tompkins, Wits, Sleepwalk with Me with both Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia at the screening, the It’s A Wonderful Life Radio Play, a Roast of Ebenezer Scrooge, the ballet, Art a Whirl, the Walker Art Museum, Northern Spark, the Aquatennial fireworks, Prairie Home Companion, Canterbury Downs horse races. Instead of not being able to go to things because we’re broke as shit, we can’t go cause we simply can’t find the time cause there’s too much we want to do. We’ve had trips to the North Shore, Duluth, and Red Wing. Wife’s best friend made it home safely from Afghanistan. Wife overcame fear of heights to go with me up Lutsen mountain in a gondola. For one month, we were both happily employed full time (more than we’ve ever been). We’ve been relatively healthy this year. I’m off all medications. Our cars have miraculously made it through another year.

2012 continued our bipolar life, which would have been a good alternate name for this blog. Highs, Lows, and few inbetweens.

BTW, the guy who won the shittiest year award: Got the Harley he’d saved up for years for, six months later, got hit by a drunk driver and spent three months in the hospital. Yeah, that would suck ass.

The nerd cleavage bonanza

I've been to the Renaissance Festival twice before. The first time I was about 14, with my family. I remember my sister crying from how sore her feet got, she even had to get molded inserts for her shoes to help her feet grow correctly after that. The second time, I was 22, and went with some friends. We watched glass blowing for about a half hour. I don't remember much else.

This year, some friends who are die-hard fans of the fest had some free tickets. Fiance needed a day off for herself, so this was the perfect opportunity to have me babysat for the day. My friends get rather decked out for the fest, complete with doublets, feathered leather hat, knee high boots, leather gauntlets, etc. My friend was even asked to have his picture taken by a stranger who said she wanted her fiancé to dress up like him for her wedding.  I have no such accoutrements, and went in my normal clothes. I tried to refer to myself as in full costume as "the Doctor." The joke didn't go over well with them. Le sigh.

Things I learned at Ren Fest:

1.       People in medieval timey England were fond of eating foods like turkey legs, ale, cider, onion rings, cheese curds, pizza, soda, and a rustic treat called "funnel cakes"

2.       The inhabitants of this time in history were likely to wear either chain mail and swords even when not actively participating in combat.

3.       Other inhabitants liked to dress up as if they were pirates from hundreds of years in the future with a liking for eyeliner.

4.       People who sell pickles were often shirtless.

5.       Some people earned a living asking for money to insult the person paying them.

6.       In England during this time period, fairies were often found wandering the streets with flutes or soap bubbles. I imagine they died out from plague or famine, being unable to use English to ask for food or money. It is too bad that fairies do not live yet today.

7.       People in the 1600s really loved pewter things. Especially if it involved dragons.

8.       They also loved staffs, being experts in both walking and in the martial arts.

9.       Ye olden times were known for relaxation, often in suspended canvas chairs that swung from a peg in the ceiling.

10.   The silk-screen shirt began in England.

11.   Outside every village was a sea of vehicles driven by internal combustion engine.

12.   Port a potties were plentiful and well used.

I did have a good time watching the falconer, some vilification tennis where the actors sling ya mamma jokes with devastating acuity, and looking for a nice necklace for the fiancé. While waiting at one of the ye olde timey ATM machines, I overheard the following conversation between what sounded like a 20 something man and his mother.

Mother: What are you doing?

Man: Waiting for the ATM.

Mother: Here, let me be your ATM. Here's 40 bucks.

Man: That's OK. I'll just wait.

Mother: Those things are a rip off. You'll pay 5 dollars to get 20.

Man: That's OK.

Mother: Just take the 40 bucks. Let's go.

Man: I'll just wait here.

Mother: What did you want to get?

Man: A turkey leg.

Mother: I'll get it for you, come on.

Man: You do that. I'll wait here.

This went on for three more escalating minutes until the guy gave up and left.

The weather was wonderful for the day, and by 4, I was extremely tired. The toddler with us got fairy dusted (sprinkled with glitter), which thereafter contaminated the rest of us for a fun education in plague.

Lastly, I'm a nerd myself, so I feel comfortable saying this, but I've never seen so many nerds together at once. It was like a convention of the outcasts from "Wet Hot Crazy Summer." People carried swords with abandon. Women sported outfits that barred midriffs and spilled cleavage without prejudice all over the streets of yore.

Men wore kilts and cloaks without fear of reprisal. People let their nerd flags fly, and it was glorious.