An Incomplete and General Faire Update.

Well, it's been almost a full month since the last time I had a chance to update so, no doubt, some things will fall into the vague ether of my memory. Hopefully you all had a great time over the last month but for reasons not dissimilar to the ones which kept me from posting I have not been able to keep up with everyone else's.

The end of the season was excellent. I realised that I had been falling back on some of the same tendencies I had displayed in Frobisher's weakest bits and managed to pull myself back into Bernard for the last few weekends. It was rewarding since the patrons immediately returned to loving Bernard. HE was a sweet character and I got caught up in making him big. Calming down and letting him be smaller was infinitely more rewarding.

Unfortunately I didn't get to interact with a lot of my fellows over the season. I say unfortunately because I heard some amazing things about their bits. Everyone I did see was incredible. I Think this year's cast has been amazingly strong and the results of our good choices manifested in a more varied and compelling ensemble than we've had for a long time. Of course all of the returning cast members have continued in the high caliber of performance which we have come to expect at Bristol. What was truly impressive was the amzing rookies. Across the board this year's newcomers have proven to be both some great friends and some truly incredible performers. I found the cast at large to be tenfold more open and accessible this year. My change of guilde likely had a lot to do with that but I also think that this year's incoming cast had much to do with adjusting the alchemy of our show.

I especially liked interacting with Rachel and Kel. Since we were all of the same station we had a certain camaraderie. We also had developed relationships (Winifred and Bess were cousins) which made us a great team. Reveling in being simple country folk was great fun and I'm glad I had two such talented performers to share it with.

Rachel and I, of course, developed a pretty good relationship. Since we go to meet in the pre season, even before BAPA began I got the special opportunity to attempt to introduce her gently into the sea of madness she was to encounter. Her season must have been quite the trip. To spend the pre-season coming to grip with this new paradigm and then to be thrown a curve ball like playing the queen she certainly surprised me with her resilience and professionalism. If there is one thing to say of Rachel it is that through it all she is a consummate professional. I wish I could master myself enough to conduct myself even half as well as she does.

I also particularly enjoyed interacting with Arne. I've had the pleasure of working with minds like Arne's only a few times in my life. Once he realizes the full scope of his powers God help us all. Such cleverness and originality is rare, exceptionally so.

Everyone in this year's fight cast has been amazing. Sadly, I did not get to play with many of the bad guys save through the Improvables or Twelfth Night. What I have seen though was encouraging. It is nice to see such a talented class coming in and I very much look forward to seeing where they all go from here. For those of you uninvolved with Faire we had a very different fight cast configuration this year. We always team the sheriff up with a new group of bad guys but this year the team was an international foursome of smuggler women. I rarely got to play with them but watching their work was refreshing. The season also brought Josh, the Sheriff's enforcer and Patrick, the sheriff's secretary. Altogether the bad guys were pretty much awesome and all new save Jimmy. I enjoyed very much seeing a bad guy crew with depth and a premise based on more than "they're evil [insert group here]".

One of the people I made the best connection with this year is Angela. She played The Baker's Wife for the first few weeks and we really had a good time with the characters even off the stage. Afterward we continued to hang out backstage and I spotted for her a few times when she played the giant marionette. It proved to be a great bit for Bernard to stand in slack jawed awe of the puppet and I helped them stay safe. Angela is such a clever and fun loving individual I cannot even begin to tell you about the lengths of her skillfulness. Suffice to say that when presented with the idea of returning to KK The concept of doing it alongside Angala made the idea sound actually attractive. For those of you who know how I feel about working with children this should demonstrate to you how fun it is to work with and spend time with Angela.

It's working with people like these that make the faire so very addictive. As if it weren't enough to work at quite possibly the finest faire of it's type and size to be surrounded by such exuberant, effulgent and loving people makes the time spent at Bristol the finest I could ask for. I am reminded once again that my highest highs and lowest lows occur during the faire season.

This season has been no exception. I have once again hurt more than I knew I could hurt and found heretofore unknown heights of joy as well. As per usual I have yearned fruitlessly and missed chances. As usual I have found that through being myself my finest talents manifest and by allowing myself to step outside of boundaries I can reap the greatest of rewards. This season saw me taking on six roles in four shows (the faire as a whole being top among them). I feel blessed for the chances which led me to be a part of these wonderful casts.

A questing we will go!

Just in case I don't get around to a proper post here are the bullets.

+ Discovered the joys of celery roots.
+ Ate well on veggies.
+ Took out a goat again, this time with Rachel.
- Goat was a giant pain in the butt. Word to the wise, full grown goats are get heavy after a while.
+ The mighty Rachel bashed a hole through our frying pan. A child still thought I won the fight.
+ After the narrator says "she ran naked through the streets" a child responded "that's inppropriate."
- No T-walk this week.
+ Married Bess and Little John once again.
+ Wooing lessons all the time.
+ Discovering Bernard's close affiliation with Winifred Humpleberry, and Big Bess Little.
- Flat tire in Gurnee trapped at Shell station.
+ Night in hotel room across the street and subsequent hanging out with Derrick and Shane.
+ Ride back to Chicago with Dietrich and Casey with stops for Toys-R-Us and Steak and Shake.
+ Decided to drive back to Gurnee to retrieve the car with Jake's spare.
- Spare did not fit.
+ Ended up getting AAA to tow the car back to Chicago and drove back home.

Today, work was fine but uneventful. Erin and Megan both showed up to stay here in the apartment for a while. We then drove to Evanston to get Shannon, Erin's Cousin, to Erin's sister's house. Adventures are fun.

So eventful I couldn't tell you about it.

Bless me readers for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last posting. I have committed a number of sins in the intervening time but I don't really have time to go into it in satisfying detail. Instead I have been forced into brevity and concision.

suck.

Weekend of Faire
+ T Walk
+ Getting out into the street more often.
+ I'm sure I did other stuff. Anyone?
Tuesday Night Movie- Blues Brothers, you haven't seen this film until you've seen it with a mob of Chicagoans.
Wednesday Game- I am a nerd, this makes it better because there are other nerds there.
Thursday- I'm sure I did something. Did I go out with Kel? Was this the night I went to Karaoke with Josh? Did I kill a hobo?

Weekend of Faire
+ T Walks.
+ Country Wedding.
+ Improv Night at the Pig and Whistle as an honorary "Don".
+ Frobie's visit went really well. Thank you Mary for saving me from the mistakes of poor planning.
Tuesday of room mate bonding
+ Hellboy II actually really a lot of fun.
+ Lunch at El Pollo Loco.
+ Tuesday Movie- The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is a legend for a reason.
Wednesday Game
- I Wish more of my players could make it consistantly.
+ That said I'm happy to have Carrie in the game now.
Thursday
+ Trip to Shaumburg with Shane and Derrick to see Carrie.
+ Dinner at Samurai Sam's .
+ Dark Knight- just as good the second time.
- Should have been doing Laundry.
-/+ Hung out with Jake while doing laundry until 2:00 am.

Of wives and wooing

This weekend was special in a few ways. It marked the probably last weekend of Angela as the Baker's Wife and Rachel as the Queen. I'm not sure how to properly articulate my feelings on these matters as I was pleased with both of them in both roles and am sad and happy simultaneously to see the shift happening.

I look very much forward to finding my way back into the dynamic that Rachel and I had as I have gotten used to Angela and the way we ran together. I'm excited to see what a full faire day will be like with Rachel. I wonder if we'll end up naming cookies and giggling about the back story of the Bakers. I look forward to re-learning a marriage.

Someone this weekend pointed out that being cast like this was actually not unlike an arranged marriage. The parties have very little input into their chosen spouse so it is only through exploring the marriage itself you learn about each other. I feel very fortunate to have been married off to such wonderful women. I should be so lucky in real life.

Incidentally, as a side note, it was interesting to note that my own family contains Bakers. The name chosen for the Baker's wife is Johanna which is strikingly similar to JoAnn, my Grandmother. More surprising though is that my character got named Peter. My Great Grandfather was Pete. Anyway, I only noticed it this weekend so I thought I would share.

This weekend also marked my return to the T-walk. There was a T-walk the weekend before but in the morning and it was more of a "roguing" since it was less parade and more aimed. The photos looked amazing and I'm sure the lady of honour was tickled pink. Also, due to it's timing I didn't get to go. So I've decided it is my job to keep it alive. On Saturday I had one announced and we had a pretty good turnout. Good enough,in fact, that I plan to reprise the walk both days next week. With a group like this we can have a really crack squad by the end of the season. Jim Estrella, Arne Parrott, and Meredith formed the original quartet. By the way, having a lady on t-walk was great and Meredith is pretty much the perfect woman for the job. As we moved about though we picked up some fantastic additions. Best of all was running into Mary Kebabick. We kept snagging people to add to the line at that juncture including Willem, the Turnip Farmer (one of the inspirations for Bernard). It was very special to get to compliment Mary like that. I hope she enjoyed it as much as we did.

Aside from that Bernard was pretty low key this weekend. I need to work on making him a little more exciting because at this point he's pretty much just a hit and run character. This weeks homework, therefore, expand upon that. On the upside, Bernard is much better for playing with others than Frobisher was. Frobisher didn't work well with other characters in many contexts. Bernard, on the other hand, is open, giving and based almost entirely on the needs or reactions of others. Frobie was big and funny but Bernard is genuine.

In other news, I made an appointment to get contacts on Wednesday. I'm interested to find out what a faire day actually looks like. I haven't seen one since my first year.In other news

Now, in a more generally interesting vein I've been doing some reading of late and I thought I'd share my thoughts.

Magic Kingdom: Sold by Terry Brooks.
What started off as a cute novel turned out to be a very clever and thoughtful approach to the responsibilities of royalty and the universality of fantasy kingdoms. The main character gives up his normal life as a rich lawyer to become king of a fantasy kingdom. What he does not know going into the transaction is that all is not as magical as it might have been advertised. The people of the kingdom no longer recognize the rule of their king even though they are magically tied to the office. the story lays out his quest to synergise the return of their allegiance with the removal of his biggest problems: among them a witch, a dragon and the loss of the king's traditional (enchanted) protector. His lawyer skills allow him to asses the situation and of course, bring out a happy ending.

What makes it particularly interesting are the parts of the books where the reader is presented with the psychology of the character. He is dealing with the loss of his wife and his trepidation in jumping into this kingdom feet first. The conflict of the requirements of his new position and the desires he had coming in is well written nd compelling. It also makes the character all the more sympathetic. Without this element the book might have been just another sword and sorcery, Conneticut Yankee in King Artur's Court, style book. Instead it became a compelling look into the mental faculties of the character and what it takes to be what one must be to fulfill a promise.

I reccomend it.

I'm currently in the middle of The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. I'll keep you all updated on them as I finish them. They've all been very good so far.

"Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog" was fantastic. Joss Whedon did his magic once again and created a touching story in an otherwise comedic scenario. In the world of superheroes and villains Dr. Horrible starts as an amateur. Through the progression of the brief story we learn that he got into the racket in an attempt to affect social change. He sees corruption in the system and pain in humanity and wants to rule the world so he can change that. He also wants to find love with the girl of his dreams, whom he met in the laundromat. The story is sweet but I'm uncertain how much I liked the third act. Acts one and two did a brilliant job of establishing the characters and the conflict between them as well as making Dr. Horrible a compelling and sympathetic character. In Act three though I feel like Whedon dropped the ball. It was good and a satisfying ending, just not up to the level of acts one and two.