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It was demonstrated to me in March of this year how spring comes a little early in Oklahoma. It was demonstrated this next to the last weekend in May how summer comes early too. Both Saturday and Sunday got into the 90s with Gulf humidity. This was the Celtic weekend, so on Saturday I wore a cotton chemise with a green plaid overlay of not very thick woven cotton, and had the elastic neckline lowered to half mast by early afternoon. The Faire mercifully lets you refill your water bottle at any of many flush privies, and I had kind participants offer gulps of ice water at times when I was standing outside with the harp.

I was motivated to finally do something I had been contemplating since last year, buy a Gypsy outfit of diaphanous silk - or in this case a mix of silk, cotton, and polyester (for a bit more durability and ease of washing). Some sienna brown harem pants with a long outside slit in the sides of each leg, a bright red pennant skirt for an overlay (cuz the pants are a wee bit thin for going regimental), a maroon velveteen top that leaves my midriff bare, and finally a hip scarf with the jingly coins. I donned it for Sunday, and it was cool, especially when a good breeze hit me (which didn't happen that day as often as it would if it had been July, with the steady south wind). I decided not to get a headdress and instead carry a paraguas for a parasol. I would have let some Gypsies suck me into trying belly dancing with them if there had been some, but that didn't seem to want to happen in the course of that day of heavy harping.

It finally failed in the direct sunlight and still air of early evening at Gauntlet when I was determined to plow thru and play my harp in an intense multiband jam. Hans (or was he Franz, they look alike) kept me in quaffs from his wooden mug. But now have another Sedalia or KCRF Labor Day outfit.

At pregate on Saturday I found that the ladies of the Anti-Brothel Committee were all sporting lavender sashes over their right shoulders and then down to their opposite hips, with "ABC" written in magic marker upon them. They were passing them out to others, and I saw many cast members in garb accepting them. They were also offering them to patrons in mundanes and not getting very many takers. Evie, the instigator of the committee, came up to me with a mischievous look in her eyes and asked me if I would like to give my support. I was going to object, but got sidetracked by a pair of big blue eyes as she slipped it over me before I had a chance to get out of her clutches. I was going to turn it around backwards, but she had already taken care of that possibility by writing on both sides. I kept it on the whole day until the cause was lost at the chessboard (which I watched again for the third time). Later in the morning a lady who was going the other way on the path said, "I see you're a member of the Abundant Breast Community." I said I was at least a supporter.

I got to observe two more cases of that Renfair phenomenon: the burlycue show for women. Both afternoons the Laundry Lasses presented a Wet Tunic Contest, where men were invited to enter and then have water poured over them so that their major pectorals, deltoids, triceps, and biceps may be admired by the cheering, shrieking, whistling, and screaming audience. But most of the men removed their shirts before appearing, and nobody objected to cool water on the hot day. Sophie Waters had a deft technique of daubing the skin with her little sponge that evoked screams of approval from the gathered lady spectators. They seemed to cheer for all kinds of chests, hairy or not, muscular or not, belly or not. But the ones that finally won all had what a gay picture ad would present as a sexy chest. All three of the lasses had probably the best job in the shire that afternoon. At Gauntlet Sunday they were soaked in mud, apparently after sharing a stage with the Brothers Dimm at the smoker.

The second one was at the Ceilidh, where Her Majesty Herself judged the bonny knees contest. She invited anyone whose knees were showing to come up on the stage, and there were not only numerous kilts (including one on His Majesty), but Arab and barbarian outfits. Then to more hoots and hollers from the girls just like those from the sailors at the Hollywood Palace in San Diego, '65, the guys came out and called attention to their knees and thighs by doing their best impressions of Gypsy Rose Lee lifting her skirt hem. It all happened down on the floor in front of the royal platform with spectators circling all around, and after a while they got several people deep and sometimes hard to see thru.

I was wondering if a few weren't going regimental from some of the special screeches I was hearing from a few ladies seated on the floor in front right by performing entrants, and the suspicion grew stronger when at one point His Majesty came down from his throne and seemed to be admonishing one. As the man left His Majesty announced quite loudly, "Your shirt says it all". The shirt said, "My parents said I could be anything, so I decided to become an asshole." The suspicion was finally confirmed as all of them were lining up at the end of the presentation when two turned around, swished up their kilts, and showed full moons.

That was the high point of the kay-lee, which Commedia Sans Arte had the misfortune to have to follow on the platform. They went ahead with their original plan to sing the Skye Boat song, And Chris turned out to be correct in the apprehension he had expressed to me beforehand.

But the kaylee in general sucked. When I had walked out for the first time thru the extensive smoker's ghetto standing by the castle door to go to the BAT for some fresh air and otra onda, and expressed my feelings to Kathleen of Commedia Sans who happened to be sitting there, I said the Maelstrom itself was as one of those little straws you get at the cappuccino place when compared to that in sucking ability.

She talked me into going back in with her so we could bitch about it together. There were a few moments in the evening, like when I got to do the Mermaid song dance with my own skirts on a dance floor full of women, and the last set in the show when Scottish Mayhem came out with their bagpipes to lots of people in the floor in a dancing mood, and they finally seemed to get the vibe right. But the rest of the show had problems galore, and was certainly not worth paying an extra ten dollars for.

For starters, the music in this show was electronically amplified. This is normally not done outside in the faire. The announcer in the jousting arena is given a wireless mike and there is a pair of speakers in the reviewing stand, Smee and Blog have their own wireless setup with speakers concealed in cloth, but everybody else is acoustic. And the setup they had in the castle that night looked like it was gathered up in a hurry (I wonder if they didn't bring some of it in from the joust). When it was first turned on I heard scrapes and static and sometimse buzzing feed back, and it continued.

The show started with an amateur Irish step dance school who put on what would have otherwise been an excellent show of formation dancing, but they danced to what sounded like a home-made cassette of recorded music. (I later was told it was a CD). The sound was like a small speaker boombox to begin with, but the highs were sometimes like scraping sandpaper, and buzzing kept coming in and out. the signal sounded like it was getting clipped with pinking shears, and it was getting painful to my ears. I looked over to see just what kind of setup they had, and I saw a combination amplifier/mixer box to which they had made the Norman mistake of setting by the back of the stage to the side. Lord Kerridwyn, who normally strolls the lanes as a fiddler, was in front of the box with a frustrated look on his face.

I was seized by a desire to go in and rescue him, at the same time my superego was telling me not to meddle if I ain't the one who has been hired. Finally I couldn't stand it any more, and wound up greeting him in the worst possible manner. I said "The electronics sound terrible", and he responded with, "I didn't make that recording, there's nothing I can do about it, I'm up here trying to figure this out..." When I sensed the belligerence I immediately back out and sat back down where I was in the row of chairs against a wall.

A few minutes later the Lord came over to me in my chair and said, "I want to apologize for the way I answered you...", and I gave him a reciprocal apology for being a critic, and then asked him if there was a graphic equalizer on it, can you turn down the highs, etc. He had gotten the sound a little better since our exchange, and I pointed that out. Then he went on to flusteredly tell me he had given the responsibility for the sound system on what he considered rather short notice. He got it going the best he could, but the best for that equipment fell short of other bests I am accustomed to. Throughout the evening I heard popping Ps and thundering Ts, and a sound quality like a sports event PA. I was taken back to the company commanders yelling at us seaman recruits marching on the grinder at the Naval Training Center in San Diego.

Kerrydwin left the box mostly unattended after first getting it as together as best he could, while Queen's Gambit played a set after the Irish dancers had left and Lady Nancy had done a tune with a friend who had a mountain dulcimer. Then a bass fiddle appeared, and his first few notes were like some of the cars that certain African-Americans drive down my street. Nobody tried to balance him for the rest of the evening, and he sounded like he hadn't rehearsed too much with the others; his rhythm was off several times. Then Red McWilliams said, "I'm gonna do a song by Van Morrison." This was followed by several more 70s rock songs sung in Rainbow Gathering style with heavy pick strumming, and it sounded more like I was in a high school gym than a ceilidh, and that was when I got up and left for the BAT.

After coming back in I tried to use the lavender ribbon that I had been given when I came in thru the door, good for a drink at the pub. I asked if they had O'Doul's or anything like that, a non-alcoholic beer.

Now why might I want to drink a non-alcoholic beer? I am on several prescription drugs since my treatment for congestive heart failure five years ago, and a few of them are not compatible with alcohol. And it was something I didn't really enjoy that much the first place, so I don't really miss it. (Now if I could have bought a joint in the pub, that might have made not only me but the whole party different.) And they had Pepsi, but I had already done one of those that day, which is more that the doc recommends for the type II diabetes I'm developing, and besides I didn't want something that leaves a syrupy aftertaste. So an O'Doul's would have done fine in those circumstances.

But the pub wench even gave me a funny look when I said "non-alcoholic", and gave me an empty paper cup, which I filled in the sink in the privy. Kathleen was later able to score another cup for me with ice, but I never used that ribbon.

Near the end of the evening, when the bagpipes were playing, Kerrydwin again came around to tell me that they had discovered a speaker connector that had not been tightened, and a likewise loose rumble filter.

It looked like the electronics were just thrown together in a hurry. If you're going to put on an electronically amplified event and charge extra money for it, some capital outlay should be made in a dedicated stereophonic system that doesn't leave the hall it was designed for. You need all of the mikes feeding into a 50 or 100 foot snake that can take their signals to a mixing board whose operator is in front of the stage hearing at least an approximation of what the audience is hearing. Some monitor speakers need to be providing the same for the performers. You may need to take up a little bit of the floor and jackhammer out a channel for the snake and cover it up again, so people can walk thru without trampling it. All of this will result in a professional show that people will want to come back to.

And not only that, hire some special performers for this special event who don't have to do their thing after having done it in the hot outside all day, and who have taken some time to rehearse together beforehand. You wouldn't have to go any further than Norman to find the likes of Calliope House, the Counterfeit Bards, or Boru's Ghost. And of course more dancing schools, but give them some live music to dance to.

Outside of all that, the days in the daytime were as good as they ever get at OKRF. I met Lady Nancy between sets beneath the mulberry tree not far down the lane from the Red Ram stage to jam. Karen and I weren't in perfect tune, but it was close enough for at least me. I made it to all the maypoles except the last one.

On the last day, as I had on the first, I took one of the forms that start out with "Please take 5 minutes to help us improve your Oklahoma Renaissance Faire...". I filled in all the boxes with Xes, but what I wanted to write on the back was gonna take a lot longer than 5 minutes, so instead I wrote, "Go to www.livejournal.com, type in 'butterflybill for Username..." So if the person reading that is here now, I will answer most of the questions the form asked.

"Who was the best overall character you saw?" I'm sounding like a stuck record saying His Majesty over and over again, so I will name a bunch more that especially got my attention over four weeks:

Her Majesty, especially her facial expressions when she was not amused.

The lord whatshisname who announced His Majesty (I can't figure his name out from the program, and it always went by so fast when others spoke it.)

Don Luis
Angus
Laird Seamus
Lady Grace Parker
Jester Will

All three of the Laundry Lasses, individually and as a group

The Brothers Dimm, especially when they were out on the street

Garret, the thief in the yellow shirt, especially on the chessboard

The other thief in the red shirt, who one morning in Court presented himself to Her Majesty as a Gypsy prince, again especially on the chessboard

The sweet young thing who kept saying "fightsie, fightsie" on the chessboard, and the oriental guy who fights with chopsticks.

Evie of the Anti-brothel Commitee (and I can't find her in the program at all)

Her nemesis Pandora, and Will, the pimp of the Scarlet Pillow, and the lady whose husband was "smothered in honey"

The Grey family, especially Tazer. That lad has actor written all over him

Rav, leader of Gypsy drummers

Hans and Franz the mercenaries, and their French sidekick Pierre, who rendered me corporal aid as well as spiritual thruout the faire. (They told me I had a "checking account". They were going to keep coming around checking on me.)

Lady Fawn, when she was spinning me and when she sang "Greensleeves"

"What was your most delightful moment?" What came to mind Sunday evening was sitting in the Golden Harp just a few hours before between Karen Troeh and Fawn, as they made a duet of "Greensleeves", but there were some other moments of musical clarity that I was able to witness among few other people around: Commedia singing "Flower of Scotland" three separate times, Cedric cutting loose on his fiddle in the courtyard, Karen and several of the Grays in front of the bookstore singing "among the leaves so green-o". There was the little girl at the Queen's Tea that I described last week.

"What is your overall evaluation of the faire?" It's the best in at least the central US, as far as I can see, and I've been to five others so far. It has just the right balance between structure and freedom for spontaneity. Actors are free to take liberties with the script, and they are free to respond uninhibitedly to the surprises that result. You had me coming back to Royal Court all eight days because I knew I would see a different show every time. I have seen about none of the resentment of management that I have observed at some other faires. It looks like both labor and capital get along like a happy family, and all the performers look like they are enjoying what they are doing. There is a spirit growing and building on itself every year that is captivating.

I there still room for improvement on all of this? Somebody needs to be going around as the day progresses keeping the privies and picnic tables clean. One family of four who all have funnel cakes with powdered sugar can leave a tabletop totally trashed. (This could be made part of some street performer roles.) I did notice them doing this in one place, the café inside the castle. A lot of the privies didn't look too wheelchair accessible (or even farthingalable).

There could have been some more big bands (in rennie terms at least a quartet). Even having some come in for one-weekend visits would give a nicer variety to the season pass buyer. I can't fathom why you didn't bring back the "stunt show" with the steam breathing dragon. I'm sure there are at least some highs schools in Tulsa and environs with chamber choirs who would love to come and perform some madrigals. (This is a special feature of KCRF.)

But overall: take the prospect of this becoming a home faire, add to it the possibility of finding real estate in the $20K range, and you have a brand new Okie from Muskogee (me). This answers question 6. I first heard about you from people talking about you on alt.fairs.renaissance (5). And 4, it wasn't my first visit, and it damn sure won't be my last unless I go to the faire in Heaven before your next opening day.

-Butterfly Bill

"Greetings milord, or is it milady? or, um..."
"So did you lose the bet? No, I won it. He bet me I wouldn't"

more faire reviews: http://members.isp.com/farfallabill@isp.com/RbStories.htm#renfair
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live journal blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/butterflybill/
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