In the parlance of the geekarati, we went to a “Ren-Fair.” I’m not sure when the term was coined, as I’ve always called it “The Renaissance Festival,” and I’m still resisting the term this year.
Say what you will about these things, to me the Renaissance Festival has always represented cheap, affordable live entertainment in a pleasantly rustic environment.
    Certainly, you’ll see all manners of food impaled on sticks including not only the perrenial hot-dog but also “steak”-onna-stick and macaroni-and-cheese-onna-stick. Yes, and there’ll be wave after wave of local teenagers butchering a faux-British accent*. There’s the obligatory pickle pimp, and the creepy incense shops. Often the two are dangerously adjacent.
    But there’s also many stages hosting live entertainment, including a local favorite, “Dead Bob,” shown above. A little overrated, this cadaverous take on a ventriloquist act hasn’t changed his act appreciably in over a decade. But, as I’ve often said, if you haven’t seen it before then it is new to you, and with that in mind we took Sam to meet the fellow. Notice she was actually frightened of the apparition and I had to use the “KNEE” to hold her in place long enough to get this washed out and crappy picture. Eh, what can you do?
    Elsewhere in the fair was an abbreviated performance of MacBeth put on by three people in a mud-pit. The concept turned out to be far funnier than the execution; the only impressive aspect of the thing was the actors’ ability to pretend that they weren’t freezing their nuts off in the chilly mud-pit. I enjoyed watching their quivering tummies and lower lips.
    ”Zoltan the Mediocre,” a fire-eating block-head, was actually pretty funny and the juggling comedy duo “The Zucchini Brothers” made me laugh pretty hard. At one point in their act a troll, complete with prosthetic ears, teeth and grotesque contact lens, played a passable rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” on an accordion.

    More child specific was this elaborate baby dragon puppet act. The baby dragon puppet was operated the same way Big Bird is, with the head being manipulated by the puppeteer’s left hand and the left hand of the creature being worked by the puppeteer’s actual left hand. Skillfully done, really. Samantha is the overall-clad girl with the pink shirt sitting in the front row on the left.
    There was also a “fairy tea” ceremony in which Samantha was plied with brownies and lemonade and presented with a fairly well done story-telling by a group of African-American women.
    Behold the parade.

* Because wood recording made during the Renaissance show that everyone spoke with 20th century British accents.