A few weeks ago, we went to the remnants of the Michigan State Fair. I remember state fairs. They took place in large fields, where the grass was trampled flat on the hardened summer earth. There was corn-dogs and cotton candy and rides and enormous pigs and cattle and even larger pumpkins and marrows and loud-hailers making announcements about lost children and tug-of-war competitions and blue ribbons for everything.
Then they started to lose money as the countryside depopulated. In the interest of community togetherness and ‘giving something back’ corporations offered to bankroll the state fair. With that blindness to things that are banal and rubbish, these large, gray, complacent organizations decided that the State Fair should be moved to a suburb a stone’s throw from Detroit, and held in a cavernous aluminum warehouse with concrete floors, surrounded by strip-malls and lit with fluorescent tubing. Suburbanites drank Starbucks coffee as their children stared at somnolent rabbits dozing in cages. Commercial stalls are everywhere, selling those stupid gadgets you see on the shopping channel or emblazoned with advertisements for health insurance and iPhones. It was a terrible disappointment and a dismal shadow of what had once been a sunny day out on the farm. It wasn’t that something was missing. Nearly everything was missing: the only thing that was left was the pigs.
Hippies are real conservatives. They actually conserve things, and don’t allow market forces to strip-mine, privatize, bundle, short-sell and liquidate everything that isn’t nailed down. And the only real Mecca for hippies in these dark times is a Renaissance Festival: an irony-free zone where people who just like things: melodic metal, dressing up in robes, D&D, wenches carrying flagons of ale, tattoos in Sindarin Elvish, amethyst jewelry, and things written in olde tymey skrypt can come to indulge their simple pleasures. The huge popular success of Tolkien and ‘Game of Thones’ in recent years has undoubtedly had a rejuvenating effect on the Renaissance Fairs. Kids are lining up to get their photos taken kicking their heels on a replica of the Iron Throne of Westeros, though I’d be surprised if they’re allowed watch the show: all that brutal violence and sexposition.
It’s about two in the afternoon and most events are in full swing. There is a lot of buying and selling going on, but the stalls all seem to be independently run and owned by the sort of artisans who travel from art-fair to festival around the country flogging their fares: pewter goblets writhing with sculpted dragons and snakes, fantasy art depicting bosomy barbarian women and pec-tacular barbarian men comparing chest measurements, flower fairies peeping out of cowslips and more dragons: scarlet, gold, emerald, onyx and copper. There are a lot of dreamy-looking girls selling handmade jewelry and candles, and some serious artisans selling hand-crafted (and wildly expensive) fantasy leather-work, boots and shoes. One full suit of molded leather armor costs $1500. The boots are knee-high, slightly kinky and run to over $200.
The armorers are doing a roaring trade in weapons that can’t really be called replicas, since these fantasy weapons were never swung by any soldier in history. Nor can they be classed as fake; they are expertly cast in flawless oiled steel. Burly men test their strength just hefting the larger battleaxes and war-hammers, and the counter is littered with daggers, poniards, maces, glaives, falchions, flails and even an few nasty looking sets of knuckledusters. Their craftsmanship is reflected in their costliness: the larger weapons run to hundreds of dollars, but it’s hard to see what you might do with them once you have them, bar hanging them over your mantle. It’s obvious that the buying power is considerable: the best weapons, leather-work, costumes, jewelry and art are astronomically expensive: luxury goods for the discerning barbarian marauder or Elf Queen. For those who are less picky about their rings of power and instruments of death, there is a pirate auction being held next door: a buccaneering fellow with a carrying patter is selling off lucky bags: you place your bid and, if you win, you might walk of with something shiny and razor-sharp at a knock-down price. He loudly warns us not to unwrap any of the parcels until we have left the fair: we can’t have impromptu duels starting: not with all this beer flowing.
Some folks are splendidly outfitted in rigs that must have run to hundreds of dollars; others are in aluminum foil and duct tape. Every little girl has a tiara and fairy wings, and every little boy has a sword, or vice versa: no oppressive gender norms in Fantasyland, thank you. Nearly everybody’s dressed up and I feel a bit grumpy that I hadn’t packed anything that clanks or swishes. I don’t even have a staff. But we’re not the only ones and you never feel that you’ve failed, or that people are looking at you funny.
This lack of disparagement is something that creeps up on you. As a society increasingly defined by dissatisfaction, we are so accustomed to thinking that you have to look a certain way at a meeting, at the beach, at a party or at the gym, that to enter an arena where that expectation is completely absent is initially disorientating. The only people who are getting pointed at are the ones who look particularly amazing: moving theater-sets and creations worthy of Jim Henson or Stan Winston: stilt-walking Ents, tattooed shamans, knights in full plate-male and wizards with real waist-length white beards that would put Saruman to shame. The children are literally squealing with delight, surrounded by adults who not only know how to play make-believe, but who know that the real secret to make-believe is that you have to take it seriously. Enjoyment is pervasive; mockery has taken a holiday.
The food is great, as long as you don’t mind getting a bit boozy and very greasy. Huge broiled turkey drumsticks are the snack du jour, with a long line at the barbecue. Near to the stall selling the amazing Barbarian Burgers (two-handed BIG, made from scratch ground-chop, and served on a proper crusty bread roll,) one of those wonderfully drunk couples is canoodling standing up, as much from a need to provide mutual support until the field stops pitching and spinning as from tender feelings. Grinning and red-eyed, they burble sweet-nothings at each other. Hopeless romantic that he is, the dude is complaining into her hair that, for the price they paid for the bracelet the girl is wearing, they could have gotten six more beers. I have to agree: the ale here is really good: nearly all hearty brown Michigan craft stuff: not a Coors or a Miller Lite to be seen. No wonder they’re merry. He’s increasingly making sense. She seems to agree. They stagger off, presumably to find Ye Olde Pawnebrokyr.
The centerpiece of the festival has to be the tourney ground. At midday, the heralds start tooting and the bleachers fill. Peter wants to move to a spot in the stands where the sun is behind him and he can get the best shots of the jousting. I stay where I am, not so much because the view is good (which it is) but because sitting (and occasionally standing,) in front of me are four dudes emitting a pleasant, green, cowshed smell. These guys are totally engrossed what is about to go down, and are getting each other psyched up for the smiting. The stands are divided according to knightly-loyalty. We are in the green sector but my dudes have taken a look at the green knight and decided that he is a rank noob unworthy of their patronage or fealty. They have thrown in with the red knight: a swarthy fellow with a chest like an oil drum and long lank hair. They huzzah him in terms that are not precisely medieval but are unmistakably supportive. His opponent, a preening, courtly fellow in blue, they subject to bitter scorn and many objectionable comparisons. He is busy currying their disfavor by kissing his glove, smirking and addressing the crowd as ‘good people’.
When the Queen, in full Elizabeth I regalia, appears at her pavilion, the Blue Knight grovels effeminately and spouts phony poetry. He is obviously meant to be the bad guy. Green is the inexperienced one, red is the old stalwart. The challengers mount their horses and canter about a bit before heading to their respective ends of the tilting field. There is a little preliminary showing-off with rings thrown into the air, not all of which are caught on lances, and then the joust begins. Strangely, it turns out that Sir Oily Prancelot is not in fact going to get his buttocks presented to him. The knights thunder past each other a few time, walloping at each other with their swords, then they shatter a few lances and finally dismount for a bit of fun with morning-stars, people’s helmets getting spun around back-to-front, knees in the groin and belly, and a big whack on the head with a war hammer made of thumpy styrofoam. Green goes down first and then, to the chagrin of my hairy buddies, Sir Devon the Red gets it in the crown jewels, goes all glassy-eyed and slumps over on the grassy sward.
Roars of outrage and more unnecessary glove-kissing as the knavish blue knight is declared champion. Mayhap he’ll be trounced at the five-o-clock show.
Gadzooks, Naughty Varlet: the Michigan Renaissance Fair
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