Monday, September 26, 2005

Fest #2

The Kansas City Renaissance Festival.

Or, as I call it, total sensory overload. Sixteen acres. Hundreds of artisans, and as many performers wandering about. A dozen stages with constantly rotating acts and seemingly every high school choir in a four state area. Pubs. Wenches. Sword fights. Let's just say that it's a lot to take in.

A few of you will know what I mean when I say that the festival is organized like Majora's Mask: a schedule that repeats each day, with multiple intersecting storylines that meander across the grounds before finally rejoining at the end of the day. I'm a little embarassed to admit that I'm tempted to get a season pass one of these years, just because it would take multiple visits to follow them all. To make matters worse, it's one of the few places in the world I regularly get hopelessly lost.

They put a lot of effort into these things. They have apprenticeships that go on for months, their costumes must be historically accurate in composition and material, and they have scripts so that they can stay firmly in character at all times, and so forth. A bit obsessive, to be sure, but not inherently moreso than, say, D&D. Remember those kids who were big into drama when you were in high school? It's just them, a bit older but still children.

Favorite find: A solid wood tankard, lined with ceramic inside. They're beautiful and highly functional. That pint of Woodchuck never tasted so good. Ordering

I'll leave you with a few random pictures from the Festival, culled from their vast yet terribly organized website: 1 2 3 4 5

Fest #1: Beer

Oktoberfest. Or rather, Kansas City's slightly warped take on it. The main points were all there, I suppose. Gigantic tents, polka bands, fraulines carrying trays of beer. But past that, it was more like a state fair that happened to have a particularly large beer garden.

I suppose I can't blame them, but they forgot that it really wasn't supposed to be a family-friendly event. It's supposed to be a celebration of BEER, damn it all. Their selection was narrow, overpriced, and extremely mediocre. Empyrean Ales used to throw a far superior fest, god rest their souls. Oh well. Anybody want to go to Free State sometime?

Other assorted highlights:
  • Blinking LED steins
  • The Darth Vader nutcracker
  • Runzas
  • Pig races
  • Povitica
  • Getting completely smashed for the first time in a long while

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Current Readings

Stopped in at Barnes and Noble tonight. I'd rather forgotten that they stay open until 11:00 each and every night (including the cafe), making it my kind of place.

Picked up all seven volumes of the Nausicaa manga. It really wasn't much of a leap of faith, between my adoration of the anime and my friends' raves about the comic book. I'm going on vacation next weekend, and I'll need quite a bit of reading material. It should do nicely. Might have to drop it off afterwards at the desk of a comic-obsessed but American-centric coworker...

Also picked up the first two volumes of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. I think that Gaiman is one of the most interesting authors writing today, and he made his name with Sandman. Very broadly speaking, the stories follow Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, who is somewhere between the protagonist, antagonist, and narrator. Gaiman did the writing, but there was a different artist almost every issue (rather like American Splendor). If you get into graphic novels at all, this one is VERY high on the list.

PS: Added bonus for Final Fantasy fans: Gaiman recently collaborated on a graphic novel with Yoshitaka Amano, most famous as the character designer for nearly all of the FF games. You know that characteristic look of the game's logos, very dark and flowing? Well, imagine a whole book like that. It rocks.

PPS: Turns out he also wrote the English script for Princess Mononoke, meaning that everything in this post is actually related to everything else.

Friday, September 02, 2005

BDO

Someone (and I wish I could remember who) once proposed that a subjective but useful measure of a historical figure's importance is their "fertility", in the sense of the number of other people they inspire. Philosophers are probably fond of this one, for obvious reasons.

I'm surprised that the same criteria isn't more often implied to technology. (Well, it is, but usually subconsciously, not explicitly.) The Internet, yeah, but really all of the most important inventions of the past 500 years or so have been related to communication, transportation, or both. Increasing contact between people is the single most important thing any invention can do, because it spawns still more inventions.

I was pondering this while trying to figure out why the Stargate, an archtypal Big Dumb Object, manages to be such an enduringly popular fictional artifact that you can hang an entire TV series from it. I'm guessing it's just the logical next step along the continuum of communication and transportation - and for extra bonus points, it's both at once. Making it the most useful plot device ever.

Purgatory or Limbo?

Cooling my heels in the Albuquerque airport. It's a good thing my second leg is late, because I would have totally missed my connection otherwise.

When, exactly, did free wireless access become a universal airport feature? Sometime in the last two years since I did a lot of flying, I suppose.

Spending the weekend down at Rusty's in Phoenix. If you've got any messages for him, Tom, Amy, et cetera, et cetera, let me know.