Too bad. Today we’re talking about flowers. Because it’s the middle of January. Perfect timing. Clearly.
Today I found out about the red spider lily.
They’re poisonous. Eaten or touched. Relatively immune to pests and disease. They’re funky, they’re gorgeous, and more importantly, they symbolize final farewells.
It’s a death flower.
It’s called the “corpse flower,” but also the “red magic lily.” Something so spectacularly strange–if you received one only once in your life as a gift, how could you ever forget?
Photo by Santiago Sauceda Gonzu00e1lez on Pexels.com
Marigolds. I’ve known them since I was a little girl. The round, puffy flowers, the hollow stems, bright oranges and yellows. They’re as cottagecore as mushrooms and every bit as comforting.
They symbolize creative passion and happiness. A good flower for musicians, I think. They’re known for keeping away insect pests, but less well known, they’re also said to repel fairies, much like iron does.
Still don’t know why.
It’s only fair to include a flower fairies like in our bouquet, then.
I read ages ago in researching a story (which still remains unfinished on a thumbdrive) that while fairies love sweet foods, best of all is saffron. It’s a spice, though you may know it as a color, and it’s made from the saffron crocus.
I remember searching the grass, waiting for the first crocus to open in spring. Tulips and daffodils push their green shoots up first, but crocuses are the first to bloom, purple and white and yellow.
Red spider lily is the flower of death. Spring crocus is youth and rebirth. It suits the ageless fair folk, in a way.
Calendula was another I discovered for a story. I wanted a yellow flower, and there it was, cheerfully greeting me. There’s a character associated with it. So often when I think of it, I find myself smiling, remembering him sitting on the grass, spade and overturned earth and little pots of springy, happy flowers.
Calendula is edible. And good for just about everything, so they say. I’m not even going to list things because there are too many. Ancient healing flower.
I can’t find a clear meaning for calendula. In India, it’s a wedding flower. Sometimes it’s a happy thing, this flower, sometimes it’s a thing of grief. Sometimes it’s as sunny as a marigold. Sometimes it means sympathy.
I read somewhere that no one asks boys what flowers they like nearly enough. I imagine that’s a fair statement to make. The answer that time when I was reading was sunflowers, so now I think of that when I think of them, too.
That same character with the calendula, I started wondering if sunflowers were what he liked best too. But he seems to have a whole garden of flowers in my mind–calendula, sunflowers, daisies. All the bright, cheerful ones.
Asters are for faithfulness. Star-flowers. So simple, but almost as if they know something we do not.
Same flower, a few days apart. Pink hyacinth. Filled the whole garrett room with its perfume. I had two that year, one blue, one pink. One is planted in the cold, damp earth outside, waiting for spring. The other is still in my window. I drew back the curtain to find its little green shoot poking out of last year’s dead leaves.
Sometimes a flower is a perfect gift.
I am waiting too. Waiting to see what color the one in my window will be. It has been so long I am not sure which is which. I think it might be the pink.
One cannot think of a bouquet without roses, whatever Kvothe of The Kingkiller Chronicle might say. And these are special, because they were mine.
Eleven roses for my violin recital. The baby’s breath dried nicely and is now sprouting from the top of my baby Groot planter.
It’s a special thing, to have a bouquet when you perform. Very special. A cellist I know had a sunflower for hers. But the roses suit me.
It was quite a night, roses in one arm, violin case in the other. I hope the next one like it is better still.
I don’t have to tell you what roses mean. We’re readers, we know. The romantic imagery has been stamped into our minds until it has become as common as dandelions and just as unwanted.
I still love them.
Either way, I’ve tricked you into learning some new flowers. Perhaps you’ll fill your writing with them. Perhaps I’ve brought you some color on a cold winter day.
Today was supposed to be a book review day.
My last review got six likes. That’s all.
I’ve come to a conclusion.
If no one’s paying attention, I’m done trying too hard. Spending too much time thinking about what people might like, scuttling for public approval. From now on, I write what I like.
Fairies, bards, bags of buttons, mushroom hats and turkey legs–
She’s back from the Renaissance faire, with pocketfuls of trinkets and stories to share!
Yes, this has taken me almost a month to publish. NaNoWriMo22 has been stealing all my braincells and I had a few internet crashes that deleted parts of the drafted post from WordPress.
(devastated bookmarkedone noises)
And the usual struggle with my cryptid-stole-the-trail-camera blurry photo quality.
Or, y’know, we could just say good things come to those that wait and that this is such a brilliant post it required that much time and attention.
Let’s go with that.
A brief explanation of Renaissance festival recaps for the uninitiated:
bookmarkedone, among other unexpected odd jobs, works at Renaissance festivals. It is as fun as it sounds.
She’s a bard. Violin. Celtic, fiddle, classical, and anything else the situation calls for. It calls for a lot you wouldn’t expect.
Yes, she could just stay on the classical stage and be a “good violinist…” but it’s so much more fun to run away to the realm of folk musicians for a day and be ridiculously OP.
There will be no photos of said bard in character/costume because of modern technology restrictions at work (and because of the blurry “the cryptid realized it was on camera” quality of every picture I take. To the dandelion puff with six-foot scepter who got a good photo of us together…I’m a smidge jealous).
Because there are scandalously few renfaire blogs/almost nobody who writes about what it’s like to actually work at these events, you’re about to read the perspective from the inside…which is very different from being a casual patron.
…we do these recaps every year, so I don’t really remember what else I’m supposed to say here. If stuff doesn’t make sense, hey! Go read the recaps from the last couple of seasons. We skewer pumpkins and cheer for bloodshed. Great fun.
Having apologized to our regular readers for the delay, we now return to recounting the adventure.
By the time I got there on Saturday, there was already a line.
No.
Not a line. There was a chain of people from the ticket booth through the little cut in the trees leading to the parking field, into the field itself and down a couple rows of cars.
It was long. Like a city block long. And I was getting there shortly after 10:00 a.m. The faire didn’t even open until ten.
I didn’t have time to stop and stare because I was in a hurry to get inside, but as I was hiking across the field, I did gawk.
I can remember the days when Dragonfest was a handful of tents in a parking lot. This was–a lot. I don’t have an official tally because no one bothered to tell me, but I’ve never seen this many people there.
And of course every one of them was going to hate me a little bit for slipping past without a ticket.
Normally I gloat about this (to my friends. Not to strangers. I’m not that rude). Violin gets me in places as I please. Concert halls. Renaissance faires. Museum fundraisers. No lines.
But that day…
They had these little wood stakes with cord at about waist height to keep people in the line, and after I was finally close enough to actually see the frazzled clerks in the ticket booth–
I realized I was on the wrong side of the line.
I’d hiked the whole way, chin up, consciously not looking to see if people were giving me the “doesn’t that girl know she has to wait in line like everyone else” looks, only to realize the entrance was on the left of the wall of people and I was on the right.
So I did the only sensible thing there was to do.
I ducked under the rope and stole into the faire I work at.
In front of about a hundred people.
Right.
So because I was only too aware everyone was watching me (it’s not like they had anything better to do; grass doesn’t grow fast in October and there was no paint to dry)
and I didn’t want everyone either
to hate me for apparently stealing my admission or
to go “well, she got away with it,” and follow me like a horde of too many petulant ducks–
I found someone taking tickets and waited until he had a breath so it was clear I wasn’t the miscreant everyone absolutely thought I was.
I know what you’re thinking at this point. “Why is she spending this long talking about the line?”
Because the character you’re about to meet pretty much made my faire experience this year, and I’m not skipping him.
Besides. It was an impressive line.
So there’s sort of a tradition among some ticket-takers at faires.
It’s the tradition of The Troll.
You’re here for the experience, right? Ordinary people don’t go to renfaires. Or if they do, they’re not ordinary by the time they leave. You’re here to have some fun. And we who work at the faire are going to give it to you–so why not make something boring (here’s your wristband, here’s your change, next), well, let’s say unexpectedly amusing.
Where do you meet trolls in fairytales, kiddos? Trying to cross a bridge. Gotta pay your toll. So if you meet “a troll” at the gates to renfaire?
Oh, darling.
I knew a lady once who said she’d make kids swordfight with her (they were blunt practice swords, not real blades, I repeat, we are not handing children real steel) before they could go through the gate. Sometimes it’s just banter, they’ll tease you a little, chat about your costumes, tell jokes, be a little mean, pretend they won’t let you in until you answer a question or a riddle–if you’re in the mood for it, gate trolls can be great fun.
The catch?
You never know if there’s going to be one or not.
Up I walk, violin case on my back, to this gentleman in a hat with Dragonfest buttons,
and as politely as possible, I say, “I just want to let you know, I’m not sneaking in. I work here.”
Important note. They don’t brief the crew on who’s cast and who isn’t. Most of us don’t know each other before we meet there, on the grounds, that day. Oh, we fall together naturally enough, look after each other like family, but this clerk has no way of knowing I am what I say…and come to think of it, I have zilch way to prove it.
He looks at me, back at the ticket-counting he’s doing, then at me again.
And this is when I find out he’s The Troll.
“Do I believe that?” he says.
I stop. I think he’s serious. I’m just about to worry, when he says, “You know, I think I do.”
That’s it. Troll likes you, in you go.
I’m laughing by now, and I promise to come back to play him a tune later as my proof of employment. And since he’s a lovely person, he agreed to tell me a story, as a trade.
I love renfaire.
Argh. I put off writing this post for so long.
Because I have to decide what stories not to include or write such a huge post I can’t even muster the strength to proofread and finish it.
So much stuff happened.
You know I’m a writer, so I’ve honed my skills, paying attention to everything, remembering the details until I get a chance to write them down. But everything happened so much at Dragonfest that I started to feel like I was on a carousel, whirling around and around, the faces of people I met blurring together until I was left sitting on a porch swing clutching a pink rock and wondering where I’d gotten it.
The answer, by the way, is that a fabulous mushroom hat girl gave it to me. She asked if I’d like a token and offered me the rock or my choice from a bag of buttons. She wasn’t crew; she was just someone who wanted to share and be part of the fun. I played her a jig in trade, and she danced so the charms on her hat clinked together in the very best way.
And nearly stepped on her phone before a friend yoinked it almost out from under her heel and narrowly averted disaster, but that’s not the point.
She was actually one of two people I met like that at the faire. The other was a younger girl, probably the MG book author’s dream audience. She’d made what she called “spells,” and told us all about them–potion for strength, fairy dust–I can’t recall the others now, but she had a name and a gift for each.
Guys. Guys, this girl gave me fairy dust.
She was very serious about the whole thing, and so I reacted with proper respect. After she gave me the tiny bottle, she said, with utmost solemnity, that she’d only offered to give me fairy dust because I was very talented.
…
GUYS.
So, anyway, that girl is kind of my hero, and I’m keeping the fairy dust because it’s the coolest and I love it and yes, none of you stand a chance against me anymore.
You don’t say “Are we there yet?” at the faire. Munching your turkey leg, sticky and dusty and sweaty, pockets full of treasure, you say “When is the joust?”
It’s not like I have a watch. I don’t need one. When it’s time for the joust, the grounds empty to fill the stands, sit on the grass, perch on hay bales, crowd around too close to the tilting field and get cheerfully told off for entering “the blood zone.”
But there’s also that weird between-time while everyone is settling into seats and waiting for the knights to emerge on the field.
And that, friends, is exactly when I make my mischief.
A word of warning–there’s probably a very simple reason why I get on well with the gate trolls.
I played “Drunken Sailor” by the drink booth. Twice. The wandmaker got “Hedwig’s Theme.” Deadpool cosplayers (traditionally) get the theme from the Titanic (don’t…don’t ask). Most of the song choice thought process for me is, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if…”
There’s a tradition, with the joust.
Ever heard of a sweet little film called A Knight’s Tale?
(first of all, if you want to understand renfaire culture, go watch A Knight’s Tale, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. When you’re utterly confused, come back. That’s right).
Okay, so in Knight’s Tale, the soundtrack is primarily Queen songs. And the opening is “We Will Rock You.”
I mean, it wasn’t so much needing to learn it as being scandalized that it wasn’t in my repertoire. It had to be done.
So when I happened to cross paths with the new court jester…
Great guy, by the way. Jigged for me. Orange and blue motley that most definitely did not get its dye from the Renaissance era and We Do Not Care.
I stopped him in the King’s Tent.
“Might I petition you for some mischief?” I asked.
Guys. This man was so excited he couldn’t speak properly. When he finally got the words out he said, “That is literally my job.”
I told him what I wanted. All he had to do was start the rhythm. Stomp-stomp, clap. The crowd knows it. The crowd always knows it. I’d do the rest.
We split in different directions. He went left. I went right. The crowd heard us coming.
You remember that troll I told you about earlier (henceforth he will only be referred to as “the Troll” because I never caught his name. His official title is bard because he’s quite a good storyteller, but I think you can see how that would be confusing)?
His hands appeared above the heads of the crowd, clapping. Somehow, he and I wound up walking in step through the crowd, clapping, playing, confusing everyone.
There were patrons on both sides of the tilting field, and by the time the knights entered, they’d only just caught wind of what was happening, and half the patrons were utterly lost, but the jester, the Troll, and I? We amused ourselves, if no one else. The Troll was quite pleased with having music follow him around (the sort of “I could get used to this” satisfaction).
I don’t have the words to tell you how I was grinning.
After officially adding “rabble-rousing” to my resume…
I’m pretty sure I played for my steel fighting friends’ rivals.
Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. I knew there was a split a few months ago (I think I was graduating at the time, so I’m not really clear what happened), but it wasn’t until Dragonfest that I learned they’d formed their own fighting group.
Drama? Eh. Not really.
You’ve got to remember, renfaire players are family. We look out for each other.
And I’ve never been one to care about the drama of who stepped on whose toes anyway. The boys can work out their squabbles without me being involved.
So when one of the former members said I could play for their fight, if I wanted…I wanted.
A crisp fall day, watching men in full steel armor slam each other over the head with swords and axes while “Thunderstruck” is going in the background–what more could one ask for?
This. One could ask for this.
What you are looking at is the keyring designed by one of the young ladies on the crew. And the story she told me is that each fighter has a specific design (there was an adorable cat asking for carnage sticker…unfortunately the fabulous lady fighter that one was based off of wasn’t at Dragonfest so we didn’t get to meet). The one I picked out belonged to the axe fighter–I think he’s called the Woodcutter. Story goes the designer presented this adorable cat to him and he said no.
Don’t like it. Too cute for me.
Lucky thing, the designer said yes, it’s cute, and yes, we’re using it, because people like cute things and they’ll buy it.
Yes, we do, and yes, I did.
I told her the dangerous kitty would be joining my Plague Doctor Dragon on my violin case (from the year Dragonfest had to be cancelled. Dragon in a top hat. It’s great. None of my orchestra mates have ever noticed it), so now the dragon key ring has a friend.
She was understandably delighted by the idea.
I joked later that if the two rival steel fighting groups wanted to fight over who got the fiddler, I wouldn’t mind.
Because if they never book the same events, then I get to go to twice as many renfaires with my friends. Behold my devious brilliance!
(I did say you wouldn’t stand a chance now that I have fairy dust)
In retrospect…one of the lieutenants from the original group did get in touch out of the blue this week…
(sounds of bookmarkedone hoping she hasn’t been too devious for her own good)
Anyway, more stories!
I’m running out of space in this post for everything that happened.
I went back to the line and strolled along it for a while, trying to give the people waiting something entertaining and wound up appearing at the same time that King Henry arrived to greet his guests and tell them the joust had been delayed so they wouldn’t miss it…so it looked a bit like I was a king’s bard.
There was a little man in a Hogwarts T-shirt, crown, and cape, so I played “Hedwig’s Theme” for him. There was a little Gandalf with his dad who looked understandably put out on hearing it (no Gandalf likes being mistaken for Dumbledore). So the Shire Theme followed, and I think they were both mollified.
I made fun of my friends (still waiting in line, ha, ha), full knowing that none of the other people in the line knew that I’d brought them and would probably be thinking I was just very comfortable striking up conversations with perfect strangers.
Met a couple of mushroom hat girls later who told me they’d stood in line for at least an hour.
I felt really bad about this for a while–it was nobody’s fault, of course, and the ticket trolls were doing their absolute best to get everyone through as fast as possible–but I heard we got nasty review about it online.
(cue bookmarkedone being slightly crushed)
I felt better after hearing about the lines at DragonCon. Someone told me the “line was part of the experience,” a way to meet other patrons, slow down, anticipate what’s to come. I hope that’s true and most of the patrons felt that way. The Troll and I agreed to come back and play the line together the second day (spoiler: I didn’t make it because I was physically exhausted and almost fell asleep in a hard kitchen chair. I’m sure if we had done it together, the line would have been an attraction in itself).
But enough about downsides.
I saw Lady Jillian of the Famously Amazing Hair Clasps (my bestowed title for her, not her official one) and bought more hair sticks because they’re pretty and make me feel like a little wizard,
The rock booth lady (whose name I do not know), but who happily sold me a chunk of carnelian and chided me for not playing closer to her booth (we’d been next-door neighbors at the last faire when I was with my mercenary buddies). I played Paganini 20 for her and chatted with her daughter, who is already an accomplished jewelry-maker herself. I poked through their rings (wire wrapped. All handmade. Gorgeous), and asked her if they were arranged by size.
She bit back a sigh. They were, at the beginning of the day–
I was already nodding, commiserating. After a hundred hands passing over the shiny baubles, any organization was quite undone.
And I saw Lady Kiki again, of the famous earrings (and 2Cellos fan). There was also a booth with little terrariums with wire trees (the wind was blasting the tents down, so the little globes didn’t stand a chance. Two were shattered, at least). The proprietor told me she has a video of last year’s performance in her phone.
This was…a somewhat odd announcement? I get a lot of comments working at faires, and you learn to roll with the weirdness of our lives and professions, but is there an appropriate response to a stranger saying she has a recording of your playing?
She was actually very nice and said she shows it to people when she’s persuading them to come to Dragonfest (you should come! see this cool fiddler? don’t you want to listen to her in person?). So that’s flattering. And considering the number of photos/videos people have taken of me performing with (or without) my permission…honestly I probably shouldn’t spend the time thinking about it.
There were also a few new vendors this year, so since I’ve been attending or performing at the faire every year since it started but one–
I had ample opportunity to spread my arms wide and say “Welcome to Dragonfest!” like that scene from the first How to Train Your Dragon film.
It’s every bit as satisfying as it seems.
And of course, one must visit the fairies.
I mean, what are you even doing if you don’t pay a visit to the Fae Court?
Or in my case, an empty tent with one slightly forlorn gentleman guarding it because the fairies were out making mischief and drinking tea.
We had a nice chat, anyway. He told me the fairies had flown, and I nodded a little to myself and said, “Yes. They tend to do that where I live, too.”
That’s not to say I didn’t see them. They were scattered across the faire, charming everyone with bubble wands.
Life always can use a bubble wand.
I’m sure I’m leaving out so many stories. The gymnast tumblers who were so good at their art. The kind lady who offered to let me stash my violin case with her instead of under a tree and made sure I would do so again on the second day so it wouldn’t sprout legs or get tampered with. Thistlegreen playing “John Ryan’s Polka” with me first thing in the morning on his pennywhistle. Listening to the Troll tell stories on the little stage at the end of the day, all of us cozy and tired out. Said Troll inviting me to have a stage set, even though I hadn’t been scheduled for one (I declined…but that’s not to say I wasn’ t very much touched at the offer). Losing the Tree of Life pendant I bought at my very first gig with the mercenary fighters (a little heartbroken, but I’m half hoping someone else picked it up and has a faerie treasure now. It’s what I get for running to greet my fighter friends and leaving it on a cord it could so easily slip off of). Trolling the Larp and HEMA fighters with song selections. Everything. Everything, everything, that I can’t put into words, all the sounds and smells and sights and friends that you simply have to be there to understand.
It’s all done for another year. Everyone’s packed up and gone home, cozying in for the winter season. Won’t see one another again until spring.
So we’re left with the frost on the windows and the trinkets and the memories.
And the plots. And the plans. And the practicing of repertoire for next faire. And the maps.
Because, you know, the world is full of faires. And what sort of people are we if we don’t daydream about seeing the very best of them?
Is it okay to say that I don’t know where to begin?
There comes a time when my chaos becomes too much for even me.
Let’s just set the scene, then. It’s a beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon, the glass reflecting off the curving front of the expo center, and the Ghostbusters van parked on the sidewalk. Caleb Widowgast and bookmarkedone are on their way to comic con.
What’s this? The bookmarked has given you a real name and broken the code of aliases?
Wrong again! It’s an alias upon an alias! You find your bookish blogger in the company of a Critical Role cosplayer.
(cue the maniacal laughter)
Normally I would have left this out entirely, just let you think I was conning solo, but it’s important to the story.
Why?
Because in cased you aren’t familiar with that particular D&D wizard, you should know that he has a cat. Accordingly, the cosplayer has a cat.
And accordingly, I have a small plush tabby cat multiple times through the day when my con buddy needed both hands to do something.
Somewhat awkward. Just holding a stuffie under one arm like that’s normal. Petting it like Michael Sheen pretending to be Blofeld the Bond villain with his very fake white cat.
Nerd cons, everyone.
You’re probably wondering at this point if bookmarkedone was in cosplay attire.
I was not. Planned on it, but things fell apart at the last minute. Sometimes that happens. I was pretty disappointed, since I originally planned this trip sheerly for the opportunity to show off my personal costume design and enjoy all the fun that comes with being your favorite character for a day.
But I was still determined to go and have my adventures. And maybe I dressed–a little more the way I wanted to, since I was salty about not going in costume? Fashion’s a funny thing. I remember reading some story–I can’t remember where now–about a tailor being magical because he can make a beggar look like a king and how that simple act of putting on a costume can make you not just look like something or believe it, but be what you pretend to be.
In a way, it’s true. You move differently when you’re in different dress. It can make you confident, it can make you comfortable, it can make you hate tulle skirt linings with an undying passion. There’s a power to what you wear.
If anybody can remember the book, please save me from wondering. I’m pretty sure it’s either Rothfuss or that strange dragon series that I read two volumes of like five years ago with a type of creature called a Roffle.
All that soliloquizing to say that on that particular Friday, I Did Not Care. I wasn’t trying to blend in or look normal or pretend to be human or any of those things. It was comic con. There would be far weirder people. So I wore what I wanted. Tall boots. Cool pants. Red crystal earrings.
It felt good.
Widowgast gave me a once-over and said I still looked like I was playing a character.
I said, “I am. I’m being myself.”
As we were walking up to the expo center, Widowgast said again how probable it was that somebody was going to try to guess my character.
I just said I honestly hoped it happened, because if there was a character out there that much like me, it was probably something I’d want to read.
Anyway, in we went to the con.
And this is the point that I should mention I was wearing an orange sweater.
I didn’t think it was a big deal. Halloween, autumn, pumpkins, spooky season.
Until we realized that the con’s logo and almost everything else about it was bright orange.
Widowgast told me I was cosplaying the con itself.
Happy accident. I was more than cool with that.
(except that the con closes permanently after three days, never to be seen again…perhaps better not to carry the idea that far).
Anyway. That’s more than long enough talking about clothes and colors.
You want to hear about the con.
So because this was the final run of this particular con, there wasn’t a lot to see.
Understatement: it was really, really small.
And because Widowgast and I were there on the first day…we almost had the place to ourselves.
Coming from cons where you have to inch your way through hallways because there’s always that one spot that jams up and is shoulder-to-shoulder packed with people and good manners are mildly scandalized because dear, dear–you really can’t avoid brushing shoulders with someone–
It was different. And at times a little creepy. Like, it wasn’t abandoned; the expo center room wasn’t big enough for that, but it was strange.
Probably would have been weirder if I’d actually been in cosplay. You want a crowd of fellow friendly weirdos when you’re doing something like that.
On the other hand–we also felt a little like VIPs. Entire con practically to ourselves. Sweet.
Of course, I think some of the vendors missed the memo that there were actually people who were going to be there on Friday–they weren’t well organized. More than a few were still setting up shop at one o’clock when it opened officially at ten in the morning, and several booths were vacant.
That said, everyone was super, super nice. Vendors, cosplayers, staff, someone doing security (awesome colored contacts for heterochromia. Please do not ask me what the character was because I have no idea), even ordinary gamers and visitors like your incognito blogger.
For the record…you do not know the crisis that went on in my mind when Widowgast and I were getting name badges at the door. I’m pretty sure the lovely clerk would have put down any name I gave her…but even not being in cosplay…giving my real name felt super weird. Official: I’ve been blogging under the bookmarkedone persona too long.
There was a life-size statue of a Ghostbusters monster right as we came in (to my Tolkien-fan eyes it looked like a slobbery Warg), and after I took a picture of Widowgast standing by it, a random friendly cosplayer in a cow-print outfit offered to take a picture of both of us.
I declined (much happier behind the camera), but I thought it was really sweet, since we wouldn’t have had a good way to take a photo together on our own.
The vendors were just as lovely. I’ve been some places where booths are…not so friendly. You get a “are you going to buy anything already” vibe, and honestly, I can’t blame them for that. There’s not a lot of money doing a gig like that, and it can be pretty exhausting.
Not so here. We stopped by one booth with a bunch of necklaces and I started trying to see how many fandoms I could recognize for Widowgast’s entertainment. Because we were the only ones there at the moment, the boothmaster (vendor. I mean vendor) started paying attention too and supplying the ones I couldn’t guess (only two, if you were keeping track. I have very different references for crossbows than The Walking Dead.). I didn’t buy anything from him, but he didn’t seem bothered in the least to have us admire his wares.
And most of the others were the same way. We must have strolled through the floor of the con three or four times, and everyone seemed perfectly cheerful to have us there (VIP energy again? We had our official orange lanyard badges at this point), directing us to what they thought we’d like, laughing as we bantered, complimenting Widowgast’s outfit (I mean, book holsters are pretty awesome, right?), and just being charming.
It could also have something to do with us.
I’ve picked up this habit, working the faires. I always stop in at the booths, but let’s face it, I don’t have the money to buy trinkets from every single one at faire prices (which can be quite steep, especially for a little peasant bard). So I try to tell them how cool everything they’ve made really is (because seriously? Chainmail jewelry? Crowns with squarish crystals that look like a box of stone Crayola met the perfect goblin princess?). It’s probably a habit that really concreted itself for me after I heard people being really rude to vendors at faires, trying to knock prices down by insulting the wares (don’t do this. Don’t make me avenge them). Every artist deserves to feel good about their craft, and well, maybe the spirit of my bardic flattery started rubbing off a little.
I should also explain that I was starting to feel a lot like I was at renfaire.
This is dangerous.
Why?
Well, darling, it’s a different version of myself that goes to renfaire than anywhere else. I’m not completely playing a character, but that’s about the closest explanation I’ve got. Mostly it’s just being really relaxed and comfortable with everybody–and getting into a lot of mischief wherever and whenever the opportunity arises.
You’re about to get to the crux of the double-booking problem. Hang on to this.
So because it’s the week before I’m going to Dragonfest, Widowgast and I are goofing around, the vibe is so familiar, and everyone is being so nice and making me feel right at home–
Yeah. I kind of went into renfaire mode.
This means two things.
At the faire, everyone on the crew is family. You can relax and have fun around your family. One might even say you can trust them.
I’m much less careful of what words I actually let escape my mouth.
Do we see how this might be dangerous yet?
So like I said, we’ve started playing this game to see how many fandoms I can recognize, and we wander into this art booth. These can be very simple–a few prints on the wall, a couple of books to flip through.
Widowgast starts chatting with the artist, and I let the two of them do the Human Social Thing, quietly paging through the demo drawings. He’d done an impressive full-color of Yennifer and Geralt from The Witcher (haven’t watched, but “Toss a Coin,” need I say more?). I wait until I have Widowgast’s attention and point it out. I keep flipping through, guessing some, missing others (Moon Knight, Skeletor, some I can’t remember now–there are a lot of fandoms out there), and then I turn the page to a gorgeous Sauron in full armor, Ring intact, wreathed in flames.
And in the fondest, most affectionate and proudest voice you can imagine, I said, “There’s my boy!”
(cue bookmarkedone realizing far too late that was out loud)
I don’t think I actually looked at the vendor after that. I doubled over so my head almost touched the table laughing, said thank-you, and ran away.
I would have scolded Widowgast for not stopping me from saying that, but not even I knew what I was saying until it happened, so…yeah.
Widowgast thought I made the artist’s day.
The truth is, even as small as the con was, I could keep telling stories.
The electronic gamers who looked suspiciously like the electronic gamers from a previous year, settled in the same formation at the back of the room.
The dice merchants who were running a two-for-one sale we didn’t notice so I told them they’d broken Widowgast by saying 5+5=8 (the dream is collapsing, but hey, it’s a good dream).
Listening to Widowgast’s Zemnian (German) accent and overcompensating not to absently start matching it and accidentally going Full Renfaire Voice Mode (I…can’t actually explain what this sounds like. It’s too subtle a change. It’s still my voice, my accent, but also…not. I did the voice switch later for my dad and he said something along the lines of “oh no,” so apparently I wasn’t imagining it).
Widowgast plunking money down to play Plinko since I’d never done it before and bookmarkedone going full analytical mode (which is not how the gamble is meant to be played…but I won Widowgast a poster, so…).
The minifig builder who brought an entire castle populated with tiny crows with knives, a pirate ship, surprisingly realistic trees, pumpkins, and a miniature lake that for a second I thought was actually liquid (yes, we went in while he was still setting up, and yes, he was absolutely lovely gushing about D&D and, as Widowgast informs me, being far too modest about his art).
The perfume blender who had a unique scent crafted for each D&D class (I freaked out a little over the genius of this. Yes, the bard one was amazing. I want to say it had pink grapefruit in it, but I’m honestly a little fuzzy at this point).
Amigurumi squid. In the same booth as the plague doctor masks and the D20 dice keyrings.
The ladies crocheting/knitting while waiting for unwary visitors to stumble into their booths.
The Renaissance-Star Wars cosplayer. Still floored by that one.
Looking Widowgast dead in the eye and saying “Con artist” (you’re cool if you get the joke).
Going thrift shopping afterward and finding a T-shirt that reads “That’s a horrible idea. What time?” I thought it sounded like a MG or YA character, same energy as “let’s go overthrow my evil uncle’s empire” as a pickup line/first date idea. My friends insisted I buy it. Am a little concerned about why exactly they think it’s so perfectly me?
But we don’t have time for all that!
Why?
Because this is a two-parter post!
Look, I couldn’t clickbait you with “Don’t double-book the bard” and then not explain myself, could I?
So the little con ran three days. I was originally planning to only go Day 1, Friday, with Widowgast, but I wound up stopping in for a bit on Saturday as well. Glimpsed SpiderGwen from Into the Spider-Verse sitting under the trees outside the expo center (would have asked for a photo, but she swung away to other adventures before I got there). Security had different colored eyes today. Dark red, the color of congealing blood.
But I couldn’t stay long, because I was on my way to a violin gig.
Yes. That does mean that I was in full concert black and heels as I brushed shoulders with Ghostbusters, Storm Troopers and gamers. I had the foresight to wear slacks at least, so it wasn’t like I was going to the grocery store in a floor-length black dress (again. I needed ice cream, what can I say?).
It’s always a little awkward, going in full-black somewhere it’s not expected. I knew it would be okay once I got to the con, since with as many anime and comic characters as I’d be around, who was going to notice a kid in all black?
But I still had to walk about a block and cross the street to get to the con looking like a formal ink smudge with a very orange lanyard in one hand.
I could have been uncomfortable about it. But I was still in almost the same mood as the day before. And in heels. Fun fact: you can’t slouch in heels.
So…I owned it.
Something to remember, everyone out there with Impostor Syndrome. Nobody out there has a clue what they’re doing. So you might as well go out and be comfortable in your own skin, because it’s going to make you the coolest person out there.
I still got some odd looks from a bunch of anime cosplayers crossing the street the same time I was leaving. Which is fair.
The really important event from the second day is going to sound trivial, because it was just an average nerd in a T-shirt. It was, however, a very specific fandom T-shirt, for the character I’d been planning to cosplay before the fandom blew up in my face. And while I didn’t want to get anywhere near the drama (bookmarkedone’s inner critic reminding me this is why we prefer dead author fandoms that have at least a few decades of dust on them instead of things that are new ahhh why did we get in a fandom where the creators are still alive?), it really meant everything to me to see someone just casually being a part of that story, that community, assuring me that everything’s going to be okay and whatever’s going on right now, the fandom’s going to rise from it unscathed, as strong and beautiful and strange as it ever was.
I didn’t say anything about it. We were both standing at the perfume table at the time and I did a double-take when I saw the logo on the T-shirt (probably stared and made him uncomfortable, if we’re honest about it), trying to make sure that was what I thought I was seeing.
And I did think about being all “Oi, is that an [xyz] fandom shirt?” But in the end, I started talking to a vendor and by the time it was over, the perfect stranger I’d been considering chatting with had wandered away.
Moral of the story. If you do something cool, if you’re part of something bigger, if you show your fandom colors and nobody says a word to you, remember that nerds are a quiet bunch and you may have secretly made someone’s day.
It really did catch me a little off guard, even though I think I was looking for something like that since the first day of the con. I was still thinking about it a long while later.
And it’s as much as a reminder for me as for anyone else. I’ve had a plague doctor dragon in a top hat keyring on my violin case for two years now, and no one has ever breathed a word about how awesome it is. Either I worked with a very shy or unobservant orchestra, or I’m wasted on them.
Speaking of which! The Concert!
(I know, I know, finally)
This was actually my first ensemble gig since last May, so–yeah. One of the longest breaks I’ve had in a while.
There was a little moment of “How do we do this again?” But all is well in bookmarkedone’s orchestra world.
Especially considering I think I had a week to prepare for this concert?
I know some people would probably say I shouldn’t tell that part of the story to the non-initiated…so don’t tell them.
It went like this. An old orchestra friend from uni messaged me out of the blue, something like, “How are you? Long time no see. Cool, cool. So are you up for playing a concert on the 15th, or–?”
I’m kidding. There was no chit-chat. He had someone drop out at the last minute and needed another violin. I got the music (had to prompt him for an address for the venue, though), and because I don’t ask a lot of questions…that was about it. This date, this music, concert black, this address. That’s it. I knew it was a fundraiser, but honestly, until I got there, I had no clue what for.
(sounds of bookmarkedone being the perfect spy intensify)
Anyway, you have to remember that I was still in comic con/renfaire mode for this next bit.
The organizer was really clever and put stickynotes with our names on all the chairs so we’d know where to sit–especially important since some people played different parts on different pieces. Two names on a chair mean you move. One means you don’t. So there’s an awkward shuffle of an entire largely introverted and uncomfortable orchestra, heads down, squinting at chair seats, trying to find our places.
Except for me.
I found my place pretty easily, and lucky, lucky me! I didn’t have to move.
And watching everyone else shuffle about, this little voice whispered in my head, it’s literally musical chairs.
It should go to my credit that I didn’t say that one out loud.
But when a young lady directly in front of me bent squinting, saying “Why are there two names on my chair?” having missed the prior explanation…
…well, there was this perfect silence, and I said, dead serious, “You have to share.”
She looked up, and I nodded, “Two people, one chair. Yes.”
And this is why they shouldn’t let me do a concert after comic con, everybody.
I could have been helpful and explained, but no! Snarky mode activate, snarky mode there to stay!
The concert itself went well, although I don’t know that my particular brand of humor was appreciated. It was one of those nice ones where the music is easy, the performers seasoned enough to relax, the pressure low–it felt good not to play for a grade or an audition or anyone’s approval. Just to play. You don’t always get that chance, in the violin world. It’s good to hang on to it when it comes.
And…yeah. That’s this week’s adventures. By the time you hear from me again, I will be one Dragonfest the wiser. My favorite faire of the year, I’m already anticipating the mayhem and mischief.
And before you get the wrong idea, it’s not for me.
It’s Rapunzel’s.
And this is the point where I have to back up and confess that I’ve been keeping a lot of bardic adventures from the blog while you’re refreshing the page and wondering what’s keeping me.
Or forgetting that bookmarkedone.home.blog exists.
Either way.
Okay. Deep breath.
Ladies and gentlemen, friend and foe, your attention please.
Because I’m composing a musical.
I am composing the soundtrack to a musical.
(cue muffled bookmarkedone screams because is this happening?)
Right.
So the short version of the story is that your very own little bard is working on a Rapunzel musical for production in 2023.
I am aware this does not explain the wedding dress. I’m getting to that.
So even though we’re almost a year out from the first show, the first cast read-through was scheduled for last Saturday. It was time to finalize our casting for Rapunzel (out of three lovely singers), have everyone meet everyone else (hi! This is the person you’re married to/fall in love with! Have fun!), and get down to plotting mayhem together.
Exciting times.
It was also the first time the cast was going to hear the incomplete score that I’d been laboring over for the last–four months?
So it’s not like I was nervous or prepping everything, saving files, running in circles, and making a pile of prints.
Of course not. I was out thrifting.
And the great thing about thrift shops is that sometimes they will have the coolest dresses for next to nothing. There’s usually a rack that you have to inch past because the full skirts of a dozen prom dresses are poofing out into the aisle. It’s great fun to browse, since the fabrics are always pretty, even if the styles are sometimes a bit weird.
The Boss and I had talked about raiding thrift stores for material when it came to costumes, but nothing had come of it yet (too busy hiding in the garrett listening to the same melody replay in my headphones 500 times until satisfied). I wasn’t really thinking about it.
Until I walked in and saw the wedding dress.
It was right in front, as if it had been politely waiting for me to come and take notice. The perfect size. Puffy sleeves. A train. Satin bows. The most princess-y fairytale wedding dress one could ask for.
And this is the point that Sleepy Writer Brain and my linguistic skills joined hands and went on vacation together and verbal speech apparently failed me because I did not say what I intended.
I meant to say, “Hey, look! Rapunzel’s wedding dress! Isn’t it perfect? Don’t you think the playwright will love it?”
But what came out? No, no, no, no, no.
I wandered over to the dress like a tipsy moth, inspected it silently (confusing my shopping buddy), and then said, “What do you think?”
That’s it. Nothing else. One would think I’d have read the room and realized what that sounded like, but no, I was oblivious!
In her defense, my buddy handled it well. She told me later she was thinking do you have something to tell me? but at the time she just joined in admiring the dress, and agreeing yes, it was very nice, possibly my size–
This is probably the point my brain clicked back into focus from its tea break and I quickly said no, not my style. For Rapunzel.
I am abundantly aware that speech should have been in reverse order.
Anyway!
I took some photos of the dress, messaged the Boss, and asked her if she wanted me to pick it up. She said yes please, so it was back to the shop the next morning and off to the castle with an armload of wedding dress.
And frankly, I’m a little miffed I didn’t get more odd looks leaving the shop. As far as I’m aware, there isn’t a big call for buying wedding dresses at little thrift shops. The clerk didn’t ask. The people didn’t stare. Confusing a shopping buddy is one thing, but I would have enjoyed confounding the greater public.
Just a little.
Anyway, fast forward to the start of the read, and I’m standing outside the castle (yes, real castle, gargoyles and all) with an armful of wedding dress, hundreds of tiny sequins I didn’t see in the shop catching the light and glinting enough to hurt my eyes (just imagine how they’ll look under stage lighting), yelling across the courtyard and part of a field that I got the dress!!!
The playwright was pleased. I got to show it off to all three auditioning Rapunzels (Hi! Yes! Hello! This is your wedding dress? Do you like it? Look at the train!), but honestly I think I was the giddiest of all of us.
After all. It’s not every day you get the perfect wedding dress for a price that cheap.
I was a proud little bard, to say the least.
Hm? How was the final audition? The read?
All went well. We chose our Rapunzel, and the more she read, the more disbelieving I was at how good she is. How did we actually find someone with a voice that princess-y? Who can also sing?
And it’s hard to go too far wrong when you’re sitting at a little plastic card table in the middle of a Great Hall, cast down each side, Boss sitting at the head, me, the mini-boss, perched with my messy score to her right. Both of us struggling not to occasionally slip up and call someone by their character instead of their name.
The awkward bit?
I didn’t exactly think the soundtrack through.
I had the computer-generated recordings, of course, had the score, everyone had the lyrics in the script. But I thought (naïvely?), “Oh, I’ll just play segments on violin to give them some idea of the melodies and we’ll all be fine.”
We were not fine.
(cue bookmarkedone singing all but two of the numbers from the soundtrack alone)
(cue bookmarkedone trying to hide slightly shaky hands and not making eye contact with anyone)
Why? Because bookmarkedone has not sung in public for six years, that’s why. And bookmarkedone was not prepared to sing. Bookmarkedone did not warm up her voice before singing a high B flat.
…I didn’t die.
Much as I make fun of my own singing voice (hello? I’m a violinist?), I know it’s not as rough as I make it out to be. I’ve sung–a lot over the years and I’ve got a pretty good range.
There were some voice cracks. There were some squeaks. There was an awkward half-apologetic email to the playwright afterward (who assured me it was fine and I have a lovely voice, but she’s so sweet anyway…).
Six years is a long time not to sing.
Of course, in the end I’ll be in the ensemble, happy violinist watching the show from “the pit,” but in the meantime…
I have a feeling I might be singing a lot more in the days to come.
If nothing else, because the numbers I’ve written are just so catchy that they keep looping through my brain for hours at a time. I know, I’ve got no one but myself to blame. I keep hoping I’ll hear someone humming as they leave the show when it’s finally brought to the stage. That’ll be so satisfying as to make it all worth it, I think.
Stay tuned! More updates on the adventures of composing a musical coming soon.
If you doubt me, I would like to point you in the direction of my dual musician/writer career that has thus far gotten me into much trouble I’ve (so far) managed to wriggle out of.
Metaphorically, I don’t “sit still.”
I want to see what I can do. I want a challenge. I want to see what I’m up against and then knock it flat.
I want to tell stories.
And not just to The Void. I do that enough already. Half the fun of telling a story is having an audience, knowing that someone else is feeling happy or scared or elated or devastated right along with you, seeing another world appear like magic before their eyes.
If you were around to celebrate Blogiversary #3, you’ve probably caught on to what I’m getting at here.
I want a new challenge for bookmarkedone.
And you get to help me choose what it is!
Shall I:
Get on YouTube/other online platform, drag out my microphone and rant to you about writing, books, poetry, literary theory, etymology (note: this means you actually get to hear my voice instead of guessing what I sound like from syntax and theory).
Get on YouTube/other online platform, drag out my microphone and record some original music tracks for you to jam to (medieval bard or genre-less violin style) during your own writing adventures.
Change nothing! Because you love the blog exactly the way it is and can’t imagine it being more perfect…or you just don’t care/don’t have time to add anything else to your listening library (and I’ll be shouting to The Void again…very sad).
I’m also leaving a blank question for Your Brilliant Ideas because you’re dazzling readers (blows a kiss) and you can probably come up with things that would never cross my mind but yes now I must do it Jekyll, bring the light and coffee grinder we’re going no stops we’re going these people are almost as mad as I am. And if you shamelessly want to plug your own content because you want a guest blog, book review, music collab., etc., that’s what I’m here for. Please. Be shameless. Plug your stuff.
And if you’re especially thrilled with the idea, I’m also running a poll on Twitter with essentially the same questions. I’ll count all the votes, so if you want to vote twice,
Do it.
I’m not kidding. It’ll make my day.
Um…yes. That’s it. That’s the rules. Time to send you off to go break them.
So drumroll please, for the illustrious and brilliant readers of bookmarkedone.home.blog as they hold council and determine their writer’s fate.
This shouldn’t be so important. You know I leave the garrett. I don’t solely exist in front of the laptop screen, typing out mad blog prose for your enjoyment.
It just feels that way sometimes. And since I’d so much rather hang out with my fictionals, it usually takes something pretty significant to get me out of the garrett and among the living.
Except for groceries. I still go shopping for groceries.
Anyway. This isn’t a grocery story.
I still owe you the remaining tales of White Hart Renaissance Festival 2022.
So if you read my post about opening weekend at White Hart, you’ve got some idea of how this is going to go. And since I only made it out one more day to the faire, I honestly considered not posting about it at all. It was just a normal day, really.
But then I remind myself that there is no normal day at Ren faire and what is normal for me really isn’t for the rest of the world.
Right. So. What happened?
Set the stage. It’s hot under the oak trees. We all relish the breeze. There’s a little spindly tree outside the mercenary tent and we all cluster under it, me, the Piper, the fighters, a few friends, talking about music, gaming, opera, theater, ballet, and smacking stuff really hard with a sword. We have a swordfight earlier than scheduled just because we wanted to.
M’lady Fleur was there, running across the grounds in her full hoopskirt and being the life of court. I was chatting with one of the Queen’s Guard later in the afternoon and we were theorizing where she gets her energy. I proposed that she was hiding energy drinks under the bell shape of the hoopskirt (very good for smuggling). He suggested an IV of pure Red Bull or adrenaline. I think he was slightly envious and tired.
I actually ended up dancing with Fleur in the Queen’s Glen. Every faire, Queen E. and her courtiers teach the patrons a simple circle dance. I’ve wanted to do it for a while, but what with always having the violin in my hands…I managed to sneak in this time and Fleur was happy to teach me the steps. I wasn’t all that graceful about it, but it was quite fun.
And Fleur and friends were jigging later to my music. The court jester (fairly certain the same rogue who taunted me into playing Thunderstruck at Dragonfest last year) kept asking for things until I played him “Drunken Sailor.” I meant it as a taunt, especially since I went from a slow, slurring tempo to much faster–but I am forced to a begrudging respect.
He jigged to the whole piece. Even when I spiked up the tempo. While eating fries.
I want to still be annoyed by him (and to some degree I still am)–but I can’t. Well done, thou merry rascal. Don’t ask for country music again. We hates it.
And speaking of Thunderstruck…back by the mercenary camp, conversation turned to the 2Cellos. Namely, their famous video of Thunderstruck, in the white wigs and period costumes–
Nobody was exactly asking for it, but I couldn’t resist.
Yeah. I played Thunderstruck again. And it’s really great fun, because nobody has any idea how to respond to that. And just like when I did it before, a little crowd of patrons materialized–only since I was facing the gang and the woods–they were behind me and I could only guess about how many/what was happening by the reactions on my friends’ faces.
I didn’t…really turn around when I was done. Not at first. Lieutenant started chatting them up, telling them about the mercenary groups, advertising when the next fight would be. I laughed and shook out my arm (it gets an ache from that opening), but I still had manners enough to curtsy when he introduced me.
I played for the fight too, of course. Little themes in the background to make things more interesting. The fighters tell me sometimes that the rhythm helps, gives them an extra push.
And I wandered. I always wander. I made my way down to the children’s area (design flaw, guys. Why is it next door to the pub?), scuttled away from the pub because there were already musicians over there (banjo? Banjo.), and found my way to a nice tree behind the tilting yard. There are two of them there and they form a sort of entryway if you’re walking to the field. And it was a good spot, because I could see everyone and the joust.
I did eventually give in and go over to the Queen’s tent. It’s one of the perks of being a performer–I get a really good view of the joust anytime I want it. We had haybales set up behind her dais, so a couple of the Queen’s ladies and I sat there.
Or we started to, anyway. One of the ladies (I forget her character name, so we’ll call her Lady V), really has a heart of gold. She’s been doing the faires forever and knows better than any of us how fast the seating fills up for the joust. So while we were all looking forward, she was looking back and spotted a family with three or four little kids, probably not a single one of them older than nine, all standing in the sun and trying to see.
So she gives up her seat an invites them into the Queen’s tent. I wound up sitting next to them, thinking dizzyingly about my first faires, when I wasn’t much younger than them.
I mean, I doubt they’ll end up as mad and chaotic as I did, but one never knows.
It was a good joust. Sir Marcello, I noted, got a new title. Since Sir Charlie is the Queen’s Champion, I guess it only seemed fair that Marcello be the Prince of Spain.
Hmm, what else? Sir Charlie made fun of a Scotsman (in good fun, I think), and volunteered him for the beheading. And since he wasn’t as hot and exhausted as on opening day, he said his line of “Pet the knights, meet the horses,” properly this time. I think he was satisfied by that. But perhaps the best joke belonged to the Queen’s Guard.
Since I was perched right behind them with the three kids and their slurpees, I was in the perfect place to hear one of the guard say “So we’re going to say ‘blood, blood, blood,’ right?”
(cue bookmarkedone’s keen interest)
Of course I knew exactly what they were up to. But knowing it doesn’t change the jolt of surprise when half a dozen men start bellowing “BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!” at the top of their lungs as the two knights start careening down the field.
I admit, I shouted with them. Not as much as I would have with the kids sitting next to me, but…well, I think fun was had by all.
Except when two of the kids declared that they didn’t have a clue where their parents were.
(cue bookmarkedone’s keen alarm)
So now I, the highly irresponsible bard, was the de facto guardian of three (or was it four?) kids.
Yike.
Of course their parents were watching them from the shade behind the tents the entire time and came to claim their kiddos immediately, but I still kept them with me at the tent until I was sure they were all together again.
Then I ran off again. As bards do.
Near the end of the day, I was wandering the faire with Lady Fleur & Co. when I glanced over and saw someone I thought I recognized. Patrons, standing with their backs to me, in costumes cobbled together the way patron costumes always are–swords but also tennis shoes–you know.
I hesitated for a minute, because I was half a field away and it would be really kind of awkward if that’s not who I think it is guessing from the back of their heads. So I moseyed. Who’s going to pay attention to a little bard plucking at her violin and apparently taking no particular direction?
The patrons in question, that’s who. I got close enough that I was sure it was who I thought, a couple of violinists I’d played with back in high school, and just hung a few feet away, waiting to see if they’d say hello or walk right past me since I was in full costume.
No such luck. One of them said hello and called me by my actual name (doesn’t happen a lot at faire, where little miss bookmarkedone is just the fiddler except with a few fellow players. Is it fair that I was a little irked? Probably not). And really, while I get that I recognized the back of their heads because that’s the view I had every week in orchestra for a couple of years, I’m a little unnerved at how fast they recognized me.
I don’t talk about faire a lot at academic or more formal violin events. Like it comes up with my close friends, and I might mention it if it’s relevant in a lesson, but I couldn’t remember saying anything about it to either of these two.
It’s–different. I play a character when I’m at faire. In orchestra, in concert settings, I’m serious. At faire, I loosen up. I had a family member tell me once that I almost become a different person there, and to some degree, it’s true. I think you have to be, walking in that halfway fairyland. And besides. In a place where you have people introducing themselves as queens and princes, knights and Vikings, mercenaries, jesters, bards, and plague doctors, why would you want to be the same thing you are every day?
That being said, neither of these two patrons had ever seen me in Faire Mode.
Yeah. About that.
We said our hellos, chatted about the faire. I hadn’t seen one of them in what, five years? And I said they should meet Fleur. Because I’m happier when I’m not talking, and she’s good at talk, and really, if you want the faire experience, you’ve got to meet Fleur.
So I ran and got her.
And Fleur’s great because she stays in character. It’s easy to feed off her energy, to interact. So she’s doing a light accent and talking fast, and before you know it, I’ve code switched back to dialect, “Oh yes indeed,” “my good sirs,” “my lady,” chatting away with her–and then I glance at the violinists and realize what I’ve done.
“What brings you here?” Fleur asks.
There’s a pause. They gesture back to the fried food booth they were at when I found them, name the dish they were buying. One must wonder exactly how much Fleur and I threw them off by now.
I laugh. “That’s a start.” And I tell them they should visit the mercenary camp, since I can introduce them.
Fun fact. I didn’t.
It was near the end of the day, so I left maybe twenty minutes after that. Didn’t see the guys again. If they wound up at the mercenary camp, I don’t know. I may have caused them to doubt that they saw me in the first place.
(cue evil bookmarkedone laughter)
It’s not the first time I’ve pulled a disappearing act. I’m pretty certain it won’t be the last.
So that’s White Hart 2022! I’m sure there were probably some adventures that I’m just forgetting to include. If you like what you read, check back here next week. I’ve got more bardic adventures on the way, including one I’ve been keeping secret for a while.
And if you go to Ren faires, leave me a comment with one of your favorite memories! The more the merrier, hip, hip, huzzah!
I know I warned you, but a month and a half is a really long time to wait. So thank you, everyone, for sticking with me and not deleting the blog from your feed while I was gone.
Why was I gone?
Well…this happened
My first soloist bouquet!
…and this happened
Yeah, that’s not actually me in graduation garb. Because having my photos on here kind of kills the anonymity… Photo by Stanley Morales on Pexels.com
And finals and a bunch of other stuff also happened, but we don’t want to talk about those.
So I’m…tired. But I’m also back. And that means Bookmarkedone is going to have a regular posting schedule again for the first time in…an embarrassingly long while.
I’ll probably take a few days off to breathe first, but in the meantime, here’s a sneak peak of what’s coming to the blog in the next few weeks:
My review of Writers of the Future Vol. 38! It’s not technically an ARC review anymore since the eBook is available for purchase, but I’m still very proud of this one.
Book Haul! Technically I think two book haul posts because I’m super behind!
Music/Life off the Page update! No further details because…spoilers. Yeah, we’ll go with that.
I went thrifting…not sure if this is important, but it was fun.
Writers of the Future Vol. 29 review! Because I read it and I want to talk about it!
I got tagged by Elizabeth Hyde at The Temperamental Writer! And it took me a ridiculously long time to realize it, so (whispers) I’m sorry. You can go check out her post here while waiting for mine. Or just read all her posts. That’s great too.
In the meantime, I have a colleague’s recital to attend. And I’m going to bake a cake. And sleep should probably be in there somewhere?
So I just finished two hours of violin recordings.
It’s a really, really weird experience. In a recital, you’ve got an audience. For a recording, it’s you, the crew, a pianist, and a gloriously empty theatre.
That’s not to say there isn’t an adrenaline rush. There is.
It’s almost impossible, even to another musician, to explain what that feels like, to stand alone on the stage. Playing the violin for a performance, it’s like a war and falling in love at the same time. It’s a fight, it’s a struggle, to reach for the next note, to make it beautiful, to aim for perfection that can never be reached. It’s a fight against the voice in your head saying it is one, saying it’s a battle you’re going to lose. And on the other hand, it’s a game. You have to trust yourself, trust your hands that somehow no longer feel like a part of you, this instrument that suddenly does, both foreign and fused to your shoulder, unbreakably bound. You have to fall, and hope you sprout wings, that the wind will carry you, even though it’s something you cannot ever see.
Like I said. Still a little high on adrenaline.
I’ve been gearing up for these recordings for almost a month, doubling my practice time, listening, hearing, plunging myself inside the music. My right thumb was so achy this morning from bowing it hurt to turn doorknobs (seriously, not recommending practicing until you hurt to anyone. I make my stupid mistakes. You have to find your own).
I read somewhere this week about a practice technique of going up and back down a flight of stairs so your heart rate is up and it feels like it does when you’re onstage. Something clicked in my brain when I tried it. Whenever I go for a run, by the time I’m tying my shoes and desperately hoping nobody will interrupt me and say “Oh, do this thing, please…,” I get a major adrenaline jump. It isn’t fear, and it isn’t exactly anger either. Like so much of music, I don’t think it has a name. It’s just the feeling that I’m going to do the thing. I’m going to do the thing and it’s going to feel right and nobody’s going to stop me. The thrill of the chase without the fear of being hunted.
I felt that, when I came down from the stairs and started playing Bach. And my brain said Oh, so this is what it’s supposed to feel like when we aren’t afraid of “messing up.”
It’s glorious.
If you want to know the truth, I’d much rather run away to the circus or travel with the Renaissance faires than be a concert soloist. Playing outside, “fiddling,” that’s easy. The concert stuff is hard.
So I tried to hold on to that feeling, that let’s do this voice in my head tonight. It was still sometimes a fight. But sometimes, it felt really good.
And now I’m at home, in the garrett, finally able to breathe. Coming off that stage–it’s wild. You feel like you could go skydiving and all you want is a really long nap at the same time. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it in a way that makes it feel ordinary.
But I could get used to this new feeling, the heat in my lungs, as if I could outrun the world.
In other news, I am now 50,000 words more ridiculous thanks to winning my fourth NaNoWriMo. I meant to post more about it, but with a violin competition and the recordings this month…well, now you know what I’ve been up to.
And I have an awesome Writers of the Future anthology to review!
And an Epic Library Sale book haul!
And Dragonfest 2021 adventures that may involve murdering pumpkins!
And Slytherin is winning the House Championship, so good for them…but that I’m sure you knew already.
Stay tuned–bookmarkedone will return to regular posting intervals eventually…after I take a long sleep and maybe have some victory ice cream.
It was sort of like getting your birthday twice in a year. I hadn’t expected to make it to any fair this year, and here I was, out of the blue, going to two, one after the other.
The week in between? I’ll admit it, there wasn’t the same giddy adrenaline shock of the first one. Of course, even I found that first fair a little ridiculous in terms of nerves. I’d completely forgotten I used to do this, but when I was a kid getting ready for performances, I’d hum or even just think “I Whistle A Happy Tune” from The King and I. Hoping some of Anna’s magic would rub off and I wouldn’t have so many butterflies. And there I was, years later, hands too jittery to tie back my hair, and it popped in my head.
I thought it was weird, since I hadn’t seen it in years…and then there was that moment of oh.That’s why I do that thing…
Honestly still not sure if it helps. Can’t hurt, right?
Anyway, waiting for the second fair was totally different. I knew I was going, so there wasn’t the should-I-dare-I-can-I-might-I tension. I had work to smash my way through so I could get the weekend off. I was tired. Some weeks are just like that.
But we had a family movie night before I headed out. Knight’s Tale. It’s pretty much what I would point to as a “That is renfaire,” movie, with maybe a few extra dashes of Monty Python in the background.
And before I get too far ahead of myself…
Please take a moment to appreciate this absolutely gorgeous Futhark rune box that I got at the first fair. I am of the opinion that you should always pick up a little trinket or two each year so when you’re wandering through your book lair on a rainy afternoon you can remember every adventure just by seeing them. I have so many little glass marbles and rings, leather-bound books…my hobby is slowly taking over my décor.
No complaints there.
Anyway.
The next morning, putting on the garb, getting on the road, sun above, squishing the violin case in the passenger seat with me–and everything was perfect. On to meet the steel fighters and play all the music I wanted!
Okay, a slight mishap. On our road trips, we all have our role to play regardless of how many people are in the car. I am, invariably, the navigator. If you get the reference to Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, even better. I keep the map.
About half an hour down the road…
…yeah, we had no map.
Still, we’d been there before, so we made it without mishap. It’s more easy than you think to hide a modest castle in the woods. Although to be fair, we did get lost on the way back. My fault. I said we should go left, and left led us straight to a washed-out dead end that could probably have passed for a river tributary.
Yeah, sorry about that. Apparently we were supposed to go right.
Anyway, I wasn’t lying about there being a castle. There is. We adore it. It’s at the summit of a hill in the center of acres and acres of oak forest, set so you can’t see it until you’re on the drive going up the hill, and then, through a gap in the trees, there it is. Waiting for you. In all its white splendor.
Of course, with all the people there for the fair, we couldn’t just drive up like we had when it was just the gang. Another irreplaceable part of Renfaire: parking on the grass in slightly crooked lines of cars and trying not to bite your tongue in half over the bumps.
Then it was just a hayride up the hill and into the fair itself.
Fun fact, though. Of the three or four people on the haywagon with us, all of them were talking about my steel fighting gang. About seeing them before, when the fight was going to be, even who they liked to watch.
I had my badge on my belt. We all have them, the same colors and figures marking us out in the crowd. Gets you past the ticket booth in a hurry. But I sometimes have a gift of going unseen. And I hadn’t been there for a year, after all.
I didn’t say anything. Just bit my lip and grinned behind my mask. Listened to every word. Of course I told the steel fighters about their fans after I was up the hill, like the good little spy I always have been.
Another fun thing about the fairs you might not know–each one has its own nobility. Kansas City, last I was there, has King Henry VIII and Catherine (which one, I’m honestly not sure. Howard? Aragon? Parr?). Most fairs choose Queen Elizabeth, but this one had Spanish nobility. I didn’t catch the full title. I hope it doesn’t mean a war between the fairs to mirror history since the one we were at before is ruled by a lovely Queen E. Unless there’s a naval battle. I could have some fun playing sea shanties…
Anyway, I discovered this about the reigning majesty because the mercenary steel fighters were summoned to a ceremony inside the castle.
We didn’t really know that’s what was going on, but we bumbled through the side door like the obediently distracted herd of goats we are.
The hall of that castle. Ooh. The other musician and I were all but vibrating with the need to play music and feel the acoustics. I’d done it once before…but I was quite ready to do it again.
Perhaps I should have felt a little more guilty about how disorganized we were. The king formally thanked our lieutenant for our services (free entertainment of bashing each other’s faces in plus music), and we all stood and clasped fist over heart (or violin) as one (more or less) out of respect.
Yeah. Distracted herd of goats. It wasn’t like we’d rehearsed.
I lingered a little afterward, hoping the hall would clear out so I could play without getting scolded for it. The violin’s a loud instrument and…I’m a bookworm. I don’t really like yelling over everyone else’s conversations, and that’s about the volume level.
And then, what would you know, but the lieutenant called my name.
The castle’s proprietor had asked him to ask me if I would play.
Asked. If I would.
Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Yes. I’d be happy to do that.
So I played “The Wellerman.” It’s super simple, and as everybody went perfectly quiet in the hall and my adrenaline spiked, I knew I’d probably chosen wisely not to pick something more complicated.
I never know what to do when they all applaud. What do I do? I just played–did what I do–every day–like breathing–I should be so much better–
So I curtsied. It’s fun to do in a good skirt and that way I don’t quite have to look anybody in the eyes. I still can’t express how awkward I feel when it happens. In a good way. I think.
A little while after that, half a dozen of the sword-fighters were standing in a little knot, singing to fill the whole hall. Me personally, I have a high girl’s voice. I can sing Christine Daae’s arias from The Phantom of the Opera without really trying. This was about the perfect opposite of that.
You know I had to ask.
Would they sing “Misty Mountains” from The Hobbit, please?
They would.
It was a gorgeous moment. I didn’t see exactly how it happened, but the king, who had been on the dais behind us, suddenly materialized beside me as if hearing the song had made him fling himself down the stairs in a straight line to join in.
Okay, so maybe we broke character a little bit. We made a new friend. And I got my wish. Unbeknownst to them, I am fully prepared to persuade the gang to sing again. Often.
I could go on. There are always a thousand little things at the fair that would take a lifetime to describe and a second to experience. The miniature sheep. Top hats with goggles. A little girl paying to put her dad in the stocks, the latter of which grinned and threw her over his shoulder and carried her, screaming aloud, on our entire march. The patron outside the ring of the final fight who somehow got a butterfly to land on his arm and stood there, very still, as if it were some kind of delicate, magical falcon on his wrist.
There are some things that just can’t be described.
And the longer I stay, the less afraid I feel. The more comfortable I am to just walk and play. Because there, it doesn’t matter if I mess up. I can make as many mistakes as I want, play the Sherlock theme because nobody’s going to stop me, experiment, turn one theme into another, make the heralds laugh at what I pick as they threaten those in the stocks with torture, I can talk, I can not say a word, I can just be.
Free.
You know I’m counting the days until the next time we meet.
I’ve started thinking in music. I have not the slightest idea what this means.
To be fair, I’ve always had a different relationship with music than most people. Music is as physical as it is auditory for me because I am a musician. I can feel the different places in my head, my throat, my chest, where the vibrations live when you sing. I hear the cadence of your voice as much as your words. Music is in the bite of metal violin strings in the fingers of my left hand, a weight on my shoulder like a living bird. It’s something you see on the page in a mass of black ink, hear in the air, feel in your hands. Like a living thing.
So if I think of music differently, I’m not often that surprised. Of course it’s going to take a different shape if you look at something upside-down.
But thinking in music?
It’s probably nothing at all. Like when you have dreams in a foreign language you’ve been studying, or at least you think you do, but when you wake up, it’s nothing but gibberish after all and you’re the same as you’ve always been.
It was very nearly like that, this thinking in music. Both times it was late and the game with insomnia had begun–oh yes, it happened twice. I wouldn’t have thought much of it if it had only been once. A fluke. A daydream.
I don’t know what I was thinking. The first time it was something that annoyed me, and the only response my brain could conjure was an entire section of violins screeching discordantly like a pack of flying starlings, as horrible as scraping a blackboard, but perfectly organized as if reading music from a page.
I had to remind myself that it was my brain and that I could make it stop. That’s how involuntary it was.
I remember still less what the second time was that prompted it. But suddenly there was a rich, rolling solo cello melody. Why? Because my mind told me that was the proper response, as much as saying “Indeed,” or “Thank you.”
Important note, here. It isn’t just sound. Both times there has been a meaning to it, a sensation or feeling if not a word, something so full and concise and vague at the same time that no word could possibly do the trick.
Thinking in music.
If I’m honest, it’s probably because of how I’ve been working the last two weeks. I’ve mentioned my Renaissance festival adventures before. I go as the fiddler. I don’t talk, if I can help it, but while someone’s being put in the stocks or something wonderful is happening or two armored mercenaries are punching each other to a pudding, I play. And I play what fits. Rains of Castamere, Love Theme from the Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean, sad fiddle tunes, happy fiddle tunes, different music for each of the fighters when they start to pummel each other, whatever I can think of. And often I have to think of it quick or the moment is missed. It’s like an eloquent joke if I do it well. But it would seem the process has had some unexpected side effects.
BookmarkedOne 