an *actual* journal entry!

Liebes Tagbuch...

The most awesome thing happened on Sunday: I saw Raven, the chocolatier from Minnesota, while I was decorating the front of the shop. My jaw dropped and I moved closer to verify, then just stood and stared until she looked at me, did a visible double-take, and we hugged. It was so wonderful, and such a relief to see a familiar face!

I've really been feeling disconnected of late... feeling very strongly that I've pulled myself up by the roots and that I don't really have a voice... It has me missing home, and friends, and the Knights. Part of it is due to the same-world-but-smaller thing with rennies.... I'm getting closer to the right group of people out there, but there's still a lot of negitivity and closed-mindedness that I'm flowing around/with.... My neighbors are good folk, and there's a catgirl that everyone thinks is crazy that I want to see if I can hunt down.

TRF entertainment

Working in a booth, I don't have much time to see entertainment. Most of what I see is what happens on the street. Luckily, the entertainer's green room is right behind the Globe Stage, which is right next to my shop, so I get to see a fair amount.

The TRF theme this year is The Quest. To my understanding, every year there is a different theme, with a different plotline that is worked out over the course of the day.

( TRF plotline spoilers ahead... )

As far as street entertainment goes, most of it is hit-and-run of course, though Scratch the Beggar does do his thing here. I really enjoy seeing the Well Washing Wenches do bits as they proceed down the lane, and there is a pirate who takes great delight in bursting into screams at the sight of various frightening patrons. The Fairy Godfather is bright and colorful and pink, and there is a lady with an odd wine-cork hat who leaves kisses on bald patrons' heads. I don't have much experiance with any of the Court(s) (of which several nationalities are represented), except for a few court ladies who come into our shop occasionally.

On the first weekend, the music shop across the way complained that E-Muzeki was drawing away their customers, so unfortunately, we don't get any street musicians in front of our shop any more. *pouts* And they were really good too.

The stage act I've seen the most is the final one, the Highland Ceilidh with Tartanic (a musical group). I'm not too keen on the script (or maybe just Tartanic themselves?). It's rather overblown and the sexual overtones are too blatant and spelled-out. I don't plan on making a trek across site to see Tartanic by themselves. The dancing is pretty neat (although seeing Heralds in Love done Scottish-style was odd), but there was a lot of ass-and/or-underwear flashing which I wasn't keen on, personally.

Since I so loved the commedia by I Arroganti in Minnesota, when I realized the Commedia at TRF is close, I took a break to go see it. I missed the first 5 minutes, and had to leave before the conclusion, but it left a similiar taste in my mouth as the Ceilidh. Most of the sex stuff was really overt. Worse, in my opinion, was that it was very self-referential. After a few repetitions of "It's as though I'm a character in some farsical Italian commedia" they actually pulled out the script to see what happened next and vowed to never let one of the characters write another one. I did get many laughs out of it though, and greatly enjoyed seeing phrases and situations that iarroganti brought up from Texas.

I managed to see the first half of Gypsy Dance Theater, and I thought it was awesome. There are 4 female dancers and 3 male percussionists. One of the drummers also sang/chanted a bit, and danced. The dancers all have different styles of dressing and dancing, which makes it very fun to watch.

I went about halfway across site to go see Istanpitta, who I also thought was great. *grins* I may be a bit biased though, because they played Quen Quer Que. *pouts* I couldn't dance though, because you really need at least a few people to dance it.... le sigh. Hopefully next time....

However, thinking of dancing, it looks like there might be a little bit I may be able to do at the Maypole dancing.... I'm keeping my fingers crossed...