Sunday, October 30, 2011

Halloween 2011

Scene - Dane Co Farmer's Market Oct 29, next to the last of the season. I'd just been hovering around the Antique Apples tent eating my cinnamon bun as Towneley picks out heirloom apples to send to his mother in Houston.

On the east side of the Capitol a band of ghouls play. They are made up for Halloween with skeletal faces. We run to hear them. It is kind of a brass band with an accordion. They play Dem Bones, When the Saints Come Marching In and some kind of Mideastern tune, among others. The market-goers pause in their shopping for Indian Corn, gourds, squash and pumpkins - what else? - to enjoy the show. I leap out and start dancing wearing my black velvet witch hat with a stared black veil. I soon and warm up have to take off my jacket dancing in my t-shirt. A cookie monster has joined in the dance along with a couple of guys, one wearing a huge, fake Afro wig. We dance apart and together. Many people are snapping photos, but only few are applauding. I find this curious, and truly "too bad," so lead by example - to little avail. At the end of the performance the band leader thanks me for dancing and invites me to a Freedom March around the Capitol that was starting soon in protest of Gov. Walker's misbegotten reign. I politely decline.

Later in the evening my friend Ky joins me and I prepare my Turkish nargile (water pipe) that we smoke with Egyptian peach tobacco. I have a cat costume of sorts for him and a Gypsy outfit with a layered, more than full circle skirt decked with ribbons that match the various layers of the bright printed fabrics and a black camisole. I dig out a bunch of jewelry with the full component of rings, bracelets and necklaces of garnet, pearl and turquoise faience scarabs, finishing off with a fringed Turkish scarf in reds, gold and pinks and a pair of burgundy velvet slippers encrusted with beads and sequins. I wear a lavender Islamic skull cap with my golden hair hanging free. Sadly, no crystal ball (maybe next year?)

We head out to the Harmony Bar. To my dismay the place, though decorated for the festivities, if filled with Badger football fans who are witness to getting their a** kicked in the last 5 minutes by Ohio State. Soon the revelers drift in, many in costumes. There is Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, he is Tinkerbell (all 280 pounds of him) in a green satin dress complete with hairy decolletage and no need of bra padding with a 6 foot fairy wing span, his full figured wife is Peter Pan. He said she had made the costumes. He had forgotten his magic wand - so sad.

One couple are dressed in underwear over black tights with sticks of dynamite in the waistbands. It took us a while to figure out what this was - terrorists! - the "Underwear Bomber." There are plenty of sexy vamps of mysterious lineage flashing fishnet swathed legs in high heels - of course. Also Fred Flintstone. I asked him where Barney was and he said he was lacking Wilma - she had a wardrobe malfunction. Several sets of Blues Brothers move through the crowd, one who is amazingly(!!) the spitting image of John Belushi. There are witches of all stripes, many in wigs but lacking brooms - or cauldrons, and two devils with red flashing horns, one with a Scott (the cursed governor) Walker mask who is accompanied by a female devil in the middle of a large cleverly rigged basket that restricts her movement - going to Hell in an hand basket! And a full component of vampy vampires, one with a foot long dagger tucked into her waistband.

Honor Among Thieves is playing some spiky blues, complete with a fiddler. Bodies heat up the room, filling the dance floor and providing critical mass that still leaves room to dance freely.

A Halloween ball for all!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Oct 1, 2011 Marijuana Harvest Festival, Madison, WI

A sunny Saturday. Perfect for biking down to campus. The 41st Annual Great Midwest MJ Harvest Fest is on the Library Mall (what might be called the quad elsewhere). The spunky band plays rhythmic tunes while a very mixed crowd looks on. A few brave souls dance here and there, including a couple of young "hippie" chicks. One girl wears a rainbow patterned shawl and long skirt riding low to display her slim midriff. De j'a vu.

There is a midway of sorts with vendors, helping to put the fest in festival. And today is also a big game day. The Badgers are playing the Nebraska Corn Huskers who are new to the "Big Ten" and will soon get their a** kicked. Both teams have red as their color. But many Nebraskans are wearing black with red accents, which they must do at away games, as are the Badger fans who must also have black as their alternative color (which, of course, isn't a color). I love red and black! Maybe black is new new jock color - I wouldn't know.

They stream through to the left of the band, some stopping to take in the scene and snap a pic of the poster announcing what this festival is about or listen to a tune or two. Surprisingly the smell of pot is wafting in the soft breeze. In other recent years this was not much of a feature. Though yesteryear it was not unusual for someone to be freely tossing joints off the stage and a couple of people moving through the crowd with ganga cake for sale for .50, or maybe even free. A lone policeman chats with someone, obviously not there for any kind of enforcement.

Fat chalk sticks are available and people have drawn a few things on the ground, so I make a yin and yang sign in yellow and blue. I had gone down to the terrace of the student union beforehand. Lake Mendota was dressed in sail boats bobbing at their moorings as the sun bounced of the waves. Many empty plastic pitchers are stacked up here and there now that most fans have headed toward the stadium. I had a brat (well done - the guy was torching it especially for me) and I got a pricey plastic glass of Octoberfest beer that I was nursing now at the festival. A gray haired woman (perhaps my age, but looking older, of course) was dancing with her eyes closed. A guy was on his knees trying to get a good pic and she skittered away, crab like, when she looked up and saw him.

Dancer that I am I did start to let the music move my feet and creep slowly up as the beat went on, but didn't knock myself out. I'd arrived late and started walking back to my bike at the student union with the last song. What did I see crossing the street but a half dozen young Saudi men dressed in white robes with traditional head dress. What next? Oh yes, on my way back up the mall two young Buddhist monks in red robes stand next to Memorial Library in the shadows wearing parkas to ward off the cool Wisconsin fall afternoon.

Happy day for the cultures this aft down on campus.