Dancers and Pirates and Then You Go to Jail

[turnberryknkn]

vast, ye mates, and let me tale be a warnin' to all ye good folk. Let me spin ye a tale of the ruin and woe that comes to honest men when they take up in the company of fiery gypsy ladies and wicked pirate lasses... ;-)

(As always, click on thumbnails for expanded images...)





A trusting lad in wicked companyBad company leads to a bad end

Twice before had I had the chance to make merry in Hollygrove, home of the Michigan Reniassance Festival (as told in tales before). This year's revels were with friends old (dreamsquirrel and Jesse) and new (okuninushii and niquerio) and a marvelous day at Faire it was, even if I got into trouble literally just footsteps in from the gate... ;-)

okuninushii had driven in from home to meet us in Ann Arbor, dreamsquirrel (resplendent in his brand new kilt, assembled by niquerio) picked us up, we swung past Jesse's house and then north to Hollygrove we zoomed. okuninushii had thoughtfully brought along a CD of Songs to Geek Out By, including the marvelous song Finite Simple Group (of Order Two), the world's first a-capella love poem involving mathematical notation [1]. From simultaneous Monty Python quoting to geeky jokes you can actually tell in polite company to Da Vincis Notebook's paean to the wonders of the Information Age, it was a happy, silly, zany, rocking geek-fest in dreamsquirrel's car zooming all the way up US 23 to Hollygrove. ("A computer scientist, a mathematician, and two med student geeks get in a car...")

(There was more merry geekery in that one hour in the car than in all of the last nine years in classroom, lab and wards at the medical center. Huzzah for fellow geeks! :-) )




After some last-minute wardrobe adjustments in the grassy parking lot in front of Hollygrove (at left, okuninushii helps Jesse out with some fairy dustglitter; at right, okuninushii teaches me to help a lady fit into a corset [2]), off into Hollygrove we march, ready for a day of revelry and wickedness.

Within minutes, I had been thrown in jail. ;-)

I had no idea, but Hollygrove -- the home of the Michigan Renaissance Festival -- has a jail, and a pair of sheriffs, a Lord in hot pink doublet and a lady in bodice, who spied our completely-garbed group amidst the mundanes and zeroed in on us. The Lord Sheriff took the ladies aside, while the Lady Sheriff took us gents. I imagine both made the same offer -- for the contribution of a mere three poundsdollars, we could have one of the opposite party "arrested", paraded through Hollygrove as the rogues they surely were, and compelled to do silly things on stage to win their freedom. niquerio's brother jumped at the chance to throw his sister in prison. When it came my turn,


• (a) I knew everyone knows I'm always cheerfully game for doing very silly things ( Exhibit A)( Exhibit B) ( Exhibit C) and so I was confident that
  
• (b) Jesse, okuninushii and niquierio would feel entirely comfortable volunteering me for the silliness and
  
• (c) All of them being delightfully wicked at heart, one of them *would* volunteer me for jail and
  
• (d) I wanted camera people to take pictures, which they couldn't, of course, do if they were in jail. :-)
  

So it was that dreamsquirrel and I both declined the opportunity to have any of the other ladies with us arrested. And as predicted, the Ladies had us *all* thrown in jail. I'm told okuninushii generously volunteered the entire sum to have all of us guys brigged. Yep, she's a Pirate. ;-)






And so it was the Lord sheriff threw the rope around niquerio's wrists, courtesy of her brother; and so it was the Lady sheriff took us guys into custody in chain; and so it was that we were paraded through Hollygrove, unrepentant rogues to the cheerful cries of "Shame!" from the costumed cast and the snapped pictures of the mundanes, a tiny part of the grand, glorious pagent of the Faire. And so we were thrown into the brig, where dreamsquirrel and niquerio and I sang the laments of prisoners unjustly imprisoned (okay, maybe Es is Ein Schnee Gefallen is not a traditional prison song, but hey, give us a break, it's what we remembered ;-) ) and various silly pictures taken (like this one, with niquerio's priceless I don't know these guys expression on her face (grin))until it came time for us to be paraded in front of the crowds to have our crimes annoucnced and our pennance paid.






So announced were the crimes written on our Warrants of Arrest:


• niquerio: Being a saucy wench
  (ed. If that's against the law, then I'd rather be a Rogue. ;-) )
  
  
• dreamsquirrel: Bouncing reality checks
  (ed. And who -- at least in our merry company -- hasn't?)
  
  
• turnberryknkn: Contagious silliness syndrome -- Damn guilty, your honor, damn guilty! ;-)
  

And subsequent to that our punishment -- I knew all those hours of hearing the grade schoolers on the American School in Japan bus sing Little Bunny Foo-Foo would come in handy! (As did all the previous practice with dreamsquirrel singing the I'm a Little Teapot song. [3])









And from there went on a grand and marvelous day, from the previously noted encounters with a certain famous pirate to further songs with Owain Phyfe, the favorite bard of ours written about last year ( Poets, Bards, and Singers of Song), to jousting and reveling and laughing and everything else. An afternoon become evening with friends old and friends new, all the way to the last PubSing and the last rousing chorus of Health to the Company, glasses raised high. Another happy time full of memories and merriment, the glory of energetic music and the company of warm, witty, geeky women. Thank you, my friends, for another memorable Faire day. :-)

[1] Brought to you by the singers of Klein Four, the "premiere a capella group of the world of higher mathematics", hailing from none other than my alma mater, Northwestern University. Go Cats! :-)

[2] And despite what the picture looks like and okuninushii's commentary, I do *not* have my knee planted in her backside... ;-)

[3] Now, what was I arrested for, again? ;-)