tumblr: the Romani are a historically oppressed people and blah-di-blah-di-da…
me: huh it is weird to think what if a migratory service economy subculture was a whole nation, I mean I know carnies and Deadheads and faire folk… I guess that one family friend was an Irish Traveller even… I wonder if any of the Jewish families came from tinker or ragpicker backgrounds?
anyone I know who has ever been to Budapest: fuck fucking gypsies, never trust any of them within 15 yards of you
Thinking about what I said about renn faires as a home for sex freaks, and then about what I mentioned that time I let my gf’s friends dress me and cinch me up in a bodice
And then I remembered the trope of the “bodicegasm”, the parasexual relief when you finally unlace your bodice at the end of the day and can breathe again
So here’s the question: were bodices ever really that common in whatever fake-historical period (sure not the fucking Renaissance) faires were modeled on?
Or is it just that most of the girl volunteers from 14 on up were straight-up walking around with a leather restraint device/push-up bra as outerwear?
Anonymous asked: man fuck you, I'm not a "polyamorist" and neither are the fine people who put on our Faire. that shit is not as common as you Portland weirdos think.
The fuck kinda backwards-ass rennaisance faire isn’t run by sex freaks? Christ, it’s like those SF cons that tell authors NOT to flirt with the teenage fans, no one knows how to do anything anymore
over the wire:
Previous anon is wrong as hell, the only place I’ve ever met ren faire people is in my local sex freak community
Right? I know faire folk. I’ve been faire folk.
The people I know who have worked at the faire for a long time all complain that there aren’t many orgies or LSD afterwards anymore. But they’re in their late 50s, maybe they just aren’t invited.
Shit, I guess I just took for granted that was gonna pass on like a standing wave but maybe we’ve dropped the ball on properly cultivating the next generation. I’m having that thought a lot lately
man fuck you, I'm not a "polyamorist" and neither are the fine people who put on our Faire. that shit is not as common as you Portland weirdos think.
The fuck kinda backwards-ass rennaisance faire isn’t run by sex freaks? Christ, it’s like those SF cons that tell authors NOT to flirt with the teenage fans, no one knows how to do anything anymore
In honor of George Romero’s passing I’ll NOT run a full review of his 1981 motorcycle jousting renn faire movie, Knightriders.
I’ll just note that it makes you realize that the guy didn’t consider himself “master of zombie horror George Romero” but “master of small group dynamics under pressure George Romero”.
I’ll also say that it’s a better example than Xanadu or Heaven’s Gate of how the ‘70s auteur-personal “New Hollywood” could go off the rails precisely because it’s more intimate and smaller-scale.
The actual “motorcycle jousting” bit is mostly overlooked, with atrocious stuntwork, Romero says he just tossed the idea in there to get the movie funded. To the extent there’s a throughline at all, it’s the king/troupe leader (Ed Harris in INSANE full-on Method scenery-chewing mode) trying to cleave to some sense of countercultural authenticity in the face of pressures to commercialize.
This is transparently about George’s own quest; if no one tells the king that he’s mated his vision to a flatly absurd style of popcorn entertainment, it’s apparently cause that never occurred to him.
I say TO THE EXTENT there’s a throughline, because the film starts to become near an anthology hamhandedly exploring troupe members’ interiority through disjointed and honestly ‘70s-tropaic mini plots. Like, for a while it looks like “trouble with a local sheriff” will be a coherent plot but then it just jags into some weird Billy Jack/First Blood thing with him wailing on some second-tier character while a handcuffed Ed Harris emotes, AND THEN drops that entirely for two new third-tier characters doing a rushed “coming to terms with your sexuality” arc and ONLY LATER, several false endings later, does Harris show up out of nowhere at a fast food restaurant to beat the sheriff up to patrons’ cheers, and then Easy Rider-style drive his motorcycle into a big rig with the mute Native American boy who was possibly also his eagle spirit animal that he’d been seeing in dreams?
And part of this vision quest was aided by the troupe’s doctor, a black voodoo shaman who speaks in Shakespearean jive? (In the commentary Romero is puzzled why Morgan Freeman, fresh off The Electric Company, was insulted to be pitched the role). Or the plot where some local girl latches on to a rider and then it comes out that her dad is abusive and then rather than take her along the rider drops her off at home crying at night because…??? He’s a rebel, he can’t be tied down, it’s never really made clear? And that’s just the end of that plot
Oh also the opening scene fixes on Steven King as a hotdog-eating yokel, that never goes ANYWHERE
The late '90s? Wouldn't you have still been in high school then?
Did the faire summers after my 9th (which was middle school for us) and 10th grades.
THAT was the place my first gf brought me along to. Honestly if she'd’ve posed it as a polyamory thing I’d’ve been more okay with it. Probably would’ve realized I was *supposed* to fuck that one girl.
Seriously though, have you ever MET faire folk?
I see the breathless, wide-eyed shock from contemporary young fandom convention workers, Did You Know [so-and-so] Has A Reputation For ~FLIRTING WITH~ His Teenage Fans
I was doing a renn faire (and going to the hotel jacuzzi afterparties) back in the late ‘90s, and reading '70s SF before that, it’s nothing novel to me. The problem with polyamory is polyamorists. I remember setting up my OKCupid profile and saying I’d consider it and it took another hundred questions before my matches were remotely acceptable again. Maybe if it ever caught on among the sane and attractive.
