Last weekend, the 8th Annual Royal Medieval Faire was held in Waterloo Park.
It was a beautiful day. It rained all over the setup crew the day before. Saturday morning, a couple of fluffy clouds in a clear blue sky spit some raindrops out just for a moment - teasing us and reminding us the Weather Goddesses are powerful, but really meant to smile down on the day. Some overnight vandalism (porta-potties tipped, tents torn down) didn't slow things up much. However, those responsible are pea-brained turds who deserve all karma that catches up with them. Unfortunately the perpetrators were probably from amoung our best and brightest at the nearby Universities.
As a Renaissance Festival goes, the RMF is small and fragile. It's one day. It's a tent faire. It appears and disappears in a large acreage of city park in less time than most people take to rearrange a living room. But boy, it has heart.
I love that such events exist. I love being part of a community that values them. It gives me a bit of hope for humanity. It reassures me to see that amongst the media-hyped saturation of vapid celebrity and the pseudo-adrenaline of the latest CGI effect blockbuster, SOMEone can still put brains and muscle into having a REAL imagination. That some people still take their kids out of doors and challenge them to exercise more than their thumbs. That teamwork and coping skills are still out there making a community of diversity, and that a genuine smile is still out there instead of just another silicone-enhanced, airbrushed twit on a billboard.
It reassures me that investment is still made in art. And I don't mean art as in $10,000 canvases to hang on your wall and dust, I mean ART in the creation of object, sound, action or event from one's own will and skill, for no other reason than to delight someone. It doesn't have to be art that delights me in particular - the creative act exists whether or not the result suits any one person's particular taste - but it has to be that imaginative, creative, energetic process that drives it.
Not the return on investment, the test market, the sponsorship or whatever. Just the need to create. I dread the day we finally lose all that to the blockbuster cinema sweatshops, I hope it never comes.
To every single one of you losers who argued with the Gate volunteers that $5 was "too much" for the RMF gate fee - I hope you choke on your next Starbucks Venti Double-whip Mocha whatchacallit. Get off your ass and help MAKE the day next year, why don't you? The arts need to be there for all of us.
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