Hair Raising Tales

It’s been a while since I’ve posted.

For those of you who have been following the adventure of Robin and wondering how they came to be…yes I did cut my hair.  After having hair down to my tookass for pretty much my entire life, I decided it was time for a change.  Back in January I cut 13 inches off and donated it to Locks of Love.  Now my hair is almost past my shoulders again.  Yes, I’m growing it back.  I’ve enjoyed the short hair for it’s difference in look, but boy is it a lot more work than having long hair!  I miss my long hair some days, but then I think about the kids out there who don’t have any hair, for whatever reason.  I know that the hair I donated is helping some child with their self esteem at a critical point in their lives. 

If you are interested in donating your own hair or some money to Locks of Love their web site is

http://www.locksoflove.org/

The biggest misconception I hear from people is what kind of hair they’ll take.  They can take just about anyone’s hair, read up on it on the website if you are truly interested in it.

Even if you don’t help this charity, help some one.  It makes you feel good :)  You don’t have to have money to help a charity, most of them could really use your time and talents too!  Find something that you believe in and can get behind and pitch in!

I ran after that hair stealing badger for days, running South by the way, South!  I knew he was walking South.  Well, he be running South now, as I be running South after him, and in a southward fashion we did run south.  I could see my hair flowing behind him as he ran.  He runneth much much faster than he swims.  I finally managed to corner him, well not quite corner him, as there was no corner, but lots of water behind him and lots of me chasing him in front of him.  Or maybe the water was in front of him and I was behind him.  I really suppose it changed depending on which way he was facing and trying to run, which he did change directions quite a few times trying to get away from me, but I was not about to let that happen.  Then I noticed he was not looking at me anymore, but past me, sort of over my shoulder, but not quite over me, but behind me.  I was afraid to turn around, for I knew if I turned around, I would see nothing, and he would get away with my hair, and I was so close to getting my hair back.  The next thing I knew, as I stood there thinking about how one should go about getting hair back from a badger once one has caught up with said badger, a little bald girl came flying at the badger and gave him a big hug.  The badger gave her the hair and then gave me a sheepish look.  For once I knew not what to say.  So I sat down there on the shore of the water and watched the little bald girl smile and place my hair on her head and hug the badger again.  I then realized that the badger was not such a mean badger after all.  I asked the badger why he stole my hair to give to the little girl.  The badger said that he had wanted to help the little girl for a very long time and had tried to grow his own hair out for quite some time, but being a badger, his hair never grew very long.  One day he saw me mending some clothes and thought about how lovely the little girl would look with my hair, but he was afraid to ask, so he thought he had to go on a super-secret-very-important-can-not-tell-anyone-must-be-accomplished mission.  I hugged the badger and told him that he could have just asked, for I too like to help others whenever I can. 

Well, I have found out where my hair is, in a lovely shire by the name of Lake Worth, Florida, I have had quite an adventure and made some new friends along the way.  Now I must away to the shire of Mount Hope, and I will hopefully make it there before twelve of the clock for our first performance.  Francis would be quite displeased with me if I were to be late.  And I would hate to have to introduce my badger friend, Bernard, to an angry Francis, for no one likes to meet an angry Francis.  I hope Bernard likes Shakespeare!

A quick glimpse into the future

Here’s what to expect as the PARF season opens:

1. More Mobile Mechanicals

We spent a lot of time working on a new cart, so poor Dan wouldn’t have a hernia carrying it around the shire.

2. More Mobile Shows

For various reasons, but Mechanicals aren’t spending a whole lot of time on stages this season.  You’ll find us at our usual time of 12 at Trial and Dunke stage, but our other show is at 2 on the Piazza.  For those that haven’t seen shows there, it’s almost like a little street stage.  That should make things interesting.  This also incorporates note 1 here, as our new cart is like a little roving stage, complete with backdrop.  Expect to see us all over the shire performing little bits for you.  Believe me, you can’t miss us :).

3.  Ask a Mechanical

A new bit on our website will be mirrored here on our blog as well.  In them, questions will be asked of our Mechanicals and they will give you there (often times very odd) answers.  Have questions you would like them to answer?  Contact us, and you may see your question on the website!

4.  A new show!

That’s right, Henry V has been rehearsed (a little) and now we’re just clearing some of the cobwebs so we can make its debut at PA.

5. I don’t know!

Hey, 5 is always a good number, so I had to put that in.

See you all at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire!

Adam

Close Encounters of the Badger Kind

*sigh* I have just about given up on locating the hair stealing badger.  I have been all over England, and parts of the rest of the world and then I came to the New World and have all the time been following the hair stealing badger.  I have met quite a few interesting animals and have had some wonderful food.  However, if I am not in the shire of Mt. Hope in short repair, I am quite sure that Thomas will be quite short with myself and that it will be quite hard to repair me afterwords.  I have just about given up hope of ever finding the hair stealing badger, as it has been quite some time since I have seen him last, and I know not whether he did walk north or south or east or west, or if he has swum or taken a boat back to England.  Mayhaps his visit to the New World was to simply loose me and once he discovered that I too was in the New World he decided to go back home.  Badgers be quite smart creatures, knowest thou.  *sigh*  I be continuing to walk south, for I have not found the water again, therefore there must be more land that the badger may have traveled to the south, if he indeed be going south.  Did you hear that rustle?  No, not my friend Russle, he be not here, he be back in Ireland visiting me mum and da.  The noise in the brush over yonder…where the badger nose be peaking out of.  Badger nose!  I have no time to speak more for my bard to write, I am away to chase down that badger!

Lost in the Story

I got as far north as I could get, and when I saw the water, decided that the badger could not have possibly swam anywhere, as when I looked out into the water I could see no where to swim to.  Now, as we all know from my earlier adventures with the hair stealing badger that badgers can indeed swim.  However, I SAW him swim.  It was not very pretty.  I can not imagine him swimming very far or for very long.  So I decided that there was no way that the hair stealing badger could have jumped into the water, so I began walking south.  I hadn’t been walking south for all that long, when I found a very large gathering of many different animals.  They were all playing at different games.  Some had rocks they were thowing and then moving acorns around drawings in the dirt.  Some had carved some wonderous figures out of wood and were moving them along, sort of looking like when the Queen’s army practices.  Then there were the creative animals who wanted to share their creations with the other, and had gathered in one area to sell their wares.  It was quite a wonderful little market.  I myself managed to dig deep, very deep, as I haven’t seen Willy in quite some time and well, he tends to forget to pay me anyway, good thing I can save well…and find just enough pounds to make a few purchases for myself including some new artwork for the cart and some new ideas for clothing.  There were all kinds of things going on, so many that I could not possibly explain them all, for I did not see or experience them all.  I found myself spending most of my time with the story tellers.  Well, they were like story tellers, but kind of like actors.  But not actors like us, for there were no scripts.  Everyone picked out a character and we were told where we were and kind of sort of in a way what was going on, or at least what we thought was going on and then we all played our characters to make the rest of the story.  It was quite merry.  So merry in fact, that I had no idea that three days had passed that I had not even so much as thought about the hair stealing badger.  When the story telling fun had come to an end, I said goodbye to all of the game playing animals, promising that if I ever happened to be around when they wanted to play again that I would love to play again, and continued on my journey south.  Boy, I do hope that the badger was truly traveling south, for if he be going west I may never find him.  I am quite sure that he did not go north or east, for there be water in the north and the east and as I said before I think not that this badger could swim a far as he would need to swim to get somewhere.  I wonder if he has washed my hair in all the time he has had it?  I wash my hair fairly frequently and I would hate to get it back all dirty.

What to do when not acting…

More acting.

So if anyone is curious what Andi & Adam do in our spare time when not mocking Shakespeare or dealing with the humdrum of reality, this is what we do:

We larp.

Man, what an ugly word.  I bet half of you thought something disgusting when you read that.  Really, there is a small group in the larp community trying to change that title.  I honestly couldn’t care less.  Anyway…

What is larp?  Larp stands for Live Action Role Playing.  Those of you rolling your eyes and saying “Dear God, they’re D&D dorks,” please, hear me out.  Okay, yes, we’re D&D dorks too, but that’s besides the point.  What we’ve been doing for the last six months or so is writing scripts, creating characters, building props and doing logistical analysis to make sure that 40 or so people would have a great time interacting with fantastic people.

So…it’s theatre with scripts and stuff?  Well, no.  Theatre involves a cadre of actors putting on a performance for the delight of an audience (like, oh, say a Mad Mechanical performance).  Larp (there’s that word again!) involves a cadre of actors who are ALSO the audience.  The script is merely an outline of events that happen outside the control of the actors.  Beyond that, the actors are free to do as they wish in the context of their characters.  Think of it as, oh, say, you were at a renaissance faire talking with, oh say, Thomas Snout about something.  Thomas would respond to whatever you say in the context of his character (which basically means he’ll try to be a jerk at every opportunity).  If you had chosen a character for the day and we each had goals we would like to accomplish before the day is done, that would be incredibly similar to the concept I’m talking about here.

This weekend was DexCon, a gaming convention in northern New Jersey.  In it, we ran a little ditty called “Bottom Dealing,” which basically was about a poker tournament designed to create as much tension and hatred between the poker players as possible.  It was a fantastic to see a room full (and I mean room full, we had written 30 characters then had to quickly write 14 more to fill demand) of actors taking the brief character descriptions we mapped out and turning it into a full experience filled with tension, catharsis and enough subtle manipulation to make Machiavelli happy.  When it was all done, each had their own personal play to describe from their point of view.  40 different plays were performed at once, and 40 different stories were born of them.

After that, we got to perform as characters in other larps (still sounds bad, doesn’t it?).  In them we played eccentric millionaires, alien controlled mayors, simple farm girls, art thieves and stage mothers to a traveling side show.  In these, many more stories were told and a shared experience binded strangers from around the country together.

Sure, you can talk around a water cooler about how surprised or confused you were at the latest episode of Lost, or you can actually feel the surprise as someone you thought was your friend pulls a gun on you, or your carefully contrived plan falls around you.  You were there.

Yes, it’s a lot of work: the man hours spent on Bottom Dealing was FAR in excess of the 4 hours it actually ran.  Yes, the energy to BE in one of these can be staggering: it takes a lot of energy to think like an alien, you know.  But I wouldn’t change it for the world.  We were there.  Each person who played through our script or who we played with in others are now our celebrities.  We have REAL people to look up to as we see their interactions with us and all the other characters around them.  These people act without scripts, without second takes.  Sure, maybe the line you thought was brilliant comes out wrong, but you laugh and move on.  Sometimes, though, it all comes together and you can be a part of an experience more powerful than any movie you’ve seen or any book you’ve written.

I love being a Mechanical because I can do this on a smaller scale every performance.  In those I make a connection with an audience and they share our world for those brief 20 or so minutes.  I hope to break the wall down from a simple play where there are actors and audience members and never the twain shall meet.  I want to laugh with them, be a part of their story.  Sure, we may not have 40 different stories for each performance, but I bet if you talk to someone in the back of the audience and then talk to Baby Pyramus, you’d have at least 2.

I ramble because I’m still filled with the passion I felt all weekend.  I hope to bring some of it with me in a few weeks as we begin PARF.  But if you’re in to acting, or would simply like to try something new, throw away all your previous misconceptions and try finding a larp.  Sure, they’re not all as magical as the ones I was a part of.  I got lucky finding the group of people I found.  But I’m sure if you keep at it, you will be able to see what I have seen.

-Adam

So I wanted to write last week, well not I write, but my bard write, as I cannot write and have brought along a bard who is quite capable of writing what I do say.  So I was about to sit down with my bard and begin recounting the tale of my journey, as I have been these many weeks, so that he may then wander off to the spider’s webs and share the story with others.  How that works, I still do not understand.  I know that I do not speak but very well, but I still do not understand how writing words on parchment and sticking them in a spider’s web makes the parchment readable to anyone in the world who wishes to read it.  Anyway, as I was about to sit down I heard a bit of a rucus going on deaper within the wood where we had decided to rest along side of.  I wish not to rest in the wood, without being invited, as it is home to quite a few creatures.  As we were resting and I heard this rucus, I decided to look into the noisesome matter closer.  I discoverd a large gathering of elk playing at various games.  I asked the elk if I could join in their reindeer games, and they informed me that they were not playing reindeer games, but elkish games.  I apologized quite a bit, and lucky for me, elks be quite friendly.  After they had told me that they accepted my many apologies, they invited me to play in their elkish games.  We played long into the night.  I had a very merry time, but when the elks had decided that the time to play was over, it was quite late at night, and I had become quite tired, and I needed to rest so that I could continue looking for the hair stealing badger.  So I slept.  Now I am not sleeping.  I am walking and searching.  He must be around here somewhere…

Following the Stars

Right, so when trying to walk during the day, do not try to navigate by the stars.  I looked up to find the star Polaris, as the Possum had told me to do, and I only found one star.  It was quite bright.  It hurt mine eyes.  Yes, I know it be called the sun.  Know you that a wide brimmed hat does nothing to protect ones eyes from the sun when one ignores the brim, looking straight past it and up into the sun.  So now all I can see are spots.  Spots everywhere.  It be like unto several acting companies performing MacBeth at the same time.  I am quite confused, much like I was when I saw a production of MacBeth.  However, though I cannot see anything but spots before mine eyes, I must continue to walk on and locate the hair stealing badger.  I will however walk with mine hands directly in front of me, for directly before I began to dictate this post to my bard, I had walked into a tree.  What be the point of having a traveling bard with you if he will allow one to walk into trees when there be spots dancing before one’s eyes?  It be about as useful as having Thomas to guide one around.  At least my bard hath a better sense of direction than Thomas has.  My bard hath more sense in general than Thomas hath.  My bard can fly.  No wait, that be, my bird can fly.  My bard hath not wings.  I wonder if I gave him wings if he could fly.  Should I make the wings or try to find them?  I think I shall try to find him a pair.  I can look while I look for the hair stealing badger, so as to save time.  If I tried to make him wings I would have to stop looking for the badger, find wing material and then sit me down to sew the wings.  I may be able to sew like the wind, but I know not if I can sew the wind into the wings.  So many things in life to ponder, like WHAT COULD A BADGER WANT WITH MY HAIR?!

Why I act stupid

So I’m driving home thinking about time and time travel and such.  I was pondering the reason why time seems to only flow in one direction (I recently read Hawking’s bit on how time can be finite yet without boundary) and I thought….well heck, Newton said an object in motion tends to stay in motion, so perhaps we’re all going forward in time because we would have to accept some exertion from an outside source (or, in this case, an outtime source) that could change the way we move through time.

Well, obviously that doesn’t happen often as things and people would be getting smacked by time thingies and winged into the past all the time.

But then I though, wait a second, according to Einstein time slows down as you approach the speed of light.  Light is hitting us all the time.  Should light, then, be slowing down our time the more it hits us?

And this is why I play stupid…because when I try to play smart (and no doubt I’m playing as anyone could probably punch a hole in my logic) it hurts my brain meats.

Man I need to stop thinking…you know…start performing Shakespeare.

-Adam

As I have walked north I have noticed that the trees have been changing a bit.  It is quite lovely to be walking north.  North be the direction one walks when following the star named Polaris.  I know that because I met a possum the other evening who told me so.  I was quite surprised to learn that possums could talk and that they could be as round as this one was.  The only other possums I had seen so far on my journey didn’t talk at all and were quite flat.  This possum was also lurking in some bushes, while the other flatter possums seemed to like to be along the pathways for the carriages.  So the lurking possum, who’s name was, well probably still is, Abigail and I had a long chat.  I knew that chatting would keep me from finding the hair stealing badger, but I have never had a conversation with a possum before, and I be quite certain that neither have Snug or Thomas or Nick or Francis.  So I just had to have a conversation with the possum.  We talked a lot about the stars and sky and looking for food.  I think though I will not take Abigail’s advice on finding food, she seemeth to like her food well aged.  I prefer mine fresh.  I asked her if she had seen the hair stealing badger, and she said no and that if she had seen a badger she would have hidden anyway, as badgers and possums do not get along since the great Possum Badger War of some date way back when, I never was very good at remembering dates.  When the sun began to rise Abigail said she was getting quite tired and needed to rest.  I too was feeling a big tired and decided that before I continued my journey that I should sleep.  So I found a lovely tree bearing needles instead of leaves, which I loved quite a bit as it reminded me of sewing outside with my mother, and laid me down for a bit of a rest.  I arrose a few hours later and have once again begun my walking north towards the star named Polaris, at least I hope that be the direcion I am walking in, it be quite hard to follow the stars when the sun is up.