A lot can be learned from E.B. White's children's classic Charlotte's Web. The wonder of friendship. Everyone is special and contributes something to their society. The beauty and cruelty of nature. And the gluttonous wonder that is the State Fair. Whenever the fair rolls around my mind immediately goes to the fair scenes in Charlotte's Web, particularly the scenes from the animated movie where Templeton fantasizes about the food he will eat and when he actually runs around collecting, ingesting, and gleefully rolling around in scraps from the fair. For me, this encompasses the fair: it's trashy, it's flashy, and sorta bad for you, but there are these little crumbs of joy (and sometimes bewilderment) to be found. It's a smorgasbord of sensory overload that can leave you feeling elated or sick to your stomach. Or both.
It's fair time once again, and for some reason I agreed to go not once, but twice. There's a lot that I like about the fair, and some things that I don't. And even with the things that I enjoy, I recognize how strange or downright wrong they can be outside of the context of the fair. Because it really is this ephemeral experience, and the things that make up "The Fair Experience" make total sense in context, and yet somehow still don't. For example: Anything deep fried. It's perfectly acceptable to eat, and to want to eat deep fried things at the fair. It's almost a given. And yet it's still considered absurd, and we know it's not healthy to eat deep fried candy bars, but it's just this one time a year, so it's okay. And despite the fact that it's the same rides and same vendors in the same places, the experience is always a little different. So, here are my two days at the fair.
Saturday I went with Luann and the Count. As soon as we walked through the gates things got weird. From a distance I could see that there was this guy handing things out to people, and not liking to make eye contact with people who are handing things out, I turned my head as we walked by, pretending to be interested in renting a Rascal. Awkward crisis averted, I then heard the guy say, "FREE HARLEQUIN NOVEL! GET YOUR FREE HARLEQUIN NOVEL!" Um, what was that? Free Harlequin novel, you say? There's no way that is for real. They are handing out free harlequin novels at the fair? What is this, Christmas? But it was real.
Based off the cover (and blurb on the back) I think it's about a woman who falls in love with a cowboy. The only thing that could make this better if it was called A Fair to Remember and was about a woman that had an affair with a carnie or a side-show freak. But I'm not even sure what the title is. I think it's Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch, which sounds like a cowboy-fied Nancy Drew. Who ever okay'ed this cover is crazy, because why would you make the title so difficult to see? Forget it, Jake; it's free harlequin romance and mystery town.Anyway, we continued walking and first stop was the food. A steak sandwich for the Count, ribbon fries for myself, and a giant turkey leg for the ever classy Luann. She ate it like an ANIMAL. A classy animal. But what really amused me was that while we were waiting in line to get her leg, I happened to look over and see a can of Faygo orange soda sitting on the edge of the grill. Talk about an Easter egg for the juggalo fans! In my mind, one of the guys working the grill was either a juggalo, a fan of Faygo, from Michigan, or D all of the above. What are the ODDS?
We decided that we'd go in search of the livestock next, but on the way we got sidetracked by more food. Deep fried Reese's cups for me; deep fried 3 Muskateer's for the Count. The Count's was pretty good as it was nice and melty. Mine on the other hand was meh. Too much dough; not enough Reese's. So I ate the peanut butter out of the middle LIKE AN ANIMAL.
We took yet another pit-stop and decided to pay a dollar to see Big Willie, the 3 foot wide, 13 foot long gator. The signs out front said "ALIVE" and truthfully it wasn't false advertising because he was once alive.
The pennies thrown into the cage make me laugh. "Here lies Big Willie. He was once the king of the swamp, and now he is a wishing well. RIP, Big Willie." Honestly, I don't know what we expected. And even though this isn't what I expected, I'm not really disappointed because it's so stupid and ridiculous. They even had ambiance in the form of little gnomes or something carved into cypress knees along with snake skins and a tarantula specimen. It's like we're in the BAYOU! or the EVERGLADES! I can almost feel oppressive heat and itching mosquito bites.Anyway, we found the animals soon after that. Feeding them was one of the highlights of the fair. I could feed animals as long as they would let me. The Count made a crack about how a carrot diet might affect their digestion, but I figure they will at least have good eyesight. And they have so many great animals! Goats, capybaras, kangaroos, cows, buffaloes, camels, (when I went last year with the Professor and Waldorf I politely asked a camel if I could touch their hump. They seemed cool with it, and their hump was so soft and lovely.) And the alpacas! Oh, do I love an alpaca. With their fuzzy looking fur and tufts of hair on their heads. Best. Ever. I was truly giddy, as evidenced by my blurry animal photos.
After leaving the petting zoo we stumbled across this:
The Michael sightings have begun. When I first saw this I thought I was hallucinating, because What. The. Fuck. Even that polar bear behind him is like, "what is this, I don't even..." Can you just imagine the thought process of the people that decided to make this? "I know, let's make Michael dolls! The Michael fans will be all over it. Everybody loved This Is It. And it's been a year, so it's time! It won't be creepy at all. Great idea. Likes this." After realizing that this was in fact real and not a product of my deep-fried, dark and weird mind it started to make sense in a way. Of course this exists. How can it not? This is Michael filtered through endless lenses of pop culture, and we all saw that Michael had become a cartoonish figure. He had become a persona, the epitome of fame itself. He was materialistic consumption in the form of hit singles. He wasn't Michael Jackson, a person, he was Michael Jackson: the King of Pop. In a way, this is more Michael Jackson than the real Michael Jackson ever was.And now for something completely different: arts and crafts!
You know, I'm starting to think the fair is the ultimate celebration of pop culture. Yes, that is a gourd painted to look like a snork. A SNORK! I'm always amazed when people remember The Snorks, because they were like an aquatic, low-budget Smurfs. But that gourd really does make a perfect snork, not to mention the amazing yarn hair.
I'm not sure if that's a shark eating fish, or a shark making chum, but either way it's pretty awesome. There was so much other stuff in addition to the gourds. Lawn gnomes, sock monkeys, felted turkeys, fudge, a Lego stormtrooper and T-Rex...pretty much anything you could imagine was there. Soon after that we decided to watch the fireworks and leave. But I'd be back the next day...
