My friend Samantha loves festivals and fairs and San Francisco in the fall has dozens of them: art fairs, film festivals, food and wine fairs, book fairs, you name it. Some are a bit more wacky than others, like the Renaissance Fair, which takes place over a series of weekends at this time of year.
I’m not a fair kind of guy, but I was interested to see how Californians interpret the Renaissance. I figured authenticity might well make way for Hollywood “¦ So we set off one Sunday morning and eased onto the 101 south. The moment we arrived, I realised that their interpretation of the Renaissance was, as expected, pretty loose. The costumes were from just about any period pre-20th century and the accents were anything vaguely British, from Sean Connery Scottish to generic pirate, me hearties, aaargh, etc.
“˜Lots of almost naked breasts,’ said Sam, by way of encouraging me to get into the swing of things. And she was right, even in the dustbowl parking lot the lasses in their medieval costumes were showing an awful lot of cleavage, well padded and exploding from bustier tops. We were still a bit hung over and sleep deprived from the previous night’s revelry, so walked in slow-mo with sweaty brows and parched lips around the stalls, seeking a pork pie and pint of medieval Coke. There were bright country girls selling tarts, hefty knife throwers, a Maypole or three, and fencing lessons. Even Queen Victoria showed up with full entourage, looking lovely and dispensing largess. Sir Walter put in an appearance too, with news from the New World and a bunch of bananas for the queen’s pleasure, which was nice of him. A gent led a Labrador pulling a cart bearing three red parrots and cracked jokes about how many birds his dog could pull. Ha, ha, quite funny actually.
We trawled past comic shows with men in tights, naughty banter from kitchen maids washing dirty linen. Lots of bawdy fare about codpieces and manly men and saucy wenches. I was gobsmacked by the ladies walking around balancing mugs of ale on their cleavage. That alone made the trip worthwhile I said to Sam, who elbowed me hard in the ribs.
Then we found a shady spot to watch the jousting, but first came two inept women on two inept hags. The horses were uncooperative, the women sweaty and frustrated. “˜Ooh, this is fun,’ I said to Sam, who elbowed me in the ribs again. Then came the jousters and the crowd picked their favourites and the horses charged up and down, all flashing eyes and flicking tales and thumping gallops. Lances exploded on shields, swords clashed, the brave knights won, the evil ones were slain. It was like WWF, but more fun, really.
And that, folks, was the Renaissance Fair. It wasn’t in any way authentic, but we had damn good laugh.
