I’ve always liked going to ren faires ever since I was introduced to them. Something about the way the world allows me to have fun.
A few weeks back, I introduce two new friends to the wonderful world of Ren Faires by taking them to the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo, NY. To save a little on getting there, we decided to take a ZipCar and let me tell ya… that was a great idea. Although the traffic around the City may argue, I found it a wonderful experience to be able to take a car to the faire grounds at any time and leave at any time and to just have fun with friends in a clear comfy environment. Alright, I confess my drive through the city did mar the experience because I got caught in hours long traffic jams when the drive should’ve been only a couple hours.
Despite the timing, once we did arrive at the faire my friends went nuts photographing anyone in costume as they passed them all through the parking lot and ticket booths. We wandered the ways of faire and even took a tour by a native ‘Optimist’. She walked the entire pathway backwards.
After a rather exhausting (for me at least) we ended our day with a relaxing Dexter Tripp Thrill Show (“It’s like playing frisbee with a narcoleptic dog!”) where we laughed until our stomachs pained us.
They took photos and they both say they had an excellent time. I wish I could go out there one more time before the season ends, but I know that is a far away dream.
What is your favorite Ren Faire? What is your best memory? Do you perform at Faires? Comment with your link and I will post them once I find they are real links
It’s been a few weeks since I talked about my friend who re-sparked my interest in magic. It seems it is still within my interest.
About a week after my friend–let’s call him Stanley–taught me the trick I have been trying to get him to show me, he decided I should learn a simple manipulation.
Ok, let’s cover manipulation first. Manipulation with cards is when the entertainer makes cards dance in his hands to the appreciation of his audience. Usually this manipulation is paired with magic tricks. Entertainers have been using the combination of manipulation and magic in different venues for years. You’ve all seen it, here is an example of a card manipulation performance:
I am not working on anything so fancy. I am working on basics… though it is a little fancier in some ways.
Stanley did the one thing that would insure I would learn manipulation though he didn’t know it at the time. While we were talking and after I handed the cards to him again, he showed me a simple trick then put cards into my hands and made me try it. If you don’t get what it was that did it, it was the making me try it part.
I didn’t get the trick down at first, but I caught on fast and the next day found me doing that trick with both hands while waiting in a subway station. Stanley didn’t know it at the time, but he had just started something that would last a while.*
When I was at work the next day, my lunch break consisted of searching for Card Manipulations and basic magic tricks. What I found was pretty interesting. I saved a small playlist of basic flourishes and a few fancy card manipulations.
The next time Stanley and I met up, he was shocked and amazed by the–admittedly minor–progress I had made. It was hard work for me. I had recent slammed my right hand into a metal pole and moving the fingers in such elaborate ways forced it to work in ways it wasn’t ready to endure. I was stubborn. There were a few things I couldn’t really capture, so I handed the deck off to Stanley who showed me what I was missing and gave me a challenge to complete.
The time after that, my cards, which were regular paper cards and not actual professional playing cards, were dull around the edges and the paper wasn’t snapping and basically they got limp. I hadn’t completed the challenge yet and he was pressed to show anything useful with the current deck. It was my Birthday too, so I didn’t push. I resolved to get something useful.
The next day was an early day because of a holiday. I contacted Stanley to find out if he would be available to go to his suggested magic shop with me and we went. Sadly I didn’t have much in the way of cash or money since payday was still around the corner, but I did have enough to buy a deck of cards. We had some time, so I suggested visiting the other store I had found on a Google search. He had never been there and it was close. We went.
He nabbed my new deck of cards (It wasn’t hard, I was offering!) and tutored me in a few things as we walked through early evening crowds. It made the walk way interesting. The second shop was more visually stunning with other street magic and entertainment, such as juggling, stupid gross tricks, like plastic dog pooh, and normal real magic supplies. I decided there was nothing for me there and ended up buying us both a set of cards. Which were pulled out and manipulated on the trip back the way we had come.
I don’t know if he thought I was serious or not. I didn’t even know if I was. I ended up with two decks of cards: Ellusionist’s Arcane (white) and Theory11′s Guardians. Both caught my attention and imagination, but I decided the Guardians were more hearty and able to stand up to frequent use.
Each day during the holiday weekend, I pulled out the cards and practiced what I was learning. It was something to do and something I found easy enough to do on subway platforms and sitting on the trains. By the time Stanley met me again, only four days by my count, my deck was already looking ragged and used. My pocket was really hard on the poor things. In a week they looked used, in two weeks they looked well used. It was getting a little hard to cut the cards in my new fancy way without dropping them on the ground.
A few easy weeks after Stanley first went with me to the store, I handed him my well used deck. Unbelievably, once he warmed up a little and dropped cards a few times, he flawlessly performed tricks with the ragged card. Another lesson, even bad cards can entertain. Not long later, the outer box fell apart and that was the death of the rest of the cards as I used my pocket and several cards got ruined. I was playing without a full deck of cards. It was only a month or so of life.
To my amazement, this card manipulation thing has lasted a long time. Stanley knew I was serious when we both stepped on a train and while we were talking, I pulled out the cards and started warming up.
Am I any good? Not yet. My fingers don’t move smoothly and still drop a lot, but the manipulation is helping that smashed hand and I am at the point where I am getting bored with what I know already. In my experience now is the most crucial time. If I can get past the boredom and keep up with the basics, it will be all the better as I try to learn more.
I’ve had a few stumbles and I have a few issues I need to address, but that will have to be in another post. I would like to write more about Magic and manipulation of cards and coins, but I need to know what people would like to know. Please comment and let me know what you want to know, or comment with suggestions, websites, books or videos that you used to help you.
===================================== *The trick he taught me was a simple one-handed cut called The Charlier Cut. There are numerous videos out there that contain the Charlier, but all of the vids dedicated to it are tutorials. Grab a pack of playing cards, don’t worry if it is incomplete, and do the tutorial along with the video… perhaps I can be your own personal Stanley!
If there is one guarantee about long trips in subway cars in the city, its that you will be sketched into the art book of one artist or another eventually.
I was waiting for a train to Brooklyn. Since I was at the terminal end, I could wait a while in the train before it actually leaves. It was late at night, it had been a long day at work so I had sat myself in a seat near a rail and so I can watch the time if I wanted and I just sat there. I was comfortable, holding onto my oversized backpack and leaning my head on the wall alternately watching the time and semi-snoozing. When they opened all the doors to admit people easier, I opened my eyes again and realised my neck was stiff, so I switched positions so my head was on the rail which gave me a perfect view of the artist boarding the train and sitting across from me.
How did I know the guy was an artist? He was carrying one of those over large black sketchbooks and a small box of writing implements. Just to verify, I peeked at his pages as he looked for the page he was looking for. Yes, full of art. Various kinds of images were hinted at but I would guess a slice of life super hero/villain kind of artist. But he IS the type of artist who sits on the train an quick sketches people. I didn’t look overlong, I was too tired to care. But I did catch the movements in my tired mostly closed eyes that are characteristic of all quick sketch artists I have run across. Sort of a bird-like glance up/look down/sketch/glance up again movement. There were a few people, I might not be the sketch he was making, but for some reason I have a feeling he was.
I was curious about what kind of quick sketch he was doing. While contemplating such thoughts I closed my eyes again and dozed until someone came to sit next to me and I had to change my admittedly slightly dramatic pose to one more normal. The thoughts came to me, he might be doing the guy down the row from me, he might be trying to get my sleeping face, he might be going for the bag, he might even have been going for the hands around the bags. I realised that a quick sketch didn’t have to be a profile or portrait. I never did see the actual image he sketched. A few times I glanced over and he was drawing some large creature or vehicle. Once, near the beginning of the ride, I saw him close the page he was working on as people entered the train and just contemplated two blank pages, but when I glanced up after the train was moving again, he was back to the quick sketch page. I saw a few vague shapes. It looked like it might’ve been three different sketches on the page, but one will never know. He left the train a few stops before mine.
I have seen quick sketch artists on the train before. Lately, they have been this kind where they surreptitious sketch other commuters, but in the past there have been the ones that pass out the sketches to the one they sketched. I ended up picking one up the first year I was here in the city. I have a scan of it laying around somewhere, perhaps I will upload it.
So, if you are in the city for a long while, observe those around you and try to spot yourself being sketched randomly. It’ll happen eventually.
When I was a child, one of my favorite things was magic tricks.
Now, I was never very good at performing the magic tricks, but I loved to explore them and learn what I could. A few of my successful performances included counting cards, a melting knot, and rope the went through my throat. All these are easy to set up and take little to perform.
All this trial and error helped me to appreciate well performed magic tricks and though I still try to see what is done, I am totally enthralled in each well played performance.
Lately, I have had a friend who does coin and card tricks. I started watching his fingers flow around a coin and though I knew how the trick was done I couldn’t imitate it until he gave me a pointer here and there. I still have quite a bit of practicing to do, but I can and have recently done a clumsy performance that is enough to fool those not in the know but not those with sharp eyes. It helped that I worked in concert with him once. We had been practicing mime, but we would need more practice now that I realised what we can do with mime and magic, but I happened to have a couple coins and we made it look like we were passing the coin back and forth through the air. Of course, I am bad at it, so it only went one way, but if you talked to those who watched… we did it both ways. Amusing.
Sometime after the coin tricks, he brought in cards and I watched the card dance in his hands. I was never able to pull off the card tricks. They require an angle and hand movements my fingers wouldn’t allow. I still can’t, but I do appreciate knowing how the tricks are done. He frowned at me the first time I asked. After I proved I knew how several tricks were done, he tiredly informed me that I had to carry cards around all the time. Well, I took him at his word. I carried the cards around. I didn’t PLAY with cards myself, but in moments of dull times, I would pull out the cards and pass them over to him to play with. He would amaze and astound anyone near us just for fun. He didn’t seem to be happy that I could see through his tricks.
Finally, it happened. The one trick I was unsure of. After he astounded our mutual friend over and over again by using a tactic I didn’t actually see, he not only showed me that tactic, but also showed me the one I had been asking after for nearly two years. AMAZING yet another trick that I have no skill at, but he is so skilled and energetic, it makes me want to practice.
As we were traveling together at one point, he illustrated with hand movements and energy how much he appreciated the masters. I informed him I thought he was amazing enough. Later, he told me that if I liked his performance, I would be astounded with the Grand Masters and he would send me links.
Ok, I know this sounds really weird for someone who proclaims to like magic tricks… but my response was:
If I wanted to see Grand Masters, I would pay for a show. I would rather see someone I know doing amazing things. Then it is more real.
It has been a while since my last update. I had intended on updating at least once a week, but I seem to have failed at that. Over the last few weeks several changes have been occurring and I haven’t had time to update.
The most interesting change is the fact I am moving residence. Why would you, my readers, care about such an event? Quite simply put, it will give me more access to the internet. More access to the internet away from work and at all hours of the day will give me better time to write up better blog posts. So you should be cheering… or booing if you are reading these posts to be contrary.
Another change is not noticeable anywhere else and shouldn’t really concern anyone, but I wanted to log it anyway. I finally found people to hang out with in New York. Yes, there are co-workers and family, but it just isn’t the same. Now that there are people willing to do events and just go out around the town with me, perhaps I will have more stories to share on this blog! (Insert more cheering… or boos and hisses)
Between work, apartment viewing, going to plays by friends, family visiting and just hanging out with people, I have had no time at all for blogging, or LiveJournaling, or even Facebooking.
I know you don’t believe my “coming up” declarations because the drafts end up on my backend well beyond their use-by date, but I do have a couple things I would like to post about. “How I Spent My Easter” is a story I would like to share, as well as “Peeps-Sushi? I tried making it…” and I believe I want to share some prose I wrote called “Ode to an Old Friend” after I clean it up a bit.
Is there anything else you would like to see from me? I mean, I literally write random things and post them. My blog has no theme other than “What Interests Me Right Now”, but I would love to know what anyone who actually reads this thing would like to see.
What do you think of my modified ‘Desktop’ theme on my blog? My brother has dubbed the mug “The raging rapid cocoa” I’ll get around to fixing that…. along with the dinner mint-shaped marshmallows… but I like it. The flooring/desk doesn’t seem so bad either. Let me know.
This seems to be more than enough rambling, I hope to have a better post up in the near future. Thanks for reading!
Lately, I have been neglecting my gymnastics posts. There are various reasons, but the main one is I have been in pain and therefore my gymnastics has become sporadic and reduced to complete beginner.
The coaches for my classes lately have been Zak, Randy and Damir. Until today, mostly Damir and Zak worked with the advance beginners while Randy worked with the rank beginners. Since about August or September, I have been in Randy’s class. Staying in a mild state of fitness while giving my joints and muscles a bit of a break and time to recover.
I don’t think I have given a decent rundown of how classes progress, so this time around, allow me to illustrate my basic Adult Beginner’s gymnastics class.
The class I attend is at Chelsea Pier’s Pier 60 Field House in Manhattan. The Adult Beginner Gymnastics class officially begins at 12pm and lasts for 1.5 hours. At 12pm, one instructor(coach) starts the class with warm-ups. Sometimes, the warm-ups are actually pretty physical and other times the warm-ups are just enough to make the student sweat. It depends entirely on the coach.
After the warm-up, a large circle is formed on the mat and the stretching begins. My favorite style is more akin to yoga or pilates, but there are some coaches who do the kind of stretches I remember having in gym class, and every coach does something completely different. Although the styles and methods are different almost all the stretching ends with handstand practice before we take in some water and return to the Floor area for Conditioning and skill practice.
I am learning Japanese at the moment. Japanese has a lot of formalities and politeness. It’s true that other languages also have formal or polite forms, but it seems like it is very easy to offend in Japanese. I was listening to a lesson on polite Japanese and I remembered an encounter I had this week when I was talking with another teacher at the Japanese Language Center. I was offering him New Year’s Greetings, which I had learned only an hour before. “Agemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! Kotoshi yoroshiku onegaishimasu!”
あげまして おめでとう ございます！ことし よろしく おねがいします！
I was being formal-ish in speech so he indicated I should say the whole greeting… which I really mangled and skewed. A classmate hit me and told me to try it again. When I finally finished the phrase, this time correctly, we laughed and joked about it.
While I was listening to the lesson, I realised only a teacher or a classmate or a close friend would excuse such mistakes. In Japan, first impressions are everything, so if you want to make good first impressions, practice with a teacher who can correct you before you offend accidentally.
Note: Once again it took me too long to post, so this post is going up as is… as if anyone cares anymore.
In my last NYAF post I went on and on about cosplay, costuming, the sales floor and halls. There is more to the festival than just costumes, sales and displays.
In the back of the hall, in the most open area of the festival, was a live performance stage dubbed the Apple Kissa Stage. On stage throughout the festival various acts vied for the attention of the self-entertaining folk of the fest. Unfortunately for me, I missed almost every performance due to scheduling, wandering and demos. However, I have seen nearly all the acts numerous times at various venues. The one act I did chance to have time to catch was the IchigoPantsu Dansu (IchiP) dancers Para Para dance class. The group of cosplay dancers arrived on stage and many fans of Para Para dancing ranked themselves around the stage and learned moves for a couple songs.
Para Para Dancing, for those of you who are wondering, is basically a Japanese dance club group dance similar to line dancing where each move is precise and everyone does the same movements. Watching it done with only a few people such as when the IchiP Dancers put on their performances, is a wonderful sight to see and it looks and feels energetic. Watching a whole group of people doing the same movements is simply astounding. I don’t have any pictures of this phenomenon, but they can be seen across the internet. Here is a video of IchiP on the Apple Kissa stage:
You can see more of IchiP’s dance moves on their YouTube channel: IchiPDansu
In addition to IchiP, there were also performances of ‘test cutting’ from the Byakokan Dojo, comedy by Uncle Ho, a skit elaborating on Vampire Knight by Alone Together NYC, dancing maids… a LOT of dancing maids, zombie survival class, a concert by AKB48 and a Neo-Victorian Fashion show.
I didn’t catch the shows, but I did happen to cross the stage area near the end of several of these events. Regretfully, I watched the endings or just watched the stage as I hurried past on my way to some other event or panel.
This year, I attempted to do NaNoWriMo again. Although I didn’t win, I did beat all previous attempts combined and that has satisfied me for now.
Originally, the title of my novel was “Lady Mathilde Gabriel’s Abaddonian Knights” and it was supposed to be an adventure through my version of Abaddon. However, when Mattie arrived in answer to her Daemon Lord’s (Fenrisithian) ‘summons’ the story took a different turn. I found the dialogue and interaction of Mattie and Fenrisithian was too rich and dynamic. If I left her in the world, Fenrisithian and Mattie would’ve had too much happening between them (NOT romantic. Not ever.) and it would’ve ruined any story.
There is no real injured list in our gymnastics class. It is a class and not a team so the people and the numbers fluctuate drastically. I am one of the few regulars in the class, and I am on the injured list…. that doesn’t really exist. It seems I continue to forget… if I don’t do anything particular with certain muscle set in a month, those muscles go away. I was traveling and the preparations before and after made it so I didn’t attend any gymnastics classes for a month. This resulted in my knee regressing to unusable. It may be the joint, but I doubt it. It is the muscles around my knee that need strengthening again. The knee issues are genetic. This time it was aggravated by not having the right kind of shoes as well. Bad shoes + no focused conditioning for a month = injured. Fail. Read more…
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