<Go and catch a falling star
Get with child a mandrake root
Tell me where all the past years are
Or who cleft the devil’s foot
Teach me to hear mermaids singing
Or to keep off envy’s stinging
–John Donne, 1572-1631

Episode the Fourth
See how the mighty have fallen
or
Musick for Horns and Smacked Butts.

Saturday, 26 October 2002
8:25am

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! The weatherman PROMISED it’d be nice this weekend!

It’s not. More rain. More mud. I know the grimy, sticky, glutinous sludge is more historically accurate (”How can you tell he’s the king? He hasn’t got shit all over him.”) but this is becoming intolerable. I understand that it’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness, but I don’t recall any prohibition regarding cursing the muck.

Ergo, “fucking mud.”

It doesn’t help, but it assists in splenetic ventilation.

9:15am

Blackout

Bleah. It’s that kind of weather where the steel-grey sky merges with the color of the asphalt. Dank, wet, and dismal; the spattering of the rain on the windshield keeps time with Robert Eisenstein’s rebec and Christopher Kendall’s mandora as the O, Ecclesia recording plods forward from the Folger Consort in the CD player. I’ve always taken issue with the phrase “Dark Ages;” in fact, when I taught music history, one of my lectures was entitled “The Dork Ages, or, Were they really so stupid?” However, peering through the glass attempting to distinguish FM1744 from the soft, gelatinous shoulder, I’m not so sure anymore.

Magnolia, TX

Magnolia looks so inviting this morning, too.

9:45am

Gooey, Sticky, Blech.

The mud is truly appalling this morning. I’ve already had my frikkin’ shoe sucked off my foot twice, and I haven’t even made it to the front gate.

10:30am

Halfway through the first set. Intermittent rain, virtually no patrons, relatively speaking, and of course, our little cemetery benches in front of Ye Olde New Market Gazebo are bereft of occupants. We sound, if not horrid, then certainly not wonderful. For some reason, our intonation and general musical security seems to suck this morning. I’m ranging around on the slide trying desperately to find the pitch, but it seems to be somewhat migratory this morning. This does not bode well.

Karen

Our set comes to a undistinguished close as the string group that follows us trudges out to the gazebo–whining about our timing, no doubt. Karen, the tenor trombonist, who is with child, you’ll remember, is stepping off the gazebo. I see her, look away, hear a godawful whump, and when I look back, she’s sitting flat on her arse on the “proscenium” of the gazebo. My first thought was “Hell–I knew SOMEone was gonna slip and fall today; why’d it have to be Karen?” Luckily, no serious damage was done, other than to her pride and, of course, her left buttock.

The wood floor of the gazebo, in its waterlogged state, had become the fertile ground to a veritable rice-paddy of mold and mildew. When K took that first step down, it was, in fact, a doozey, as her feet flew up in the air. By the grace o’ the god of your choice, she not only landed on her rump — painful, certainly, but not debilitating — but also managed to avoid landing on her soft-sided trombone case as well. I’m no physics guru, but I’m willing to wager a guinea or two that the mass oaf a full-grown adult female, accelerating at 9.8 meters per second squared, would have made short work of an Edwards, single-bore, nickel-sleeved slide.

I was fully expecting to be the person to bite the dust; when living in Chicago, I fell with astonishing regularity during the months of November through March, usually at least once per week. It was a five-block trek from my 3rd-floor walk-up to the Loyola El station, and the icy sidewalks always got me. I remember trudging towards the train one morning, walking head-down in a moderate snowstorm, carefully examining each footfall. Suddenly, instead of seeing the sidewalk ‘twixt my feet, I saw the belfry of the Loyola Catholic Church, followed by sickening crunch of my back acquiring a sudden and unwelcome contact with the concrete. My first thought as I lie there, gawking upwards at the snowflakes fluttering downwards, was “Oooh! Pretty!” This was followed, as one may expect, by excruciating and awesome pain.

Sadly, Karen’s tumble was the highlight of the first set.

11:40am

I loiter sluggishly during the interval.

Last week, one of those, dear, long-suffering folks who works the “front desk” at the TRF noted my habitual scowl as I made my retreat after a performance.

She: You don’t look very happy. (Ed. note: It’s raining like hell — she’s under a little shed thing; I am not.)

I: Nope. It’s turning out to be a day o’ shite, m’lady.

She: Such language! I gauge days on the “poo” scale.

I: “Poo scale?”

She: Indeed, m’lud — Today, for instance, is a “poo-poo” day.

On my way out at 11, she asked me, “How many poos today, m’lud?” I respond “One point three poos.”

Steak, on same

Eric and I have the “Steak on a Stake” for lunch. Big mistake. One reaches a point in which one’s culinary tolerance can no longer brook foodstuffs served on a stick. I have reached this point; nay, have surpassed it.

12:35pm

We play somewhat better during the noon set, although there’s not anyone to hear us. I usually ask at the front right before the noon performance how many patrons have crossed the turnstiles thus for for that day. Last Saturday, with it raining like nobody’s business, the noon count was just under 9,000. Today: 2,600. Ouchies.

2:07pm

Eric, sightreading

Since hardly anyone is listening to us today, with the weather being so suck city, Darryl decides we’ll sight-read stuff out of the book. I hate it when he does that. Don’t misunderstand — I love sight-reading; I just hate doing it in public. We’re bludgeoning some Susato to death, when who should appear but Al Cofrin, the lute/oud/etc. player from Istanpitta. Darryl asks him for requests; he asks for Praetorius. We have some Praetorius in our repertoire, but Darryl chooses one we’ve never played before. We wade it, and play it, badly, and under-tempo. I look at my shoes. Al is, of course, very gracious, and toddles back to his gazebo.

Cursing well

As he walks off, Karen says, sotto voce, “New rule: no sight reading when other musicians are present.” We all quietly concur. I feel as if someone has tossed a farthing in the cursing well, aimed at me.

2:50pm

During the break, I take my usual stroll over to the Istanpitta gazebo (it has a name, but I dunno what it is). After our abysmal showing earlier in the day, I was hesitant to even drop by, but since I’m a medieval music freak, I couldn’t stay away.

There they were, sawing, whomping, and picking away, and sounding damn good — and then, amazingly, about 8 bars into a piece, they had to stop and start over. I felt somewhat more sanguine about the Texas Brass’s performance earlier, until I realized they probably did it on purpose to make me feel better.

4:35pm

All-in-all, a most unsatisfying day.

Sunday morning, 27 October 10:40am

No Karen today — her sub is none other than Thomas Hulten, of Spiritual to the Bone fame, a former member of The Paragon Brass, as well as the current primary trombonist with The Texas Brass. Needless to say, I am nervous. This guy is a dude. (Ed. note: He also turns out to be a helluva guy.)

We begin our warmup and launch into a set of NON-Renaissance pieces, including Thomas’s own Pilska Polka, a groovy little 3/4 time thing. We have to cut out the jazz waltz section in the middle, however. Between this piece and a jazz-chord-substitution version of Amazing Grace arranged by Thomas Jenkins, we actually draw a bit of a crowd. It’s gratifying — it’s probably the most people we’ve had in front of the gazebo in two weeks. I keep expecting the Renaissance Po-leece to come haul us off to the hoosegow for being non-period, but apparently they’re busy chasing shoplifters or those caught drinking soda from a plastic bottle, and we escape unscathed.

12:35pm

Eddie

During the “play against the damn parade” set, Eddie kicks off the Centone V of Scheidt at such an express-train tempo that I nearly cough up my bronchial tubes. As I don’t come in until the eighth bar, I get 32 beats to dread what’s coming. “For that for which we are about to receive–” Bastard. He’s not, really, but he’s such a damned MACHINE — I mean, this guy is an automaton when it comes to technique. I could take a fountain pen, shake it over a piece of staff paper, and draw sixty-fourth note stems on everything, and he would play it correctly. At MM=144. Thomas whirls through his part effortlessly as well, and I manage my part — just barely. Given my blood pressure when it’s over, however, I keep thinking of the commercial where the aging football coach who had a double bypass intones, in a deep Texas accent, “Ask yore doctur if Zoecor is right fer you.”

Body painting artiste

Maybe I’ll take up body painting in lieu of the sackbut. Seems less hazardous.

3:05pm

Nasty-ass Jeep

It’s not AS muddy today, but we’re noticing something new. The mud is starting to smell bad. REALLY bad. Like sewage. AND, it’s all over my Grand Cherokee. There are lots of reasons why the mud could smell bad, but I’m thinking it can’t be good for stuff you walk in to smell like human excrement.

4:35pm

Bell’s Belles

The last set went surprisingly well, and I feel that I redeemed myself from my personal lackluster performance on Saturday. Two of Eric’s pals showed up, as well as one of Darryl’s students, “Young Charlie,” along with Thea, Al, and Michael (Istanpitta, Ltd.) — we managed to redeem ourselves with some Bach and Haendel. We ended, as we often do, with our trademark brass arrangement of none other than #44 from Haendel’s Messiah (not “The Messiah,” but just “Messiah.” It’s a pet peeve; humour me), the always-guaranteed-to-rile-’em-up Hallelujah Chorus. Droning out that final low C like a chainsaw always helps my mood.

So, all’s well that ends well, this week, at least. Theoretically, next weekend should be “nice.” Define “nice.” I just hope the mud doesn’t smell like Scheidt next week.

(more…)

Great lords, wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow’d in the flood?
–Queen Margeret, from Shakespeare’s Henry VI

Episode the Third
Handling Water, Music
or
Slip slidin’ away.

Saturday, 19 October 2002
7:40am

Where it’s at

I’ve been reading The Weather Underground (wunderground.com) all week; initially, on Monday, rain was predicted for Saturday and Sunday. Then, by midweek, the rain predictions had been pushed back to Sunday evening. I’ll know in a few minutes which it is, really.

8:45am

Road to Perdition

I’m driving northwest on Kuykendahl-Hufsmith Road, and the westering sky is not filling me with optimism. To the east, north, and south, it’s clear as a bell, with just a few cirrus clouds scudding eastwards. To the west, it looks like a sky-shot from A Perfect Storm. This does not bode well. In a quarter-century of concertising, I’ve never had to play in the rain for a long period; sprinkles, an occasional shower, but not all day. As I turn onto the two-lane that leads out to the Festival, the first spatters of rain start to hit the windshield. St. Cecelia is apparently in a foul mood today.

10:05am

Mud Mayhem

Raining like a mother. First set just getting underway. We’re starting late, primarily because the group that plays in the gazebo before us is in a fine funk because of the rain. They’re a Renaissance dance band, for lack of a more accurate euphemism, and their instrumentation consists of a fiddle, a Renaissance harp, a flute, and some ukelele-like South American instrument with which I am not familiar. They’re scared shitless of the rain, of course — get their instruments wet, and they swell and burst. I glance down at Ye Olde Getzen; water’s slopping off of my hat and cascading over the bell section. Plus, the plume in my hat is drooping, and it’s soaked.

Needless to say, we don’t have a very big audience.

We play through a set of our easier pieces. I pretty much have these down via autopilot now anyway, so I let my eyes wander as I play. We have a sub for Karen (tenor trombone) today; looks like a college kid, named Brian something-or-the-other, one of Karen’s colleagues. He’s playing well, the timbre of his 42B is big and full, but I can guess what’s running through his mind right now — and his girlfriend’s, since she came with him.

It’s raining buckets,, and the wind is blowing the precipitation at about a 45-degree angle, so the gazebo affords no protection. Thankfully, Darryl has always used sheet-protectors to put the music into, so it’s not getting wet. However, my glasses are. I see 4 to 8 images of everything, since I’m viewing the world through an imperfect set of van Leewoenhoek spectacles, what with water droplets on ‘em.

This is just great.

11:20am

I’m soaked. No, really — SOAKED. My shoes squish when I walk, the brocade vest I’m wearing feels like it weighs about 20 pounds, and my TIGHTS are wet — I feel like I’ve pissed my pants. Plus, now it’s quit raining so hard, and the wind is blowing. Wet drawers, cold draft. Yowsa.

Since it’s not doin’ the Noah anymore, Eric and I decide to take a turn about the Festival to chat and see what we can spend poundage on today. He’s hot to buy a rapier to go with the natty doublet he bought, but is having trouble rationalizing 200 bucks for a stage sword. We go to the shop from which he purchased his doublet, but alas, my barrel-chest (not my barrel-paunch, interestingly enough) precludes the purchase. The shopkeeper says they’ll make me one for the same price, but I’m too depressed. I’ll keep wearing Darryl’s loaner that I have to undo the leather straps to wear comfortably.

Sholo: Chickmagnet

We pass Sholo. That Sholo gets all the chicks.

The TRF grounds are set up in a big circle — three circles, side by side, to be precise. Just as Eric and I reach the “apogee” of our circuit, it starts to rain again. HARD. We have no choice, really — we slog through the rain to the Sacred Exit Door and get our horns for the noon set.

12:35pm

The noon set is over, not that it matters that much. No one at ALL came to listen to us, since it was raining. However, even when it’s nice the noon set doesn’t get a lot of listeners. The Festival management, in its wisdom, scheduled us at the same time as the noon merchant and performer’s parade. Most people go to the parade anyway.

Bat Country!

Still had the parade today, but the weather has divided the patrons today into two groups: The Diehards, who revel in the mud, rain, and filth (it IS more realistic that way, I suppose) and The Hellwiththisers, who decided when the weather turned to shit that it was time to go home. By God, the Bat People are here, though. Takes a lot to keep the Bat People at home. This is Bat Country, after all.

Darryl and I had a discussion about the fact that (so we heard) there have been 9000 people through the gates today already (an average day is, so they tell me, 20K). We finally agreed that if you are a father of three, get you, your wife, and your rugrats dressed up in uncomfortable, mothball-smelling costumes, and drive from Galveston or Austin to come to the Festival, and discover when you get here that it’s a Force 1 hurricane, you have three choices: (a), turn around and drive the 3 hours back home, facing the stony silence of your spouse and the piteous wailings of your disappointed progeny; (b) sit in the car all day, waiting for it to slack up, or (c) dragging everybody out of the car, through the gates, bellowing “We’ll have a good time today, by God, and get your ass out of the mud, Katie.”

2:00pm

Halfway through the third set. Still raining. We’re all soaked, of course. After the first two pieces of this set, my slide was getting sluggish. I walked out of the gazebo into the rain, extended the slide to 7th position, got the slide good and wet, and came back inside the gazebo with a slick slide. God’s spray bottle, man.

4:45pm

We finished our last set about 15 minutes ago, exiting with a whimper instead of our usual bang. The only item of note I saw this afternoon was Sholo the Barbarian striding manfully across the turf. He hit a slimy patch of that lovely red-clay mud and ended up arse-over-teakettle. Chick-magnet, but not cautious. I did NOT laugh. Out loud.

Sunday morning, 20 October
10:30am

Today, Karen is back. Today, it is not raining. Brian’s last words to me before he left yesterday were “How did Karen know what day to miss?” Since K is with child, I’m kind of GLAD she missed yesterday’s shenanigans. Better crowd today, very appreciative. Darryl calls our Sunday morning set “MUSIC FOR SINNERS,” since if your at the TRF, you ain’t eatin’ gefilte fish at the synagogue or genuflecting at the cathedral. Some people laugh when he shouts the name of the set–others just glare at him. Heh. BUSTED.

11:05am

Istanpitta: Thea, Michael, Al

I always go visit one of the other gazebos when I can this year; there’s a medieval music group called Istanpitta that plays a little closer to the jousting arena. Not only are they good, they’ve VERY GOOD — and more importantly to me, the Medieval/Renaissance scholar, they’re historically accurate. Usually. There are usually three, sometimes four of them, and among them they can correctly encompass the oud, lute, saz, shawms, Renaissance recorders, transverse flutes, hurdy-gurdy, krummhorns, vielles, medieval harp, sackbut, and bagpipes. And they sing, too. In Latin, Hebrew, French, and Spanish. Maybe more.

Belly/Nautch dancer

They also have a belly dancer that performs with them. I dunno exactly why, but apparently her Renaissance “character” (you’re SUPPOSED to have a fictitious history for your costume that describes who you are–I don’t.) migrated from Persia, according to the website.

I noticed the first time I went past Istanpitta’s stage that there was what appeared to be a sackbut hanging from the roof of the gazebo. It was, and Michael Tucker, of Istanpitta, plays it. I’ve played a 16th-century sackbut before, and the sound was similar. After talking with Michael, I discovered how he made his. Tin snips. Yup. Tin snips. Got a student line horn, cut off part of the bell until it looked right, then finished the bare metal so it wouldn’t lop his frickin’ arm off. I guess that would qualify as a rimless bell. Wonder if Edwards makes sackbut bells for my B454.

2:35pm

The audience is livening up — we’ve had quite a nice crowd at points today. It’s always so much

Xena Brigade

“Dranch uh Wanch”

more fulfilling to play to an audience instead of being Renaissance Muzack. The crowds have been responsive and even laughing at Darryl’s admittedly horrid jokes. And, to make the day complete, no Drench-a-Wench queries (one would assume they got good’n'drenched yesterday), although Eric and I have noticed a rising tide of Xenas today as opposed to yesterday.

4:45pm

Journey’s end for this week — payed up, happy to be dry, although I know I am going to have nightmares about slipping in the clay mud and landing on my slide, crumpling it into bowtie spaghetti.

Next week, I discover that Karen is going to be out again, and her sub is Thomas Hulten. Yeah, THAT Thomas Hulten. Lead trombone in Spiritual to the Bone Thomas Hulten. I’ll toddle along home now and find a hammer to beat this horn into a plowshare.

(more…)

Thus ill bestedd, and fearefull more of shame,
Then of the certaine perill he stood in,
Halfe furious vnto his foe he came,
Resolv’d in minde all suddenly to win
–Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599)

Episode the Second
Not Every Thyng is Meet and Good
or
Thongs and Hairy Buttocks.

Saturday, 12 October 2002 7:10am

Ye Olde Roade

Thank God–’the soul-searing inferno of last weekend has abated; it’s a very comfortable 62 degrees this morning, so perhaps I won’t dehydrate–but I do have a destructive sinus headache. A few Benadryl ™ and it’s off to the races.

10:15am

We’re into the first set. While I did warm up properly, I’m noticing a certain stiffness in my chops. My top lip HURTS, and I can’t figger out why. At least I can play without asphyxiating today, and that’s a welcome change. Our usual first set includes a first 15 minutes of Bach chorales, and we’ve just read through our warm-up, as it were. The day should be interesting for at least one reason’-we have a new trumpet player to take Eddie’s (2nd part) place today.

When we had our one rehearsal before the Festival started, this new guy (whose name I can’t remember to save my life) showed up’an hour into the rehearsal. Darryl says he’s a monster player, and he is. High, bright, light, and clear’like a Canadian Brass album, this guy. And, he’s a Boston boy, just like Darryl and Eric, the hornist.

Eric

Apparently, both he and Darryl, albeit years apart, studied and played with some of the same guys at BU. But, as I will attest, playing the Festival ain’t like sitting in for a session with the local Shriner’s band; weird things can happen.

11:40am

Found out why my lip hurts. Apparently, in my pre-performance prep last evening, I cut my top lip– twice–while shaving. Being a hairy gent, I always trim the ol’ moustache away from my lip-line before I play. Couldn’t find my usual razors last night (cheap Bics, with the aloe-vera strip) and had to use the ‘nice’ razor that was a gift (A Gillette Mach3 with those damned pivoting heads, if you’re interested.) Other guys may disagree, but while pivoting heads may be great for shaving your face, they SUCK for trimming a moustache or beard line, as my bleeding top lip shows. Gross.

Eric and I did some slumming during the break (after I quit squirting hemoglobin), and I broke down and bought a hat. Yeah, one of THOSE kinds of hats. Floppy, with a plume. Black, of course. I think I look rather jaunty, but I most likely won’t be wearing it to job interviews, unless I’m applying for jobs as the IT Director at Ringling Brothers. I retire gratefully back to the Cherokee to guzzle a soda; I brought my OWN damn Coke this week; screw this ‘two pounds and fifty pence’ for a soda. Every time I’m quoted a price by a Festival shopkeeper (they HAVE to say ‘pounds’ instead of ‘dollars’ and ‘pence’ instead of ‘cents’ I point out that a pound is worth about a buck fifty-five, so that a $2.50 soda would actually be about 1.61 pounds, or 1L/12s/1d (new system), but that since Tudor England would have been under the old system, that’s 1L/6s and tuppence. I think. Occasionally I mention florins, sovereigns, groats, crowns, and guineas to the shopkeepers, but they just mechanically reply “two pounds and fifty pence, m’lud.” Stupid Americans.

12:05pm

Second set just started–late. We were all sitting outside the Sacred Door when we all heard the Noon Cannon go off. As I’m the only quintet member who does NOT take his case into the gazebo when we play, I zip out to the stage and play some medieval stuff from memory; L’Homme Arme, Kalenda Maia, etc. Sounds stupid, but hey, gotta makes some noise. Crowd seems to like it; I garner four dollars in tips. Huzzah, to use the RenFest word of choice. Darryl wants to know why I didn’t do a multiphonic version of Dufay’s Dome motet. I tell him he can cram his Nuper up his Rosarum until it tickles his Flores. He doesn’t get it.

Halfway thru the set, my slide’s getting REALLY sticky. I am a Slide-O-Mix user, and about three weeks ago I noticed that while I had the Big Bottle (the snot), I had misplaced the Little Bottle. Since there’s not a music store convenient to the house (and when you’re unemployed, nothing’s really ‘convenient’ since you don’t actually ever have to leave the house if you’re not getting interviews) I had been existing on this bottle of Getzen ’slide cream’ that came in a bottle, and it needs frequent (FREQUENT!) sprayings. Now I can’t find my spray bottle either. I surreptitiously spit on both slides. No one notices.

2:40pm

During the third set, right in the middle of ‘Now is the Month of Maying,’ this crazed Xena-gal lumbered up ONTO THE STAGE while we were playing. ‘Hey, HEY! Whir is thuh Dranch a Wanch?’ (translation: ‘Drench a Wench.’ A dunking booth where scantily clad maidens hurl imprecations at hapless and partially inebriated Bubbas ™ who are attempting to soak them by likewise hurling spheroids at trigger paddles; kind of like a big F-valve — and they’re wearing thin little cotton, or, in true Renaissance style, raw silk, blouses.) Darryl, keeping his horn parallel with the ground, but not playing, so as to be able to answer her, directs her towards the back of the Festival where it’s located. What a professional. I would have told her to cram her Nuper up her Rosarum until it tickled her Flores, except she wouldn’t have gotten it either. Of course, seeing what state she was in, maybe she would have howled with mirth. I’ve never seen a besotted musicologist; I don’t know what they look like, so she could have very well been one.

All in all, a fairly restful and uneventful second Saturday.

Sunday morning, October 13th 11:05am

Church set over. Darryl feels like crap, so we’re lying kind of low today. He’s hacking like a 13 year old with DSL, and it’s a bit alarming. If anything, it’s cooler today; high in the mid 60s, but it’s damp and foggy. I love it; apparently Big D’s bronchial tubes don’t. Promises to be a great Sunday. Ack.

I found out a few minutes ago that Karen, the tenor trombone player, will NOT be here next weekend. I am mortified. I’ve known Karen for a while, and she is very forgiving ‘ plus, she gives great slide cues when I get lost. Next week, we introduce an Unknown Quantity into the trombone section. Since I’ve only been in Houston for a little over a year, I don’t know anybody. God, I hope I don’t do anything stupid, like cut my lip while shaving. Oh, wait, I’ve already done THAT one. Maybe I can break my right arm next Friday–that’d be fitting.

2:40pm

Well, it took a while, but it finally happened.

I knew the poor new trumpet guy would get bonked by something, and it happened during our crowd-pleasing ’stereophonic’ imitation (we do some Gabrielli ‘in the round’) during the third set. Darryl always holds the last note in the first trumpet for about ten seconds before cuing us in on the last note. Apparently he neglected to mention this to the new trumpet guy. Ooopsie. I don’t even want to talk about it. I did find my spray bottle, however; at some point last week I had crammed it into a niche in the ceiling in the gazebo.

It was also during this set that we all nearly barfed.

From last week’s installment, you will remember the reference to the Xenas and pseudo-Zenas that populate the Festival. Not a lot of them, really, speaking as a ratio of Xenas-to-non-Xenas, but one must admit, even one nearly naked woman in chain mail (large links, too) does have a tendency to make a lasting, if not to say permanently scarring impression.

The permanent scarring took place right before we did “Shepherd’s Hey.” I saw Darryl staring, glassily, over my right shoulder. I started to turn and he reached out and touched my shoulder and said gently, almost kindly, “Don’t. Please don’t.” I did.

How does one describe this. I recall the favorite phrase of H. P. Lovecraft–”The Unspeakable Terror,” from his “Call of Cthulu” series of novellas.

Imagine Rosanne Barr. Now, imagine a male character from “The Sopranos.” Any character; it doesn’t matter. They all have that weird curly body hair that crawls mercilessly up their collars until it forms a tuft at their neck; covers their back, etc. COMBINE THEM.

Toontown view

Now that you have this character properly visualized, give it acne. ON ITS ASS. For a final coup de grace, now dress it in a black thong and electrical tape. Voila! Bushiness abaft and bushiness abeam. I will have nightmares. Best part: This creature was there with its husband, also dressed in a black thong. They had four children with them as well, all under the age of 10. Thanks be to whatever higher being you wish, the children were NOT wearing thongs. They were wearing matching Marilyn Manson t-shirts. They were, of course, camping out in Toontown.

3:45pm

Permanent psychic disfigurement notwithstanding, this weekend was quite enjoyable. While I did play a bit better, most of the better attitude stems from exactly two factors: (1) It was a lot cooler. It’s hard to be particularly artful when you’re afraid you’re going to pass out; and (2) We got our first check for playing at the Festival today. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a lot more than I would have initially thought.

While it’s nice to be paid for working hard, it really is too bad that this entire first check will have to be given almost immediately to a psychiatrist to help me get over Thong Lady. I asked Darryl about hazardous duty pay, but apparently, for some reason, the Festival does not offer such incentives.

Next week, we have a new trumpet player AND a new trombone player. May God have mercy on our souls.

(more…)

Dread not the shackles; on with thine intent,
Good wits get more fame by their punishment.
–Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Episode the First
A Primer for Those Who Might One Day Have the Opportunity

Master Goliard meets The Texas Renaissance Festival
or
A wearied pilgrim I have wander’d here.

Saturday, 5 October 2002 6:30am

I’m dreaming of a brisk autumn day in Lincolnshire, a bright, cool day, with an iridescently blue sky overhead as the fair opens. The cobbled walks are thronged with early–arriving merchants setting up their stalls, and the sound of shawm and lute drifts over the thatched sheds. I continue to walk through the crowds, the sound of the shawm growing louder and louder…

The piercing blare of Houston’s KIKK Kountry exorcises me from the bed like a 250 pound, single-serving Gadarene swine. It’s Saturday morning, the fifth of October, and your faithful author, through a exceedingly fortuitous set of circumstances, has been selected to perform with members of the Texas Brass at the 28th annual Texas Renaissance Festival.

The leader of the Texas Brass, Darryl Bayer, has been a recitalist at the Festival with his group for 17 years, and even though the Brass have grown in stature far beyond the periodic outdoor concert scene, they continue to play the Festival, simply because it’s satisfying. Darryl and I met at rehearsals of the Woodlands Concert Band last year, where he is the artistic director and I am now the associate conductor, and have a great working relationship.

As I’ve only been to one Festival previously, and not remembering exactly how far it is to the location (the Texas Renaissance Festival is about an hour away from my abode, as it turns out, just southeast of Plantersville, Texas–i.e., out in the boonies) I’m planning to leave home around 8:15am so I can be there at 9:15. Our concerts are at 10am, noon, 1:30pm, and 3:30pm, each set being an hour long, save the noon set, which is 30 minutes. So, it’s into the shower, and then, THE COSTUME.

You see, to be a performer at the TRF, you have to be in costume the entire time. And speak a watered-down version of Middle English, with an accent. (you=thee, your==thou, Isn’t that too expensive==Too dear for me purse mightn’t that be?, etc.) I’m told that all “professional” level Renaissance festivals are this way.

Ergo, it’s into the black tights (as an aside–have you ever tried to find a place that sells tights for 6-foot, 4-inch, 250 pound humans? Oi.), into the knickers, into the oversized muslin shirt with the little ribbon-ties at the neck, on with the embroidered vest with the leather laces, and, last, but most certainly not least, on with the soft floppy hat thing. I steal a glance in the mirror-wall in the dining room, and can hear my father speaking over my shoulder–and he’s not asking politically correct questions about my lifestyle preferences either, let me tell you. The tights don’t take as much getting used to as I had previously thought–but my boys are used to a bigger house, and it’s uncomfortable to start with.

So, it’s out the door. I think I look like a bloody idiot, and have drafts inside my clothing where I’m not accustomed to having drafts–Nonetheless, it’s into the Jeep, and off to Plantersville.

Saturday, 9:05am

The instructions I have on what to do after I get to the Festival’s “vendor and participant” entry are vague. Darryl had mentioned something about “circling around outside the fences” and “driving through Toontown.”

Yeah, “Toontown.”

What I discover this means when I arrive is that I have to show a very large, officious looking peace officer my performer’s identification, and drive around the outside fences of the TRF. Imagine a huge, 10 acre oval. Everything inside the oval is the Festival, dressed up to look like a small English town, albeit with Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, and Scottish sections. Inside the oval, everything is either (a) a historical reproduction (but more on this later) or (b) modern, but artfully disguised (e.g., no light bulbs visible, credit card stickers in Olde English, etc.)

OUTSIDE THE OVAL IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY.

Imagine a large junkyard that has been inhabited by a generously proportioned gipsy village or three from Romania. Throw in a large number of Airstream campers, tents, lean-tos, and SUVs, as well as the ubiquitous and omnipresent collection of Volkswagen Beetles, both recent and vintage. This is “Toontown,” where the overnighters stay. See, some shopkeepers, performers, and other denizens of the Festival actually live at the Festival, while another group, like me, are only day-schoolers. Some parts of Toontown are actually permanent pseudo-residences. As I said, the TRF is in its 28th year, and some people have been performing, keeping shop, juggling, etc., since 1985. I asked one of them what keeps him coming back. His reply: “It’s a job.”

I drive through Toontown (slowly—I don’t want the death of Sholo the Barbarian on my conscience) and find a parking slot relatively near where my entrance is. Lots of interesting humanoids are swarming to and fro across the road as I poke along, even though the Festival “officially” started at 9am with the sounding of the Start Cannon. (no, really)

9:55am

We’re setting up for our first set. We’re performing in the “New Market Gazebo.” One of the fond portions of my morning dream has already been punctured and stomped flat. It’s not even 10am yet, and it’s 90 degrees, as only Houston can make it: humid, sticky, breezeless. I’m sweating like a New York cabbie, and am a little worried, but then I catch a glimpse of Eric, our hornist, who hails from Connecticut. He already has sweat-stains on his vest–and he’s THIN. I worry a LOT then.

We launch into our first pile of music–a few Gabrielis, some Pezel, a few Frackenpohl arrangements. (To get the full effect, remember that I haven’t played in a quintet in 10 years and am sight-reading most of the book. So’s Eric, but he’s GOOD. I am NOT.) By 10:30, we’re all sweltering, but I’m honking along manfully. Did I also mention that most of the “bass trombone” book is actually tuba music? It is. Not a problem most of the time, but try reading manuscript parts where the tuba part goes down there in the De Profundis register–counting ledger lines can become a full time job. I get lost in the Contrapunctus IX, but the tenor trombone player, Karen, is invaluable. Miserable as she must be (she’s pregnant, in a Renaissance costume, in the 90-degree weather) she can sense, via her infallible moron-radar, when I’m not in the right place, and cues me with her slide. I honk right back in, foghorn style, and it’s off to the races again. The short fat guy dressed up like a fairy applauds us, and he curtsies to Darryl, in his pastel-explosion tutu. I’m told he’s been coming to the Festival for years, but he’s so entertaining to the crowds that this year he’s getting paid. THERE’S a career path for you.

10:45am

I am going to die. I just know it. I hate the damned tights, I hate the stupid vest, and I hate Hate HATE the friggin’ floppy hat. I look at the other members of the group. Darryl is as fresh as a daisy. Eddie, the other trumpet player, is a machine, playing the Galliard Battaglia effortlessly. Karen glistens and is a bit red, but otherwise fine, getting a big, accurate sound out of her large-bore Edwards. Eric is tottering a little, but still sounds great. I can only imagine what I look like. I feel like a corpse that washed up in Calais, and I sound like a bean-fed elephant. Two more pieces, and then break time.

11:10am

I put away my horn and head toward the concessions, where buxom wenches are crying out their slogans to get the attention of the passers-by. “Sink your teeth into a juicy breast!” (for the chicken breasts) “Come take all 10 inches of the King’s Weiner!” (sausage on a stick) God knows what the yell out for the “steak on a stick” booth. I want water and Dr. Pepper. NOW. I order two sodas ($2.50 each) and a water, and we retire to a bench, where we drink our pop and recuperate. It’s now 95 degrees, and hot as the 7th circle of hell in this outrageous get up. Meaning to continue my relaxation, I fire up a Parliament (I know, bad habit). Darryl grabs me and says “Hey, don’t do that inside the Festival–you can’t be seen with ANYTHING non-period, so grab the soda bottles and get outside!” If I had read the rules (you get a 40 page booklet) I would have known that. You have to have a cup (excuse me–tankard) that you carry everywhere with you, and costumes can’t have pockets. You have to have a purse, that you tie to your belt, and have a leather thong-thingie to clip your cup to your belt. EXCEPT I’M NOT WEARING A BELT. Nor do I have a cup. I’m screwed. For the rest of the day, I sneak outside with my soda or water carried inside my vest, and greedily guzzle it outside the fence, and carry my little gray purse crammed into the top of my tights, praying the heavy, awkward purse doesn’t fall down into my crotch.

11:55am

Well, I’ve almost quit pouring perspiration, and it’s time for the next set. This is the short set, and we play as the noon parade goes by. At precisely “Renaissance Noon,” the cannon goes off, and we hurl ourselves into a madrigal set–My Bonny Lass, Now is the Month of Maying, and a few others. I’m good on these–I know my PDQ Bach. Then, into a request for some “band music.” The Texas Brass book is very complete, and there happens to be an arrangement of Shepherd’s Hey for quintet, arranged by Karen. Great arrangement, and while I know the piece, and we, as a quintet have actually played through it once, that doesn’t save me when it gets to the last 6 bars, where I have two bars of sixteenth notes and an exposed honky-thing in the penultimate bar, which I muff horribly. Karen smiles wanly, I busy myself with the page turning.

1:15pm

We’re into our lunch break now, and I’m admiring the sights and sounds. While I’ve never been an avid Renaissancer (new word, just made it up), I have always been a fancier of the medieval and Renaissance eras, having read my More, Erasmus, Luther, Boethius, and other dead white guys to an inordinate degree. To the historian, a Renaissance Festival is a feast of contradictions—I attach, therefore, a broad generalization of the types of attendees you will see there.

1. The recreationalist. This person cares not one whit for historical accuracy–they’re here to have a good time. The go see the Mud Show (guys doing standup comedy, standing in and using mud as a prop), drink a few glasses (dammit, tankards) of mead, have a staffed potato, and maybe buy a dagger or go watch the Talking Penis Puppet.

2. The Xena. You’ll see a lot of these. There are girl Xenas and guy Xenas. They’re the ones who have somehow confused the 1520s with Conan the Barbarian, and dress accordingly. There aren’t as many “real” Xenas this year; however, we all noticed a NEW trend: The Xena who wears a chainmail halter top with nothing under it. I cannot help but wonder what will happen next year with these Xena types.

3. The less-is-more. This is a new type of Festivalier, and I assume a subset of the Xena that I hadn’t noticed last year. These are the women (I saw no men dressed this way) for whom “Renaissance clothing” becomes “wear nothing but your Victoria’s Secret underwear and a bedsheet for a cape.” Saw a bunch of really STUNNING underwear choices. I don’t know how to tell these people that underwear in Elizabethan England was not exactly “sexy.”

4. The Half-Ass. These are the folks who, for instance, have a period–correct hat, linen shirt with no buttons, all authentic looking, a correctly-blazoned coat of arms on their tabard, and a historical reproduction Toledo rapier–and a pair of Lee jeans and Nike tennis shoes.

5. The Whole Hog. Not so many of these. I saw several groups, and can never tell if they’re hired by the festival, or just enjoy the hell out of the show. Couples attired in exquisite reproduction clothing, speaking French or Spanish, striding about.

2:45pm

Made it through the third set, am sitting out back smoking a cigarette and drinking a soda. One of the Beefeaters comes through the Sacred Door that divides Renaissance-Land from the back-stage area (for a lack of a better thing to call it.) I think I’m hot–and I am–but this guy is wearing the regulation English Beefeater costume. I heard him at the gates earlier, bantering in a fairly passable English accent with the entering visitors. We start talking, and it seems that this is the guy’s 20th year with the Festival. In a deep Texas drawl, he pointed out the difference between Renaissance Festival shopkeepers and performers, for whom the Festival is a job–and a hard job at that, from 7:30am all the way through the closing fireworks display at 9pm–and people that, according to him, don’t really have a life outside Renaissance reenactments. These folks are the ones who are described as “Rennies,” a modification of the word “carny,” used to describle the camp-followers of traveling carnivals.

“Don’t be a Renny,” he says, between drags off his filterless Camel.

5:30pm

I’m made it through the last set of Byrd, Morley, Weelkes, Bach, and Handel, and have wandered around the Festival looking for cups (err, tankards). I finally found the shop that sells the nice, varnished wooded variety, only to discover that they’re $45 per tankard. I can’t figure out a way to rationalize $90 for two of ‘em, so I slog back to the Cherokee and set off for home. (I find perfectly acceptable tankards at the dollar store later in the evening for a dollar apiece–one for me, and one for Eric, the other newbie.

I collect my share of today’s tips ($3) and head southeast. It storms like hell on the way home, and I’m sound asleep by 8pm.

Sunday morning, 10:58am

We’ve just finished our “Church set,” a low-impact Sunday morning group of selections, consisting of Lutheran chorales and a little Bach. If anything, it’s hotter today than it was yesterday, and I’m beginning to question the sanity of dressing in northern European attire in southeast Texas. However, the crowds and hugeous, and everyone seems to be having a grand old time. There’s a mild disagreement with the group that follows us in the gazebo, their leader purporting that we’re out-of-kilter with the clock, but we kick off our noon set just as the cannon goes off, so nuts to her, I think.

During the noon set, one of the tuba players from the band Darryl and I conduct comes by and requests “The hardest piece in the book.” Bastard. I don’t think it was the hardest piece in the book–the Centavo V probably takes the cake on that one just because the imitative counterpoint isn’t regular–but the Canadian Brass arrangement (Fred Mills, actually) of Bach’s Little Fugue in G Minor has no measure numbers or rehearsal marks, so we dive into that. Whether due to the audience of the knowledge that there’s no way to take a cue from anyone if you get lost (no rehearsal marks!) we do a pretty good job of it. I am relieved.

Of course, then Darryl has this bright idea that we should do the Gabrieli Contrapunctus in REAL antiphonal style, so he distributes the members of the quintet all over the place around the audience. Aieee. Then, he and Eddie do the Galliard Battaglia a la Dueling Banjos. The crowd loves it. After that, we do a brass arrangement of the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth (yeah, I know, not Renaissance, but it’s part of the “Music You Recognize” set) and we’re 3 bars in before I realize that, hey! I have the first 16 bars ALL BY MYSELF. Gotta love that sight reading during the performance, m’lord.

The rest of Sunday passes a lot like Saturday; hot, hot, hot, but some pretty good music comin’ out of the gazebo, and while I’m exhausted by the end of the day, I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it. My opinion thus far is that the TRF is like a giant play–one in which the audience can actually come up on stage and talk to the actors. However, by the end of the day on Sunday, I’m all Renaissanced out, and we head home when the last set is over.

I notice on the way home that I’ve burst a blood vessel in my top lip. I leave a trail of soiled and nasty Renaissance costume from the door to the shower, and pass out, exhausted, by 9pm again. I don’t even remember if I took my horn out of the Jeep. Part of me doesn’t even care. Tip share for Sunday: $6. We doubled our income. Quintet members get their first “real” check next weekend. I hope I wake up in time to make it on Saturday morning; I suspect I shall sleep all week long.

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