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Iowa State Fair: WTF

September 28, 2011 in Iowa, Out & About, WTF by rarerborealis | No comments

What with all the excitement and razzle-dazzle of the start of Lecture Season, I completely forgot to post this last series of photos from the State Fair! Ah well, better late than never, and to use another cliche, I’ve saved the best for last. And by ‘best’ I mean most strangely puzzling.


Yes, it’s not truly a State Fair without a wizened man of the land sitting on his horse in the middle of the street, waiting to answer any questions you might have about farming or life.


I saw small children clutching enormous Rastabananas tottering around the food stands. It’s either due to a mistranslation in the Chinese manufacturing company’s order sheet or the trendspotting companies responsible for such pap have officially resorted to random word generators. I defy anyone to connect bananas and Rastafarianism. Wait a minute…


(The secret is to offer them a nice picnic lunch in exchange for their honey.)


The Family Nail Box, with something for everyone! Tiny wood tacks for little Susie, steel bolts for Mom, and don’t forget roundhead screws for Dad’s special projects!

Speaking of which, it wouldn’t be a large gathering in the Midwest without at least one Juggalo sighting. Here, I came across an entire family (no, the baby was not wearing face paint):


Yep.


Just outside, anachronisms ran rampant at the Civil War reenactors’ tent site. He is so irritated by that tie-dye!

Over at the 4H tent, this fellow represented endangered species or something:


I am still unsure how not seeing a snake is inconveniencing.


There’s something poetic about this man, gazing upon a purple tractor as the warm summer twilight falls around him.


State Rocks! All the excitement of geology plays out state-by-state RIGHT BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES!


A nested WTF within WTFs, this model railroad had its own (delightfully air-conditioned) room, right next to a special snake exhibit. Pretty much a modified trailer, the entire room save one narrow pathway around contained a glass-walled enclosure filled with an enormous model train set. I got to walk around with a 10-year old who ran ahead of his family (or, more likely, they left some lag time), calling out the name of each train, car type, rail system and engine number like he some kind of train-specific form of Asperger’s. I got the strange impression he said all this out loud assuming persons nearby (ie me) would be impressed. We were not. However, I was taken by some of the smaller details in the gigantic tiny world; it seems model train makers are a mischievous sort as opposed to the dour caricatures of them portrayed in so many movies and TV shows. Some highlights:


Faster than a speeding bullet! Tinier than a G.I. Joe! It’s…Superman! Off to destroy something with some rock he found!


I’d like to think the placement of the Batmobile in this wee parking lot was an obscure nod to the classic monorail episode of the Simpsons, where a mention of help from Marge has Homer query “Is it Batman?” “No, he’s a scientist.” “Batman’s a scientist.” “IT’S NOT BATMAN!” Then I looked over at Lil’ Rainman rattling off train cars as they went by and kept the thought to myself.


A slice of everyday Americana, if your neighborhood constantly reenacted North By Northwest. Given the ridiculous stunts people pulled with small aircraft in the past (playing tennis, doing the hully-gully on the wings), flying one under a train bridge towards a small-town bike race wouldn’t surprise me too much.


Ah, bringing some much-needed gravity to the comical world of models. Here we have a reenacted scene from COPS: Iowa. Is that show still on? Is it just 90% meth arrests now, or do they still get the occasional shirtless convenience store robber caught down the street (still shirtless) sitting at the local bar?


The cemetery was just a tad too far away and underlit to get a proper, focused photo, but rest assured, that’s Beetlejuice sitting on a tombstone. No sight of the Maitlands though. So meta!

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Iowa State Fair: Teach The Controversy

September 15, 2011 in Iowa, Out & About, WTF by rarerborealis | 1 comment

I’d nearly forgotten the apoplectic annoyance this exhibit induced, but looking at the photos brings it all rushing back. Upon seeing the hokey banners and looping video with a narrator sharing ‘proof’ the earth was only 7,000 years old, I froze- the urge to run up and correct everyone there combined with simultaneous confusion as to exactly what point was being made canceled out all motor skills.


(click for a larger image)

Eventually I snapped some photos in a continued attempt to figure out what the point of this all was. Dinosaurs didn’t go extinct, they were drowned in the Great Flood, maybe? A friendly older woman came up to me and said all the pamphlets were free; I could take what I wanted. I took several before my friend dragged me away; I think he thought I’d angrily start correcting her, when really the only thing I wanted to ask was ‘what are you trying to tell people?’

After reading the pamphlet, detailing the hows and whys of dinosaurs being left off the ark, along with a confusing tangent about animals being ‘paired in twos’, not necessarily male/female couples (God would take care of it?), I was more confused than ever. I think the point of the exhibit wasn’t dinosaurs at all, but how the Earth is much younger than scientists believe. If anything, the experience was a comfort- no matter how well-funded and deeply believed the silliness is, without competency the message doesn’t get across.

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The Iowa State Fair: Llama Llimbo

September 2, 2011 in Iowa, Out & About, WTF by rarerborealis | No comments

For some, it was the comedy stylings of Shenaniguns. For others, the Butter Cow. For me, the one must-see event of the State Fair was the Llama Limbo and Costume contest, and it did not disappoint. We arrived in time to catch the tail end of the obstacle course run, set with all the distractions llamas must overcome in their native habitat:


Piles of sticks, tiny trees, and the llama’s deadliest foe, the ground pheasant, all traversed bearing bags of water about the neck.

After that, limbo time! Several handlers, along with audience volunteers, the Iowa Llama Queen and the State Fair Queen, were randomly paired up with available llamas, all which were shaggy-coated, pokey-eared, and adorable. One of the audience volunteers was a 7-foot tall former Iowan, current New Yorker, which made him the brunt of constant ‘city slicker’ jokes the entire contest despite his coming in second place. In a limbo contest. With a llama. While being over 6 feet tall.


The State Fair Queen and her randomly assigned llama ducked successfully under the bar. I was impressed she managed to do so well with her foot-tall crown on.

The costume contest began after a short break to prep and gussy. Now, the point of the contest is to highlight how trusting, confident, gentle and trainable llamas are, in a fun way. That’s why the costumes have to completely cover the face and body, with extra points for heavy, jangly bits and crinkly fabrics that would terrify lesser animals like cats and dogs. Unfortunately the net effect was less ‘cute animal costumes’ and more ‘Texas Chainsaw Llamas’:

Yeaaaaah. It didn’t help part of the cutesiness was supposed to stem from the handlers’ costumes matching the llamas, resulting in some unsettling pairings. Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunyon at least make sense.

This just has so many strange implications.

Seems a bit on the nose.

This was the winner for the mid-age group, mostly because of the hula skirt’s crinkliness.

This should’ve been the winner, but apparently the legs weren’t covered enough or something. Come on, it’s Dino!

This was the winner for the older age group; I think the llama was supposed to be a mobile haunted house or something. The judge lost her mind over the pumpkin booties.


‘Get a Workout While You Walk’.

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Iowa State Fair 2: The Harvesting

August 28, 2011 in Iowa, Out & About by rarerborealis | 3 comments

Yes, it’s that time of year where laziness in writing has my vacations lapping each other in posts. This second visit to the Iowa State Fair was a more leisurely outing, with ample time to take in the numerous fried foods and, thanks to their website’s handy itinerary feature, get good seats for the Dairy Goat Obstacle Course.


Immediately upon arrival fellow traveler Angry Jim and I set out to do that which we dared not the year before- eat fried butter. “But how can you fry butter?” you ask, either in a tone of horror or with notepad and pen at the ready. I’ll tell you. First, take a whole stick of rich, creamery butter. Slice it in half diagonally so you have two butterwedges (yes, I’m making it one word). Dunk that thing into a vat of thick, gooey pancake-like batter spiced with cinnamon and magic.


Now, dunk THAT into a vat of superheated oil. Swirl gently and fry to a deep golden brown. For no earthly reason, top with a generous drizzle of sugar frosting.


Here’s Angry Jim contemplating the horror of what he has ordered.


Despite the insulating coat of batter, the butter mostly melted or soaked into the dough.


Mmm, delicious goo. The final product tasted like a cakier cinnamon bun, with the texture of a corn dog.


Yep, pretty much just like this.

Behold! Some of the largest vegetables this country has to offer:


These are greenbeans. GREENBEANS! What kind of freakish mutant-vegetable future are we living in?!


Two-headed corn
Just sitting on plates
The judges await
Now you’re greater than great
I can hear as your ear grows by far


That does not look like a ‘slow snail’, unless ‘slow snail’ means turd.


In front of the Pork Tent, obviously.


Not the kind variety, just All-American.


Everything is on a stick at the fair. Salad on a stick, eggs on a stick; a booth run by a Methodist church even handed out ‘Prayers on a Stick’. I hoped they’d be little parchment rolls skewered through, but it was just a popsicle stick with stuff written on it.


This probably took 20 minutes to reach capacity.


Here was the most charming surprise at the fair- amidst bacon-wrapped corn dogs and turkey legs on a stick, an entire cooking category devoted to vegan foods. Vegan! In a land where you have to ask to make sure the french fries aren’t served with a hunk of lamb on top!


Didn’t Wes Anderson make an animated feature with these two?


The Jelly Which Shall Not Be Named.

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Free Pattern Friday: Stormy Weather

August 27, 2011 in Crafty Goodness, Free Patterns!, New York City, Stitchery by rarerborealis | No comments

As I belatedly type this on the eve of Hurricane Irene, after a day’s worth of panic from the radio (“If you and your children should find yourself near downed power lines, don’t touch them!” Thanks guys!), trudging through endless grocery lines, and now nervously wondering if the few people I know stuck in Manhattan made the last subway train out (deadline: 12:00pm), it all seems a bit extreme.

We on the East Coast are geographically fortunate, mostly avoiding natural disasters that plague the rest of the country. We’re on a major fault line, but it’s mostly inactive. We do get storms, but they’re weakened after moving up the coast. We’ve even had the occasional tornado, though with the dense build-up they’re rarely as destructive as those in the Midwest and barely touch down. So it’s a bit of a surprise having a hurricane follow an earthquake in less than a week.

The yin and yang of stereotypical New York mindsets, the high-strung neurotic and the blasè rock, are reacting about as expected. For every gallery owner panic-grabbing fontina and prosecco at Eataly screaming “I HAVE CHILDREN TO THINK OF!”, there’s a stoopfull of elderly Hispanic guys quietly chatting and playing dominoes (which they would continue doing whether the sun came out or a car exploded in front of them). Given how hectic day-to-day life in a crowded city is, either mentality is an acceptable coping mechanism, but it’s funny how few major disasters the city has to deal with. With the 10-year anniversary of September 11th drawing near that may seem strange to write, but it’s the 10-year anniversary, and how many large-scale terrorist attacks have we experienced since? Exactly.

Which brings me rather long-windedly around to this week’s pattern, from a state that’s no stranger to devastating natural events.

Stay safe, everyone.

On a random tangent, I declare the Allan Moore lookalike the Stevie Nicks of Kansas, for while the rest of the band plays 12 instruments each, he sings and plays tambourine. And sports a boss beard.

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