The Hazel Project

Yesterday after a very moving service at Agape, Tim suggested hanging out in Venice for a bit.
Tim had info about a street fair there and Hoopnotica (explained later) was going to be there. It only took an hour to find a place to park, and another 40 mintes to walk to the street fair. or is it fare? Seemed a lot of people had the same idea.

Venice was the place to be…on a bicycle.

The typical stuff was there. Magnets, Post Cards Art, Glass Works, Jewlery. The smoky aroma of grilled food permeated the street, kielbasa mostly. Maybe it was veggie.

Pubs lining the streets had their doors open to attract the drinkers.

We passed one place that had a sea of people drinking, loudly.

My pace slowed to absorb this vibe.

I observed through the open door a table that had four males who looked exactly the same; all in the same standing posture; the same smile. This Sunday flier ad for muscle T’s showed the males hawking over one sitting female; basking in all the attention. This struck me in a way that made me laugh.

Biology.

Why are we so trapped in biology? I think to myself, realizing I participated in the same behavior three weeks ago at the beach.

The street was divided in two by a mile long row of tents. That’s only a slight exaggeration. It was an amazing amount of people that shuffled along. And tiny tiny dogs which I found interesting. chihuahuas everywhere. You could tell they scared out of their tiny minds. Even though the crowd was enormous they were very accomodating.

It was a good vibe. a slower pace looking in all the artisan tents.

Tim and I were actually seeking out the Hoopnotica performers who we saw at Bleepfest 2006. Hoopnotica are fire dancers but use hoops (as in hula) for their main prop. And they dress like they’re in a Dr. Seuss parade.

Hoopnotica were toward the end of the fair but we had a chance to talk with our favorite Hoopist, Keaton Talmadge, (they have a really cool website by the way) even though she was in civilian clothes she demonstrated her talent for a small but enthusiatic crowd. Next door to Hoopnotica was the Percussion tent. I was in heaven. Shakers, singing bowls, and djembe’s all over the place. I become taken with a small basket shaker like the one I used to play at Jillians. I’m testing it out and watching Hoopnotica, thinking,

“she’s cute. and needs a live percussionist.”

We leave the shaking and hoopness and find the end of the fair.

A brass band starts warming up.

I notice a small park with a large banner over the entrance.

The banner read “Fun Zone”. You know, for kids. but the band sounded way better than the music they had for adults on the other stages. This was a band of at least 10 people on stage and 3 percussionists wandering around the crowd. They were all dressed up like super heros. Most looked like they had to raid their Grandmother’s closet to find that much polyester.
The music sounds really really good and fun. The adults are going crazy, dancing and clapping along.

The kids are standing around eating popcorn.

The leader was an alto sax player that looked like a former co-worker at GC in Raleigh.
He was tall with a lot of red hair. His name was Captain Broke Bank. And had the best costume. Blue spandex unitard with a B safety pinned to the chest. He had a picnic table cloth for a cape. My other favorite performer was “Captain Bubble Drum” who had rigged a marching drum harness with a snare drum and tom tom. Except he wrapped the drums in bubble wrap. He also had a copper pipe coming from behind him arching over his head with a cymbal mounted on it. He too looked like he could be in a Dr. Seuss parade.

He was rallying the kids…and I fell for it.

“Hello, I am Captain Broke Bank and we are here to fight the Evil Anti-Groove!”

“Can you say Anti-Groove”

“blarrghe’ comes the sound from the crowd.

“Alright Kids, everyone scream, ANTI GROOVE GO HOME!”

‘AN i grub oho’- the crowd is warming up a bit

We get three more tries to scream the Anti-groove away. And then he says

“We are here to fight the anti-groove, and loosen the sphincter of the world!”

and they break into a really fun swampy new orleans style song that the adults sing, dance and clap to while pudgy kids stand around and eat popcorn.

Thanks for checking in, the comments, and the phone conversations,

Stephen A. Thomas

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 6:07 pm and is filed under on the path, posts & stories . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.