Signs of the times
At the state fair I did not see one single booth, sign, button or political t-shirt in favor of health care reform. Not even at the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor party, which is how you say “Democratic party” in Minnesota) booth, although I didn’t scrutinize it. Nor did I walk down every street, past every booth, going through every building and exhibit. Still, this was a surprise to me.
I cannot count the number of “Keep your hands off my health care” buttons I saw people wearing. (Yes that is the literal text of the button, not a paraphrase.) I saw a lot more anti-Obama t-shirts than pro-Obama shirts, which also surprised me.
Another thing that surprised me was that the fair basically ripped out a whole row of booths in the Grandstand and made the aisles wider. Also, the booths were shuffled around a lot compared with previous years, and it seemed like a lot of booths went under and were replaced with newer ones. The newer ones seemed a bit less substantial than the ones they replaced.
Wait times for kid rides was almost non-existent. On the other hand, the line for Martha’s Cookies was well over half an hour long.
We heard Kelly Clarkson rehearsing for her concert. We couldn’t actually see her on the stage, but we heard her, practicing, and talking with the sound crew and the band (does she use a band? it sounded like a band warming up) and everything. But I guess she canceled her concert due to illness.
The bongo guy was out drumming his bongos again. But this year he just had a hat with some change instead of a hat full of bills and change.
Across the street from the fair, one block away, parking in someone’s yard costs 20 bucks. Across the street from the 20 dollar parking, was the 15 dollar parking. I found it amusing that the street was the line for parking costs. Those extra ten steps!
Lots of purple Favre jerseys. Zero green bay jerseys (we usually see a few every year). Couple things making fun of Favre, one of which I captured with a photo and I won’t ruin the punchline here. Said photo is importing into Lightroom as we speak so hopefully I won’t have to keep you in suspense for very much longer.
The art exhibit was horrible. HORRIBLE (with three or four exceptions). The Star Tribune roasted it; that never happens. The best part: someone posted the Strib article on a support column in the art fair exhibit area. I cannot decide if a clueless staffer did that, or a clueful anonymous bystander.
It was boring bad too, which was the worst. For the fourth year in a row, my Mom said “I didn’t really like any of the pictures in there, they weren’t any good compared to yours.” There was one photograph in there that absolutely killed me. I mean, seriously, I give up, here, take my camera. I can never take another picture of that subject again because I have nothing to say that is not that photograph. I just stood in front of it slack-jawed for about 5 minutes, three different times.
I cannot believe my mom and my wife and my children all made it through a full day at the fair, from 9:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night without once complaining and making some crack about wanting to go home. Seriously, did I wake up in the wrong universe?
Finally, it feels like only a few years ago that I was posting to my weblog from the state fair saying OMG I’M POSTING FROM THE STATE FAIR! (actually it was 6 years ago). This year I brought my iPhone intending to write something, but I didn’t even bother trying to find an open wi-fi, I just forgot about it.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:35 am
our thoughts on the art building were that there was really no way to tell if it was a good selection or not. we’d have to see all the submissions. its entirely possible that what they showed really was the best offered and it was just poor offerings for the year.