Strange Folk Festival 2014
Occasionally, I emerge from my lair and join the unwashed masses at a festival or similar event. One such event was Strange Folk Festival in O'Fallon, IL.
Now, I would love to provide you with a stellar review of Strange Folk but mere minutes in to the event, I began to suspect that I was sick with some sort of stomach illness. To appreciate why this is important, you need to know that I am terrified by the idea of getting sick in a public place.
Deep breathing and positive internal thoughts kept me in the game long enough to peruse a few booths, including the art of Matty Cipov. He mentioned that he used to have a keytar like the one featured in his squirrel print, but that his mother had gotten rid of it without asking. (Mr. Chipov, I'm sorry that I didn't feel well enough to tell you about my pet squirrel, Rascal. My mom didn't even try to get rid of him. He would have just come back anyway.)
Anyway, back to Strange Folk and my impending doom... After some additional sweating, nostril-flaring and general stumbling around, I admitted to my friends that I felt sick. I asked them to continue shopping while I lurched off to meet my untimely death under a large maple tree.
After about 45 minutes of nursing a bottle of water and tiny-portioning a slice of pumpkin bread into my mouth, I decided I wasn't going to throw up (or die) after all and ventured out for another round.
And thank goodness I did!
I was rewarded with the best two sights of the day. First was Parsimonia's turquoise and white vintage travel camper. The second was a seriously chatty alpaca whose name I didn't catch. (I do so love alpacas -- best of all the camelids in fact. Although I haven't actually met a vicuna or a guanaco, so I guess it's not entirely fair to pick favorites yet.)
Anyway, the festival was good, but not throwing up in front of people? THAT was even better!
Addendum: My friend just commented on my (above) photo caption about the sloth and the squid. She said that the sloth would be screwed if the battle was taking place in water because sloths can't swim. I declared that sloths can, in fact, swim quite well. A quick web search yielded this absolute gem of a video, titled CRAZY SWIMMING SLOTHS - Does a Sloth Sink or Swim? Not only is this video slothtastically entertaining but it also provides the important public service of instructing people what to do if they encounter a drowning sloth. (Because that happens a lot.) (I guess?)
Props to AnimalWire for creating that bewilderingly fantastic video.
Matty Cipov's artwork features delightfully unlikely scenarios. (Who is breathing in the picture at top right? The sloth or the squid? Because it can't really be both.)
Parsimonia's vintage travel camper.
A seriously chatty alpaca.