OFF: Starwood Fest...

[Eric Siegerman]

On Fri, Jul 14, 2000 at 04:56:57PM -0400, K Henderson wrote:
> At Brushwood (the site of SD'97) next week, I see they're having their
> 'pagan' festival, July 18-23.

And a fine festival it was!  Lots of music, drumming, dancing,
workshops, partying, naked people, pagans, wiccans, vendors,
flakes.  We think the drumming stopped once -- for about three
minutes, at 8:30 one morning.

I drummed, I danced, I danced, I drummed, I attended workshops
... occasionally I even slept.

On Saturday night, the biggest bonfire I've ever seen -- indeed,
the biggest fire of any sort that nobody was madly trying to put
out while I watched!  The pyre was 20 paces across (very roughly;
my brother was across the field from it when he paced it out),
and approaching 20 feet high; it took them about three days to
build the thing.  We figured the flames reached 70-80 feet.  For
those of you who remember the huge fires at SD'97 ... well, they
had one like that every night.  This one put those little fires
to shame!

Defining moment:  Rainy Friday morning.  I'm told it was a couple
of kids who started singing that "rain, rain go away" thing, but
by the time I came into hearing range, the adults had picked it
up:  the chanting was in two-part (or more) harmony, and
accompanied by drums, all of it coming from at least three or
four campsites.  I'm told there was a sun dance happening down in
the Roundhouse too (that's the fire circle that SD'97 attendees
know).  In retrospect, exactly what I should have expected from
this crowd :-)  It's only one data point, but the rain did in
fact go away :-)

Einstein's Secret Orchestra will perform
> Wednesday and Thursday nights (the latter with the Church of Subgenius
> folks) and then Speaker\Cranker will play Friday night.

The only one of these I saw was the Wednesday ESO set.
Excellent!  I'm looking forward to seeing them again at SD2K.  My
only complaint is that there should have been more violin in the
mix.

The band also hosted a space-rock jam on Tuesday afternoon, as
one of the workshops.  Everyone, regardless of musical ability or
lack of same, was invited to bring along their instruments
(specifically including, if I recall, their strange homebuilt
ones) and join in.  It was a bit weird, with the band playing
standard electric gear and everyone else playing tribal drums,
shakers, gongs, Tibetan bells, and the like, but it was cool
anyway, and a lot of fun.  I had a great time trying out my new
djembe, and this weird Chinese-sounding one-stringed thing I
picked up for $25 because I figured that since it was a spaerock
jam, I neeeeded *something* I could pitch-bend.

Especially poignant for me is that it was held on the SD'97
stage!  I hadn't been to Brushwood since then, and dancing at the
fire Monday night (before I'd seen the workshop schedule), I'd
been thinking that at some point I was going to have to go off to
the stage area and do some kind of private ritual to remember the
first Strange Daze, the HW/Nik reunion, and all.  This jam was
far better than anything I could have devised!

There was a little blonde girl, maybe 8 or 9, wearing a
tiger-striped top and leopard-print skirt, and blue dye halfway
rinsed out of her hair, playing violin alongside the band's
regular violin player.  This kid was great!  She could drone with
the best of 'em, and was playing some interesting stuff at other
times.  She seemed equally at home on a regular instrument and a
five-string bodiless Chapman-stick-esque electric violin.  I took
her for the daughter of one of the band members, a la Born to
Go/Radio Calvert, so I was a little disappointed that she wasn't
on stage Wednesday night for ESO's set.  But when I asked one of
the band members whose kid she was, he didn't know -- they'd only
met her at the festival.  "She's kind of adopted us, because we
have violins".

On Saturday, when I ran across her again, I complimented her on
her playing.  She looked blank at first (Tuesday was ancient
history, I guess), but once she figured out what I was talking
about, she brightened up and thanked me.  Then she exclaimed,
"Oh, you just reminded me.  I gotta go!  Thanks!", and as she
tore off to the tent across the way, she was yelling, "Hey guys,
come on!  We have to go fiddle!"

This one's going to be dynamite in about ten years...

All in all, a fine time!  I'm already looking forward to next
year.

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics at telepres.com
|  |  /
           We place no reliance
           On virgin or pigeon;
           Our Method is Science,
           Our Aim is Religion.
                - Aleister Crowley