Renaissance Faire

Fantasy: The creative imagination; unrestrained fancy.

We've gone to the Renaissance Faire for the last few years, every year. We go and watch the same shows and enjoy the conversations that different people at the Faire will strike up with you. What you get out of it, is definitely up to you. You can enjoy and participate, or think it's silly and look at it with a jaundiced eye.

As a side note, what always amazes me about the women at the Faire is the amount of cleavage on display. Frankly, if someone walked down the street like that, they'd be arrested for indecent exposure. And, What Is It with various and sundry objects stuck down the cleavage? A dagger, a softball?!?, a rose, a giant pickle?

The first year we went, we hardly noticed anything else as the vast amounts of bosom took up all our attention. As we've gone for other years though, we have started to notice the men. Have you ever heard of codpieces? If you haven't, shortly you will know. Basically, it's padding in a certain area of a man's anatomy to "enhance" his natural virtues. Of course, on the websites for the RenFaire, while they show women's cleavage in loving detail, they don't really focus on the codpiece. I don't know why. Of the two, while the cleavage is more flashy, the codpiece is definitely the more memorable.

The other thing that the men do, more so than the women, is to have weapons. Now, a sword and a dagger, ok, that seems to be reasonable. But when someone walks by who is quite literally staggering from the weight of steel and there is not one inch of costume that does not have a sharp object attached to it, you have to wonder.

I'm finally figuring out what it's really about though. It's about the fantasy of living a different life. Of choosing a type of character that you've always wanted to try and being able, if only for a day, to be that person.

A queen, a fairy, a sorceror, a warrior maid, a pirate, a gallant gentleman, a gypsy. You can be anything you want at the Faire.