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   folksy wholesomeness of the surrounding community
Saturday, June 21 2003

Gretchen wanted to have one of those days in which we interact with the folksy wholesomeness of the surrounding community, so after watching Red Dragon (the Hannibal Lecter prequel) we drove over to the town of Esopus to attend the annual Strawberry Festival. It sounded like a big deal, but with occasional rain once again falling from continuously dreary skies, we wondered how much strawberry enthusiasm the region could muster.
The Strawberry festival had the appearance of little more than a minor church fundraiser. It even took place at a church, one that had been subsequently been made into a humble Hudson Valley homesteader museum. There wasn't really anything to do at this particular festival except eat a traditional American barbeque dinner featuring a dessert of strawberry shortcake. For purists such as us seeking only the strawberry essence of the experience, the price of admission was a mere $2.50. Aside from the kids that had come with their parents, we were probably the youngest people there. If one was to poll the people there, one would have probably found strong support for George W. Bush, the War on Drugs, the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, and a Bill of Rights not for brown-skinned immigrants but for the unborn gillslits & curly tails crowd instead.
The most interesting item in the museum was an old treadmill that had once been driven by dogs or goats. It had churned butter or perhaps spun a sharpening stone. The little sign next to it gave us every assurance that the dogs who had driven it had absolutely loved their job.
Next we drove to Stone Ridge to attend a silent auction benefitting Project Cat, a sort of shelter for abandoned felines. Not surprisingly, there were people at this auction whom Gretchen knew, including the family court judge who married us as well as a couple of gentlemen Gretchen had met last night. Gretchen was incredibly excited about all the things up for auction, but (at least in terms of physical goods) there really weren't all that many things anyone would really want to have. I bid on a half gallon of maple syrup and a barbecue utensil kit since these are two glaring omissions no self-respecting Catskill home should be without. Gretchen focused more on the services, activities bursting with local color such as haunted hayrides and Hudson River cruises. By the end of the auction, after I'd had several glasses of white wine a couple helpings of chips and salsa, most everything had a good half dozen bids. The glaring exceptions were two examples of abstract art. One was a bland grid comprised of odd rectangles of wood; from a distance it didn't look all that different from a sheet of particle board. The other was some sort of expressionist bas relief done in mixed media. It looked as if someone had eaten a meal of molten copper, snorted molted lead and then puked and sneezed simultaneously onto a sheet of construction paper. No one was willing to make opening bids as high as the artists' minimums.
I was a little tipsy by the time the separate raffle results were revealed. Gretchen had invested only ten dollars in raffle tickets, but she nonetheless managed to win a half gallon of maple syrup, a massage, and some other thing. When the silent auction part concluded, it turned out that we'd bought nearly $300 worth of stuff. It delighted Gretchen to be contributing so much to the cause of homeless kittens. For her, to get something in return was a bonus.
The festivities were concluded by the performance of an old magician. He affected the personality of a Victorian snakeoil salesman, but he also had an unexpected dirty quality. For example, as he introduced the piece of rope with which he would do his knot tricks, he asked the assembled (some of whom were children) how many of them practiced bondage. (I immediately shot up my hand, but I was the only one who did so.) Later, when he had Gretchen and some other guy stand in front of the assembled and imagine each other dressed in intimate apparel that he was about to pull from wads of torn-up crêpe paper, he told them to put the paper against their noses and "inhale the cannabis."
After that we went to the Rondout in Kingston to check out a five-band punk rock show at the West Strand Grill. Though I hadn't even known it was taking place, this was Gretchen's reward to me after putting me through the Strawberry Festival and the silent auction.
The West Strand Grill used to be a genuine restaurant, the sort Gretchen would consider going to for dinner. Part of its charm is the beautiful old stone building it lives in. Recently, though, the Grill was refashioned into some sort of heinous sports bar centered around an enormous projection-screen teevee. Its a use completely out of keeping with the look of the building. Mercifully, though, the basement is a mostly-unrelated venue for musicians to play. Some of the stone walls down there are exposed and the stage area looks like a dungeon. If they'd just rip out the ugly acoustic tile on the ceiling and expose some pipes, it would have most of the gritty charm of the Tokyo Rose basement in Charlottesville.
Most of the other people there were both younger than us and properly outfitted in punk rock uniform, that is, blue jeans and a black teeshirt inscribed with the name of some band. Gretchen was wearing a sweater and was considering buying a teeshirt in case the venue became a hot and sweaty slam dance. I really wanted her to get the one that said "Real Punks Hate Emo" but she didn't end up getting anything. As for me, all I got was one beer after another.
The first band had a geeky sort of horror theater act that kept me from remembering much about their music. They had a tiny little kid's drum kit that Gretchen loved, but it seemed to me that most of their beats were actually coming out of a drum machine.
The second band was actually pretty good, but everybody was too uptight to do anything more than bob their heads to the rhythm. One could have easily mistaken this crowd for a room full of Emo pussies.
By the third band, a couple guys were drunk enough to participate in some brief slam dancing. That sort of fun is all well and good, but I would have preferred it if the dynamics could have been maintained - perhaps with just some in-place-up-and-down/no-need-to-homoerotically-touch-other-boys dancing. So I went out there and did a brief yoga pose on the floor to mock them.
On the way home, Gretchen and I stopped for a late-night dinner at the 50s-style diner on Broadway in Kingston. Gretchen found our waitress intriguing because she looked like a bookish nerd. The mushroom veggie burgers and fascism fries were both cheap and delicious so we left her a 30% tip.

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