Friday, September 07, 2007

Magic, The Elder Gods, Fall Festivals


This weekend our suburb is having its big Fall festival. This is when we thank the Gods for our bountiful harvest. So far as I know, however, we don’t have a real Lottery or Wicker Man thing, so I don’t think the elder Gods are going to pay too much attention to our celebrating.

Which is okay by me. I’m not much of a festival guy. [One Fall a woman named Sandy and I were driving through central Illinois. Some small, rural town we got to was having their Fall festival. Parades, musicians, celebrations in the streets. We stopped for lunch and then walked around the town looking at the displays the farm-types had put together. On one street corner dozens of people were standing around watching and listening to a band, a kind of farmer skittle band, with drums made from steel tanks and home-made basses of some kind. Sandy looked at me and said, “Maybe I should go back to the car and get the camera…” I said, “Maybe I should go back to the car and get the gun.” A couple of senior citizens next to us heard me and they looked aghast, wide-eyed, mouths open. Sandy had to put her hand on the old guy’s arm and give him her best smile, saying, “We don’t really have a gun. That’s just his idea of a funny remark.” I’m not a festival kind of guy.]

This time of year my thoughts are on tennis. I’m a tennis guy. This is the two week span of the US Open tennis tournament. My favorite, however, Elena Dementieva, lost early, so I am not exactly a happy tennis guy.

One of my main thoughts during this year’s US Open has been how awful the television coverage has been. They show the same commercials, over and over. And they’re all terrible. Not only does that not make me want to buy the products advertised, but it makes me want to avoid those products, to specifically not buy them.

Although, touching on the topic of Fall magic and the elder Gods, I do admit that I will be looking for a new pair of shoes pretty soon and I will be looking at K-Swiss sneakers. Anna Kournikova does a commercial for them.












1 comment:

Angeline said...

Mark! I am so curious as to how you posted this since the library is closed to the public while we held our in-service. Fall on the Green is super lame, but I, like a majority of the crowd, will be curious and check it out--if it doesn't "rain on the green."
...and the shoes you have now are very wonderful. They are Mark-ish, and that's why they're so cool. But if an attractive woman influences your tastes, that's okay too.