During the warm months, some Madison neighborhoods in and near the isthmus hold fairs, usually with lots of free music. A few years ago a fair invited Canned Heat, one of the acts at Woodstock, and some of the original band members performed. Because I've been away from Madison the previous two summers, this year I tried to attend at least part of each fair. I especially like to talk with people at booths and tables. At the Atwood Neighborhood Fair, for example, parking garage attendants--concerned that the city might replace them with machines--ran a table. Parking garages are called "ramps" in WI, which I find a little strange. Even the attendants didn't know why WI uses this word rather than parking garage.
The Orton Park Fair has one of the most interesting events--evening performances by Cycropia Aerial Dance http://www.cycropia.org/index.htm. They tied ropes from the limbs of a giant oak in the middle of the park and up and down the ropes performed dances that are hard for me to describe in this space.
By far my favorite event is the Willy Street Fair parade, held at 11 am on the Sunday of the fair. Regular features are a convertible converted into a Dr. Seuss-like contraption from which an old instrument and a man send out soap bubbles.
And there's the Wacky Wheeler--similar to a hamster wheel--that a man rides down the street,
often blowing a whistle. http://www.wackywheeler.com/Costumed figures on stilts are also regulars. My favorite one-time participants were librarians pushing carts filled with books in 2003, the first year that I made the parade. When I saw this interesting idea, I knew that the parade was special. [Stereophotos taken at Willy Street Fair, September 26, 2010. My simple camera didn't align the film that well this time, so the right-side images take up more of the frames. Because of the lack of light, faster film speed, and distance, the 3-D effect of these pictures is just so-so. This is the site from where I got my camera and the viewer: http://www.3dstereo.com/ ]
