there's no pleasing me. when joe and i spend the weekend decomposing in front of the television, i bellyache about all the new york we're missing; when we ping-pong across town, as we have for the past few days, i feel cheated of several good naps. though i'll probably be fantasizing about those naps for the rest of the afternoon, i will admit that i was amused.
wabes and i made our annual trip (her second, my third) to the renegade craft fair (expert rundown from design*sponge here) in mccarren park pool, an up-and-coming venue at the border of williamsburg and greenpoint.* since i finally learned to leave joe at home, we had hours to wander among the booths and hemorrhage money. all things considered, i think i was positively restrained: i picked up an owls-on-a-bike kitchen towel for $6, a cicada tank top from supermaggie for $20, and split a $5 bag of handmade stationery and coasters from sesame letterpress. if i believed we had any extra space in our dish drawers or on our walls, i'd probably be out several hundred bucks. say what you will about the inconvenience of steep prices for handmade goods, but buying directly from a crafter never gets old.
aside on craft purchases: if i haven't yet convinced you to visit etsy (a highly searchable and distinctly excellent marketplace), do so immediately. because listing and selling fees for vendors are so low (20 cents and 3.5%, respectively), prices are a fraction of what you'd see at most galleries (where commission rates are typically 50-60%) - and the selection is unbeatable. sure, you sometimes have to wade through amateur nonsense to find the good stuff, but a lot of really talented artists have gone etsy. it's a fantastic site.
i could also tell you about the unexpected nudity joe, my dad, and i encountered at a one-woman show on saturday, or the joan osborne concert we caught in prospect park with meg and david and my friend eric (on loan from london) saturday night. detailing the former, though, would ruin the surprise if you happen to see said show - and the spirit of the latter is best conveyed in this photo. rock on, park slope; rock on.
*the 'up-and-coming' part is a little weird, since a derelict depresssion-era municipal pool is in theory a brilliant place to hold events and in practice a lawsuit waiting to happen. during the day, there's enough reflected heat in the pool to poach a hipster faster than you can say "lcd soundsystem" - the paramedics were giving a girl oxygen at the fair entrance when we showed up. weather wouldn't be a problem after dark, but a lot of the pool's old machinery is rusted out and still in place; tetanus, sprains, and concussions, o my! i vote for the grassy part of the park next year.
1 comment:
Ahhhhhhh! I wish I'd known you were going to the renegade craft fair. Would I have gone with you? Probably no, given this weeks nuttiness. BUT I was dying for some sesame letterpress stuff, sigh. Well, I suppose there will be much more of that kind of stuff in good old SF.
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