Oregon Country Fair 2012~ A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Every year, the second weekend in July, K and I join a good friend and trek down to the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta, Oregon.  If you haven't yet heard of this 43 year old celebration of art, food, music and more, I'm going to have to leave it up to you to delve into the history another time.   It definitely has changed and evolved even during the last five years.  Even in the world of Peace, Love and Peaches, styles change, attitudes mature, events adapt and accommodate.  Some of those accommodations have been geared towards a much more family friendly environment as far as the 'outer circle' of the fair is concerned.  A brand new path devoted to the entertainment of young ones opened this year and as an old one, I loved it's aesthetics. OCF as been as dedicated to the actual heart and process of art as it has been to the commerce of art.  Performance and Fine. Culinary and Craft.  It's all here.  It's all good. It's in the attitude. 

Now granted, my absolute best best best time at OCF was the year it was pouring rain and there was zero crowd but that did put a bit of a damper on the vendors which was a bummer for them.  So with the absolutely beautiful weather we had this weekend (mostly sunny, sweet breeze, mid-70s) I couldn't really complain too much about the Sunday crowd (generally a more chill day to attend the fair). I did notice that the general age of the fair this year was around 20 years old.  Not really what I had expected due to own experience with a somewhat older "hippy" crowd, but not really suprising.  There is still an air of "let it all hang out" and that was an extremely exciting sentiment from my youth.  I did notice many more full "families" in attendance. Refreshing considering my own somewhat uptight sensibilities regarding nudity, etc. I find that as I get older, wiser perhaps, not only is the smattering of nudity not shocking but almost un-noticed.  Note I said "almost".  It would be rude not to notice the ginormous Spongebob painted on a woman's torso with aptly positioned eyes, as much as I wanted to look away. Someone had done a great deal of work to make sure she WAS noticed.  Much more enjoyable and noticeable were the "impromptu" parades that spring up through-out the day.  Beautiful, spontaneous, infectious fun.


 Food wise, this year we sampled a touch of the fare offered by Cafe Lafayette.  A standard Po' Boy and some Red Beans and Rice.  Maybe, I'm too picky for Fair food. Maybe, I shouldn't try to eat Southern fare that isn't prepared by K.  Not to seem like a braggard but every time I try Red Beans and Rice or Jambalaya, or Gumbo, I wind up disappointingly comparing it to K's so let's get onto the things I really really enjoyed.  We went on the best Cookie quest and after hitting up our usual faves (Monster Cookie, Phoenix Rising...) with yummy results, then we found the piece de resistance: Freshly baked Chocolate Chip cookies at Wild Berry!  Paired with a simply sweet but still refreshing Wild Berry punch, this may have been the best CC Cookie, ever.  It was unanimous.  Of course, no trip to OCF would be complete without a Coconut Bliss Bar.  

This year, we were treated to some of the sweetest sounds I have heard at Fair. That is saying a lot because music at the fair is a near mystical experience. There are well over a dozen stages providing every range of performing art from dance to theater to spoken word to live music. Add to this, the innumerable strolling musicians and performing artists across the grounds and you have a feast for the ears and the eyes.  This year we posse'd up with a couple more friends at the Spirit Tower for Doug Abraham's Songs of the Naked Soul, a melange of singer/songwriters intertwined with the spoken word.  Really good stuff.  This show was followed, almost seamlessly, by Lindsey Pavao.  Now, Lindsey was introduced as a runner up on The Voice, the slightly better (def more talent-filled) American Idol type show. She deserves the publicity but should really be recognized by her own right.  She is an understated, laid back personality with heart moving sentiment and style in her song writing.  When she is unplugged and not over-produced she has the kind of "sit still, I want to listen to this" soulful type of playing and singing that probably won't make her rich but leaves her audience richer just for listening.  She's beautiful. To end our 2012 Fair experience we headed over to the Blue Moon stage to catch the patchwork quilt that is Twin Chick Revival.  Otherwise known as players and performers from the Shook Twins, Brown Chicken, Brown Cow, and Elephant Revival, all on stage, all at the same time.  So many sweet voices, so many sweet strings! It's crowded, it's clustered, it's simply some of the best Folk and Bluegrass I've experienced.  The crowd who showed up for this final curtain call of this conglomeration agreed.  Perfect end to a perfectly lovely OCF experience.  Can't wait for next July