Non-Fictional Tales #4

A journey through Men's Circles, Circling, Epic Parties, The Ordeal and Lighting up the Rainbow Buster Sword. It's been a busy couple of months.

Oh How Time Flies

It has been some time since I posted any new stories. I’m still working through the next installment of the Rundellfall Series, which those of you who are regular readers know is the current focus of my storytelling, and it IS coming. Slowly. And more slowly than I promised. Sorry about that. I am working on it.

This post is… longer than I expected it to be - but it’s been a full couple of months and I felt like I owed it to you all to give you context of why I’ve been MIA for the last month. So read if you’d like, and don’t if you don’t.

The last two and a half months have been a whirlwind of personal development, career challenges, therapy and R&D (research and disappointment as it shall now be known.)

Following my “incredibly difficult to hear feedback” event back in early June, more time than I care to admit has been focused on how did I find myself in this situation and what does this say about me. In my quest to answer that question I wound up tapping into a number of new (to me) modalities, and some older ones, to get perspective and advice.

At this point, I’d like to express my gratitude for the privilege of being a member of a men’s circle. To have the opportunity to share my experiences on the trials I’ve experienced with other men who have had similar experiences - and then get reflections on what stands out, what they’ve experienced, or where they think that I’ve not been in integrity to myself or my own values.

Many of my own wounds from ancient times have been brought up to the surface and exposed, and questions posed that allowed me to put myself under a deeper microscope than I’d be capable of on my own. And this led to many interesting discoveries.

Like, “Why do I care so much about the opinion of someone who holds me in contempt?”

Sigh.

Exploring this idea brought up a really old memory, one of the few that really stands out from my earlier years - that of being a class clown in grade one.

I realize that those who know me personally are probably -shocked- to learn that I occupied the class clown archetype in school, and are probably right now completely re-evaluating your lives as a result of this revelation.

As a kid with ADHD and just enough social awkwardness to not really know how to apply that energy in an “endearing” way and not a “kinda annoying” way, I discovered that there were limits to my teachers capacity to put up with me trying to talk over them while they’re trying to tell the class a story. Banished to the corner of the classroom I was, out of sight behind the teacher’s desk, to stew in my isolation.

However, there was a WORLD of novelty behind that desk that I had never seen before, and so exploring through my teachers desk I did go. And for whatever idiotic reason that arises in a 6 year old’s mind, I wondered “What would it be like if I dragged the webbing between my fingers over this hard yellow paper folder?”

Well, I can tell you from personal experience that it is traumatizing.

My memory goes blank at this point. All I remember is seeing blood and being like “That hurts.” Not knowing what I did after, how the teacher reacted, or really anything else from (I suspect) the next couple days of my life.

It’s a pretty old memory so I don’t read too much into that, but the real life consequences of my ill advised scientific career is that I am now in a new-found setting of being in the Grade 1 Class for Developmentally Challenged Kids.

Oof.

As a person who has done live speaking performances, I can empathize with my teacher’s frustration at having an audience member who can’t stop loudly making everything about themselves.

Back in those days, any child who didn’t fit the mold was shoved into a class that held all the children with challenges in a separated classroom that spanned multiple grades, and was genuinely lit and arranged like an orange open-concept prison.

Humiliated, cut off from my friends my own age, and treated like a learning disabled child (which I suppose I was…) this led to a new trajectory in my life of being an outcast and having the joyful internalization that if I step out of line I will be cast out in the cold and ostracized from everyone I care about. This lead to a lot of “I’m not worthy” internal dialogue.

And this, curiously, led to a major part of my career for which I've received a lot of gratitude, if not money. Being a community organizer and event planner.

The wounds we receive evolve into the passions we care most deeply about. As a result of this experience, I have an awareness of how groups fail to create a harmonious space for people who live on the fringes to be seen, included and accommodated. It gave me a powerful appreciation of the necessity of belonging, community, and how critical those things are for the development of healthy relationships, both externally and internally.

It also makes me really angry with bullies.

This awareness led me, out of frustration of not being able to find affordable men’s circles to join, to just go make one myself - that has been growing in size and consistency this last year of its existence. To my brothers who are subscribers, thank you for your participation, presence and contributions.

It’s why, when I see people falling into easy tribalistic lines where they attack other people for political positions they hold, I can hold myself apart from the default narratives and speak to what is actually known, and what is actually good for the world. It’s how I can recognize the difference between a “Story” and a “Fact” that is told about others - and how people very casually fail to recognize the difference between the two when they’re negotiating their positions within community and social networks.

It’s why I’m more than a little obsessed with creating spaces to help people connect with each other and find their tribe - whatever that means to them. Obviously I can’t help everyone, but I help who I can. Which these days - seems to include a lot of strange people, artists, performers, neurospicys and small business entrepreneurs.

Pretty cool people, from what I’ve seen.

So in a way I’m grateful for my Grade 1 teacher choosing to mislabel me as a developmentally challenged child.

Or did she?

It offered me the gift of perspective on how quickly we can fail people who are struggling, for whatever reason, and how no human deserves to be tossed away like garbage.

We all deserve the opportunity to fail, learn and grow from our mistakes.

The other men of my men’s circle shared some ideas that landed really powerfully with me, and I hope I can capture their words properly here. You don’t need to agree, but I think they’re worth listening to.

Making mistakes can be incredible gifts in learning more about who you are and how you want to show up in the world. Trying to fix the break in the relationship is more for you than it is for the person you harmed. All you’re trying to do is make yourself feel better about what you’ve done. It doesn’t really address their hurt.

Recognize what you did wrong, and don’t do it again. Saying anything or apologizing is just performative. All you can do is act.

Learn from the mistake, change your behaviour, and move on. Stewing in remorse or regret doesn’t address the problem or help the other person.

Not everyone will agree with this statement, but it DOES highlight the difference between “Saying” you’ll fix something, and just “Fixing” it.

Another gem;

Some people come into your life for the sole purpose of messing your shit up. Accept that that is all they were meant to do, and be grateful for the gift of self awareness they have brought into your life.

If they are meant to be in your life, they will choose to remain. If not, let go.

Letting go is tough for me. I’m more of a fight to the bitter end kind of person - but I’m learning that this isn’t always the right response.

Resentment is the killer of love.

This one definitely matches my personal experience.

And lastly;

Love without reciprocation isn’t love.

Friendship without love isn’t friendship.

This last piece I had difficulty with, because of the concept of “Unconditional Love.” I’m not going to dive deep into it, but I’ve read some interesting opinions on the nature of Conditional vs Unconditional Love, and have to admit there are some pretty solid arguments for unconditional love being more of a pretty story than a reality.

One argument I saw made the case that you can “Only unconditionally love a child.” Because to be an adult is to have boundaries, needs and expectations. And it’s hard to maintain a relationship with someone who demands you have zero expectations of them. How can you trust them? How can you rely upon them? Our society is built upon a complex web of expectations and promises we’ve all made with each other - and to love someone unconditionally means… what? exactly? I will love you regardless of how you treat me, even if how you treat me is with contempt and disregard?

Love Challenge Level - Max

I have no good answers to this. Only more questions.

Circling;

One of the things I experimented with was something by the name of “West Coast Circling” - not to be confused with West Coast Swing (which is also awesome and I would recommend.)

I can’t say I’m really qualified to explain Circling well, so I’ll post the description that event host Garrett Rokosh uses;

Circling is a relational meditation in which participants share their authentic present-moment experiences—sensations, emotions, and thoughts—while connecting with each other. Participants express their sensations, emotions, thoughts, judgments, assumptions, stories, desires, attractions, observations about each other’s demeanour or way of being, the group's dynamics, moments of dissociation, boredom, and more, all in an exploration of consciousness through the present moment. Two common types of Circles are “focus circles,” where one person is the centre of attention for up to an hour, revealing their present-moment experience to a group exploring their world, and “organic circles,” where there is no focus person and attention moves organically as people reveal themselves and follow their curiosity.

I had the joy of sitting as the focus circle’s focus for… 45 minutes I think? I can’t remember specifically how long but it -felt- like hours. Ever had seven people put all their attention on you and then start asking you really personal questions about your feelings, experiences and stories? And then proceed to be authentically challenged about them?

It was a ride, and brought more up for me around my relationship with being authentic, expressing my anger over boundary violations (or not), and what my relationship with performative behaviour when in uncomfortable situations looks like. Apparently I hide feelings behind humour. Who woulda guessed.

If you’re an Edmontonian (or live on the west coast) I’d recommend checking these events out if you want to work on your personal presence and ability to tap in and name your feelings as they appear. 9/10 would recommend. It can be confronting though, so I’ll refrain from saying “it’s fun!” But I did think it was valuable.

Bringing Zen Back - A Re-Union Party

An itch had been building for some time.

Back in the 20-teens a community house I lived in named “The Zen Den” became the focal point for a running series of house parties that we dubbed the “Zodiac Series.” It was mostly an excuse to hold monthly house parties to force all us Neuro-spicys to do the house cleaning.

Judgment by your peers for being messy is a great motivator to clean your house.

We named it the Zodiac series because it was a poor excuse to convince all our friends to have their birthday parties at our house instead of going out to the bar.

It worked. I think our record was the 2017 Scorpio party where 8 people were celebrating their birthday at our house (including me). Over 120 people came through our house that night.

But all things come to an end, and like many other things, the Zen Den died during the Lockdown. Turns out the house didn’t want us around anymore because we weren’t throwing raucous parties anymore.

That and a mega-corp built a 6 story apartment building right next to us while the 2020-2021 lockdowns were occurring. That made the whole lockdown experience a really peculiar kind of a hell.

So 2024 rolled around, and I’d been trying to convince other people in the community to step into the vacancy that the Zen Den parties had left. There had been some action, but it was inconsistent and didn’t quite nail the vibe I was looking for.

So I said, “Screw it” and came up with a Plan B.

Do it myself.

Sigh.

I got lucky and found a venue that really nailed the vibe, with shockingly cheap rent for private, not for profit events. And away we went.

It was pretty touch and go there for a moment, and it looked like we weren’t going to get a strong attendance. People were hedging their bets as lots of other activities were going on around that time frame.

So after we were asked if we were selling tickets at the door, I, in a moment of frustration and pique, made the announcement that door tickets were going to $45.

You’ll note that the ticket price listed on the invitation was only $15. This caused quite a stir. People challenged me on this, and I very happily told them I had zero interest in dealing with cash, credit, or e-transfer at the door - and was happy to charge a procrastination tax on anyone who forced me to deal with payment processing during the event. This was a private party, no one was making money on this project, and if they wanted to come they could do me the favour of buying their tickets early - so we could have a list (and I could pay the event expenses) - and just cross people’s name off the list.

The event sold out in five days.

There were two floors and an outside - roughly 90 people were in attendance.

I had a lot of really fantastic help from people putting this event on, including having a stage and lighting system built by my brother “Dylan Toymaker.”

Go buy his lanterns. They’re awesome.

Many former roommates and Zen Den community members came out to help, and several of our regular DJs were chomping at the bit to come to a reunion party. Many laughs and furious dancings were had. We had our customary “Midnight Chicken” on time, to everyone’s delight.

As a general party tactic, I cannot stress the value of feeding protein to your guests if the party is going past two in the morning. Everyone drinks, eats potato chips and consumes sugar without any thought for what that’s actually *doing* to their bodies.

Blood sugar crashes, high blood alcohol levels and improper nutrition are what lead to uninvited guests sleeping on your couch overnight or punching holes in your walls because they’re too drunk to make good life choices.

Feed them protein to take the bite out of that alcohol & sugar and your party will be healthier for it.

Also, the sound was too loud. Which was perfect.

The Ordeal;

The last six months have been emotionally challenging and draining on my ability to focus on my work as a writer and project management consultant. I’d been feeling like I’ve thrown every flavour of spaghetti against a wall and watched it all slide off like sad oily noodles.

So when my brother asked if I was down to go with him on a work trip to set up festival lighting at Electric Love festival and Motion Notion - the idea of “dealing with someone else’s problems and not my own” was wildly appealing.

“Fuck this shit,” I thought to myself. I’m gonna go hang lights and party. That sounds easy. Not like this… newsletter marketing bullshit, social media posting and trying to find clients who would actually pay me money.

Well. That. Was an interesting assumption of mine.

Remember these guys? The Lost Buoys were back.

Turns out the electrical issues causing some of the glitches that created headaches for us at Freezerburn HAD NOT BEEN RESOLVED. Much research and disappointment had been conducted, only to result in… disappointment. Things had improved, but not fixed - and our last week was full of trying to address the failures in the data line signals.

And not on preparing for the road trip, planning our packing, or maintaining the other 70 lights or batteries we were bringing.

And despite the overcommitment to the Buoys project, Dylan still found the time to lose his workshop keys the night before we left town. Resulting in me driving to the workshop to let him in at 11pm at night.

Since I was there, I decided to put some time into packing the trailer, to which I took his truck keys to unlock the trailer. After a couple hours, I drove home.

And for whatever reason I decided to take a look at my substack notifications, as I had gotten into a somewhat heated political discussion over Imane Khelif with some other writers whom I had held in respect. The dangers of talking about politics on social media cannot be overstated. And continuing to involve myself was a foolish decision.

Not a good use of time when I’m leaving the city in 8 hours and should be asleep.

When my phone rings.

I had driven home with my brothers truck keys.

Fuck!

Back to the studio I go. In a massive rainstorm where the highways were basically shallow rivers. It was exciting.

We didn’t wind up leaving town until 3pm that day. And it was a furious pack job that we did. And… we packed too much. The weight limits of Dylan’s vehicle were seriously put to the test - as the Trailer Rental company hadn’t given him accurate information on the actual weight of the trailer. After doing the roadside test, we had to have a serious discussion about whether it was safe to drive.

We proceeded with crossed fingers.

I had just taken over driving and was feeling uncertain as this trailer was *easily* 1000 kilos heavier than anything I’d piloted before, when we received an Alberta wide emergency alert of Tennis Ball Sized Hail arriving in our area.

Sure enough, we look to the right and see the black storm on the horizon, and think “Yeah, we’ll probably dodge that.”

We didn’t.

We realized things had gone awry when what sounded like muffled gunshots started going off on our windshield.

WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

And the windshield started cracking. Badly.

We drag ourselves at a very slow speed to the nearest overpass on the freeway and hide under there with 40 to 50 other cars who had all gotten the same idea. Within minutes the ground outside of the overpass was a sheet of uncomfortably large white rocks. The highway had developed river-like qualities, and some Calgary Drivers who hadn’t gotten the memo that we were having a catastrophic weather event ripped through the single open lane at 100 kmph with their hands on their horns the whole way to alert us to their bold insanity and their disapproval of our caution.

The combination of the extreme weather conditions, water everywhere, and the overloaded trailer left Dylan’s truck… crippled. We lost power and couldn’t get the vehicle to drive faster than 40 kmph without it really complaining at us. It was brutal. We managed to catch a Canadian Tire that was still open to reset his vehicle codes for him and do a bit of troubleshooting.

Which as far as we could tell, did nothing.

The vehicle seemed to fix itself with positive intentions and verbal encouragement, and we were back on the road limping our way to Banff at 8pm. And more than a little concerned that we had bitten off more than we could chew.

While this was going on, the Calgary Airport had been devastated by the hail. Flights were cancelled, lobby windows were smashed and the waiting areas were leaking with rain. This led to the cancellation of Dylan’s partner Kira Hunt’s flight. She was supposed to meet us the next night in Chase, BC, to join us for setup at Electric Love. She didn’t make it on time.

She wound up hitching a bus ride later that evening after her own adventure with rescheduling departures at the last minute in a city that had just had its shell shocked by Tennis Ball sized hail. I know multiple people with written off cars and saw more than a few ambulances on our way out of town.

Around this time, I also found out that our fourth team member had to cancel their participation in setting up for the festival. We were down to three, and our third was going to be 24 hours later than originally intended.

Ah shit. I thinks to myself. So much for an easy time hanging lights.

After getting three hours of sleep at a Revelstoke truck stop, we make it to the festival in a record 24 hours. The drive was supposed to be 12. It wasn’t a good record.

And we were supposed to have an unbusted windshield. And Dylan’s passenger side mirror had it’s casing blasted off by the hail. And the truck and trailer were dented all over like it had gone through a really aggressive airsoft ambush.

A photo of the trailer, some of the hail damage visible on the back (much more on the other side), and our first round of temporary street light installations - powered by solar panels, car batteries and DC LED lanterns. The funny looking tent in the back is what I slept in over the festival.

And this is where we learn that digging 30 post holes to put up temporary street lights with improper equipment is hard. While understaffed, and running on what was at that time close to a week’s worth of sleep deprivation.

The festival rented us a powered hand augur, but one of those ones that has a handle “ring” as opposed to handle “bars.” What’s important to know about this, is that these devices don’t have anything for you to brace your body against if the ground is too hard for the bit to bite into. So you’re resisting all those circular forces with arm and grip strength, and you can’t just brace your hip against it and drop your weight into it.

The ground was hard, rocky and dry. That first night we only got 4 holes in before the team called it quits because of the physical strain. The festival committed to renting an auguring bit for the skid-steer, and we all went to bed grumbling but relieved we were going to get the right equipment the next day.

We only got 4 holes in when the skid-steer runs out of diesel. It’s Thursday, and early entry has already started. We’re literally putting in lamp posts while festival attendees are coming in around us to find parking and set up their camps. Not ideal.

We’re waiting for almost two hours, putting some final touches on the lantern posts we’d already installed, sitting around smoking wondering where the skid-steer is when our festival liaison Johnny comes up to us.

“So we just ran out of diesel,” he says.

“What? Like… the whole festival?” I ask.

“Yea. We had to shut down work on the Telemeter too,” he adds. “We’re going to call someone in tomorrow to refill the diesel container, and get back to work on digging holes, but we can’t do anything tonight.”

“The festival has *started* and we have only 8 of 30 posts up,” I reply.

“Yep,” he says.

I can see the This has been a time and I’m just hanging on for my life in his eyes. I’m pretty sure I have the same look.

So we go do non-post related lantern work to pass the time.

Friday rolls around, and now general attendance is showing up. Diesel arrives, and we get back to work. And by the grace of god it turns out that the previous 8 holes that we dug were the hardest holes to dig. Dry clay and rocks. The rest go substantially smoother, and we finish our installations somewhere around 8 or 9pm - while the festival is going.

I’m grumbling to myself about how I was missing out on the party, and was going to be too tired to have fun. I revolt by 10pm and tell Dylan I’ve done all I can, and since part of my compensation was to get to party at the festival, I’m out. We’ve done enough, and the festival clearly understands that we weren’t at fault for the long string of obstacles we’d faced.

It turned out to be a great party.
People loved the lanterns.
They didn’t get lost in the dark - and could find the toilets.
Mission accomplished.

The main stage.

The pathway between the Zen Den stage (Ironic huh? A stage name inspired by my house! Actually, it seems.) and the main stage. We hung the Web Pixel Stars and troublesome Buoys here.

I don’t remember what this stage was called, but it had the best access to the beach and the widest space to spin flow props and led swords.

I don’t know what this was, but it was cool.

A hilltop view of the beach stage and the Sienna Towers and Bollards lanterns we’d placed along the path.

We did, however, discover that many of the 7AH 12V batteries we rely upon to light up the bathroom lights were… reaching the end of their lifespan. Many of them ceased operation before the night was fully through, leading to some fun battery exchange missions in the early mornings.

This little guy came to say goodbye to us. Almost hitched a ride in one of my totes. Did you know British Columbia has Praying Mantis’? I didn’t.

To our great fortune, the Festival loves the lantern posts so much they decide to let us leave them in permanently. Praise the lord. It’s a good sign for being brought back to do lighting with them next year, and eliminate a good 50% of the workload that can be replaced by what we’re actually there to do.

Light Lanterns and make stuff pretty.

After another packing gong show, we’re back on the road to the next festival -Motion Notion. We had help from James Middleton’s crew (Ocean Legacy) as they were also involved in both festivals doing Stage Installations, and so we negotiate with him and his much larger truck to tow our obese Trailer, giving Dylan’s vehicle a break from having to haul the trailer through the mountains between Chase and Driftpile.

I’m not sure we would have made it. It was a much rougher path than the one we took to get to ELF.

Things go reasonably well on this leg of the trip, and are only slightly marred when we, likely due to sleep deprivation, forget to refill the vehicle with gas on one of our driver changeovers, leading to us running out of gas on the side of the road on the way to Swan Hills.

Thank goodness I moved the jerry can from the trailer to the truck. I took responsibility for packing the Truck because I didn’t want to risk us not having the right gear on hand if we got separated from the convoy & trailer. Which we did.

So we use the year old gas, and backtrack to the nearest gas station where we run into the convoy we had ditched, losing all time we made cutting ahead due to this oversight. Ce la vie. Having learned our lesson, we stuck with the convoy for the remainder of the trip.

Another 12 hour trip that took 24 hours to accomplish. We arrive late in the night, have another adventure with sneaky disappearing keys, but everything works out and we get our camp set up in the dark.

Protecting our camp with “please don’t drive over me” milk-crate lanterns. The first two days were very smoky from nearby forest fires, and night time visibility was terrible.

But this Ordeal was not over - because we had 40 lantern posts to dig!!

Luckily this time we had the right kind of augur, and the ground is soft because of a more frequent rain schedule on these lands. It wasn’t easy work, because… well 40 of them - but it is *easier*. We were joined by Maco who is pretty fit, isn’t suffering from sleep deprivation, and has experience with Dylan’s systems. It still takes us a couple days to get all the posts in, but we persevere and get it all done in time(ish.) - Ironically we’re down *two* people for this festival, due to scheduling and personal challenges, so the workload is no lighter this time round than it was for ELF. Perhaps even more intense - but with better weather.

This may or may not have been gratuitously posed.

I mess up my arm pounding angle-iron into the much drier and gravel-y roads in front of the bathrooms while trying to get our signature milk-crate solar lanterns in place. Turns out, sleep deprivation and 2 solid weeks of manual labour are hard and I haven’t been recovering as quickly as I’ve been breaking down my body. Wielding a sledge-hammer one handed didn’t help, and now my forearm and bicep muscles are blown something fierce.

I’m consuming ibuprofen multiple times daily by this point, and I’m concerned I’m developing an addiction to C-4. Which I’m gonna say is an awesome supplement and I regret nothing.

So I pivot to light duty and spend most of friday doing battery and lantern maintenance, to ensure that we set up lights that work. We get some unexpected relief when our friends Brandon and Ken show up, and give us some support setting up lanterns and developing battery alternatives (custom built salvaged vape-battery packs. Wild. Turns out to be super effective alternative to the 12V Lead-acid 7AH batteries we were using).

Ken later saves the night by spending 2 hours chasing extension cords to find the GFI break in a power line that knocked out something like 50% of the lantern installations by the vendors area.

Some heroes wear baseball caps.

I’m pretty exhausted Friday night, but still get some partying in. Here are some shots of one of the stages and some of the lanterns on the grounds. I wasn’t carrying my phone on me by this point, as Public Mobile has really bad reception on the North Country Fair grounds - so these shots are mostly courtesy of Dylan and Kira.

I have to say, because I can’t show you due to lack of photos, that the Motion Notion crew put on one *hell* of a light show at the main stage. We had a huge mist drop on Saturday night, and I spent a good 30 minutes sitting out in the field watching the light projection from the stage firing lasers through the mist and the fabrics they set up to create some of the most impressive 3-dimensional light images I’ve ever seen.

If you’re going to go to a festival next year, I highly recommend Motion Notion. They put in the work.

Now I don’t often spend this much time travelling with Dylan and his Lantern making crew, so I had brought a personal project with me to work on in my downtime. There wasn’t nearly as much downtime as I was expecting, but I stubbornly sacrificed the opportunity to take a nap at Electric Love and Motion Notion to get this project going.

Close to seven years ago, I was gifted with this beauty by my friend Mike Ortiz (aka, the FlowBot) when he was first experimenting with making Rainbow swords as flow props. He’s an exceptional maker of costumes and props, and one hell of a swordsman, having practised a collection of martial arts since he was very young. I’ve learned a bunch of new moves hanging out with him.

This was the second of three rainbow swords he made, so it was pretty heartbreaking when the sword was broken on a trip to the festival Rainbow Fiddle while taking part in a rainbow sword making workshop.

It sat on my wall as a non-functional piece of art for 3 years after that, and then in storage for 3 more. Since I was going to be travelling with what was a fully functional portable art studio, I figured I’d take a shot at fixing it, even though everyone who looked at it said “It’d be easier to make a new one.”

It’s not about it being easy, it’s about it being fixed.

I’d always entertained the notion of turning it into a lantern, so I figured now was the time to light it up, since I was going to be performing “sword surgery” on it anyways. Several fun things came together to help make this happen - and Dylan, Kira and Ken all made contributions to the process and supplies involved in making it live again. I stitched the foam back together and added a couple lighting devices so that I could illuminate as many parts of the sword blade as possible, and laughed when rainbow coloured zip ties showed up to help bind some of the damaged foam components.

And now it lives again. And how it glows.

That’s Dylan on the right, with a black light reactive flag prop. Which was also really cool and I want one of those too. They’re light and dynamic. Not heavy. Like the sword.

More than one person was shocked at how much illumination it puts out when it gets fully turned on. Dylan described it as a “fuck off bright” flow prop / totem.

It’s also taller and more charismatic than I am.

If it looks awkward to wield, that’s because the sword is quite literally a sail in the wind and I’m still getting used to using it again. It can catch the wind and go off on it’s own. Not like real swords that cut the wind, this guy needs to ride it. Plus it’s heavy for a flow prop, weighing 12x as much as one of my LED Katanas, and half again as much as my Iaido, which is significantly more aerodynamic.

So my joy of having rebuilt the Rainbow Buster into a Lantern Sword is only slightly marred by the fact that now my right forearm is well and truly ruined.

Worth it.

But I really should have taken that nap.

It’s over!

While that’s Dylan lying on the ground, he’s really embodying how we all feel in that moment. The last two weeks had been a ridiculous conspiracy of challenges and coincidences, and we’re all burnt out. Both Electric Love and Motion Notion love the lantern posts, and committed to keeping them in the ground so we don’t have to use so much energy on putting them up next year.

This is a huge victory, because it means that we’re going to be hired back to, not two, but three festivals as a result of this trip (The fair grounds are owned by North Country Fair, so they’ll likely be getting lanterns from us as well). And the festivallers will have the joy of actually being able to see where they’re going at night on the way too and from the stages.

And while Dylan’s truck and trailer got smashed…

My right forearm and bicep is ruined for a time…

Most of Dylan’s 7AH batteries are toast and need to be replaced…

I had to spend too much money on painkillers and sunscreen…

I lost my headlamp…

My custom ear plugs…

My favourite shorts are probably ripped forever…

At least I have this magical glowing rainbow greatsword.

fin for now

P.S. - And when I got home, I discovered that my good friend Kelci had become a paid subscriber to my substack. Amazing. Thank you for your support Kelci. I love you, and hope our paths cross again in the near future.