Thursday, October 23, 2014

Barenaked Ladies at the Arizona State Fair

Most of my experience with state fairs comes from watching Charlotte's Web when I was a kid. It's all livestock, barbershop quartets, ferris wheels, and a smörgåsbord-örgåsbord-örgåsbord, oh what a rat-ly feast.

Well, yesterday the Barenaked Ladies played a concert at the Arizona State Fair, so Laura and I left work early to head to Phoenix and check out the fair for a while before going to the concert. So, let's go down the list of what I was expecting to see there, and we'll see how the reality measures up.

Smörgåsbord-örgåsbord-örgåsbord

The first thing Laura and I did upon entering the fair was to look for food. Although my normal ritual when visiting Phoenix is to always eat at Raising Cane's, we knew that there's always tons of interesting, overpriced food at fairs, and it would be a shame not to partake.

So, we walked up, down, and all around the midway, taking an inventory of our food options. Barbecue had the largest presence, but there were lots of other options: Chinese and other Asian foods, Indian Bread, and, of course, fried versions of many things that should not be fried. I've been aware of the concept of fried Oreos and Fried Snickers for a while, and I'm simply not interested. No, not even "just to try it."

Curiously, though, there were's that many Mexican food stands.

Anyway, we settled for barbecue, each getting a chicken sandwich and fries. The sandwich was pretty good, though it wasn't great. The accompanying fries weren't too stellar either. Raising Cane's would have been both better and cheaper, but at least I gave it a shot.

Later we also enjoyed some Gelato that was altogether more satisfying than the barbecue. Afterward, though Laura and I were both way too stuffed to even look at the other food and snacks around us.

So, okay, I'll grant the fair this one. Indeed, a rat can indeed glut in this environment. Expectations met.

Ferris Wheels


This one was pretty easy. I used the ferris wheel as a sort of ligthhouse, guiding me toward the fair. In fact, there were two ferris wheels: a small one and a "grande" one.

Ferris wheels are apparently for chumps, though. There were tons of other rides, from tiny roller coasters and merry-go-rounds to bungee towers and machines that spun and swung in ways that make me nauseous just thinking about them. There were also no less than five "fun houses," several large slides, and a device similar to a ski lift that seemed to serve a similar purpose to a ferris wheel, except that it also served the purpose of getting you from one part of the park to another.

Anyway, the rides were expensive, and my motion sickness made the whole thing a bad idea anyway, so we didn't actually bother with the rides. Still, they were there, as expected. Another expectation met.

Livestock


The main attraction for Laura was the competitive aspect of the fair. Or, specifically, to see the things that were competing there.

The first animals we really saw were the competitive pigeons. These weren't just any pigeons, though: these pigeons seemed to be bred to deformity for the sake of one prize or another. Some had majestic chests that would put most prize roosters to shame. Others had massive eyes that no doubt granted the odd-looking bird 360 degree vision. Still others could apparently puff out their throats like a frog, except that they could apparently maintain that puffed out look indefinitely.

There were also, cows, sheep, and horses on display. Laura also had the pleasure of going into a petting area filled with sheep, goats, llama, and even a wallaby.

But it wasn't just livestock on display! Oh no, there was also a whole, large building dedicated to arts and crafts. We got to see the best of the best in countless categories of crafts: quilts, crochet, models, Legos, dioramas, paintings, foil sculptures, leatherworking, cookies, cakes, and other confections. There was a cake sculpture that recreated a building called the Phoenix Temple, an LDS church presumably found somewhere in Phoenix. Great care was taken to make it perfectly proportional and entirely edible.

Regardless, once again my expectations were met. There was livestock. Way to go, fair.

Barbershop Quartet


We explored the rest of the fair, checking out shops, looking at the rigged games, and just generally wasting time. Many of the rides were playing pop hits, but there didn't seem to be any groups of four people performing music like the group that sang about Zuckerman's Famous Pig.

And then something like this happened:


It was basically that, but without Steven Page. So, officially a quartet. I'll take it!

And then they proceed to play a medley of top 40s hits from the past two years.

So, that's 4 out of 4, Arizona State Fair. My expectations were met on all fronts.

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