SCI at Hornings - Thursday

I first found Horning's Hideout when I was married to Heather, and 'Topher was an infant, about 10 years ago. There was a Father & Sons' campout and I took Jed & Alex. We sang & played guitar and had a wonderful time, and I fell in love with Horning's. We go a few times each year, and we've continued doing so even after Heather & I divorced.

I remember when they built the stage. I wasn't a performer yet, but not long after I became one. I've wanted to perform on that stage since it was just framework. I still do, come to think of it, though we did get to at least perform in front of it.

When I heard about the Horning's gig I was thrilled. But we were already scheduled for Sand by the Ton in CA with Wanderlust. :( Then SbtT canceled, and we confirmed the SCI gig, yay! A day or two later SbtT reaffirmed, but by then we were committed. I'm very sad to miss SbtT, but Horning's was astounding and I can't claim any regrets that things worked out this way.

Dawn and I came up on Thursday. I was stressin' because we couldn't get there until noon, and that's when Kazum was supposed to meet for ambient stunting. It turns out that everyone but Ari was held up by traffic. I saw him leaving as we rolled up. :(

Dawn's camp was way out past a rickety footbridge. The Kazum camp was in the Production area, up atop the hill behind the Hornings' house. We were almost never there - it stored our clothes & gear, and a few folks slept there. I didn't, though - I was at Dawn's camp during the nights.

We stopped by the Woodcut Stage, or whatever it's called. It's a huge inflatable stage in black & white, with black & red spinal columns. It also had a huge spiky urchin-looking thing that brought the ceiling height from 25' down to 10' - totally inadequate for Kazum routines. We started planning the rechoreography to move the whole routine to one side. But Eric the supercool stage manager offered to get the huge spiky thing taken down. Blessings on him - it gave us a clear stage for our show the next afternoon.

We also went to a meeting with Lisa of Lucent Dossier, and got our costumes for Saturday's show. They were single-piece spandex bodysuits. White for Uli & Miranda & Clover, black for Dutch & I. A zipper in the back, and no apertures. We cut eye-holes and feet and hands.

The other Kazumites bolted back to Portland on the first night. I was frustrated about that, but it turned out to be okay. We provided all kinds of ambient stunting over the weekend - I feel good about what we delivered. Dawn really stepped up - she was my stunt partner for at least half of the ambient stunting.

So, on Day One it was Dawn and I out wandering and stunting. I was in her fuzzy black & white leapordskin coat, and the Patchwork Vest costume. She was all purtied up in costume, too. People were mostly dazzled by the stunting, though a few seemed to feel like we were showing off. That bugs me, but we were paid to stunt, so it felt way less like showing off than it usually does.

We had a wonderful evening wandering and stunting. I missed my Kazum folk, but it was a great Dawn & Scott night. We wandered back to her opulent camp and crashed around dawn. She parties with the wealthy Burner-folk who party hard across several generations. It's pretty impressive - I've only known 1st and 2nd generation partiers before, and most of 'em weren't very wealthy. Dawn's friends put on high-quality fun.