Back on the Fringe

Rochester has a Fringe Festival every year, and every year I regret not exploring it more.  To be fair, there is SO much, and it's hard to weed through all of the descriptions.  I'm not much of a "fringe" kind of person in the first place, so finding a fit among the many weird and wacky acts isn't always easy.  I've always wanted to go to the burlesque/circus one in the cool main tent theater, but it's pretty pricey these days and I need someone to go with.  Usually I default to the big free public show (which only seems to be every other year), which is how we ended up at Grounded Aerial in 2015 and Plasticiens Volants in 2017.  Other years I wanted to see those acts but got thwarted by weather or schedules.  I actually hadn't heard anything at all about this year's offerings until a co-worker of mine posted in our group chat about the Daedalum, which he and his wife were going to that night.  It looked right up my alley, so I made a mental note to try to drag Carter there before the festival ended.

I looked into it for Saturday, especially once Carter's baseball game was canceled due to lack of kids, but it turned out it was sold out that day.  I didn't really want to go at night (not that we could have anyway, but I read somewhere that daylight enhances the experience).  I looked into Sunday, too, but Carter had something going at church in the early afternoon and then the whole afternoon was also sold out.  I finally managed to find tickets later that day, and ended up picking 6:30 knowing that it would be near sunset by the time we came out and that might make the experience a little extra photogenic.  I wasn't wrong!

By the way, this is what Carter had going on at church:

They did a massive, soapy slip-n-slide outside the church after Sunday School, complete with pizza, and he had a blast.  They got a perfect, hot day for it, too!

I had to scramble a bit to figure out dinner--Craig was working all weekend for the NLL draft so it was just me and the boys and I had already used all of my easy dinners lately--so I ended up grabbing them something out quickly and just eating leftovers for myself.  We just had to do it early so Carter and I could leave by a little after 6, but for some reason that's never easy.

Luckily I'm pretty well-versed with parking in that area since I'm now there all the time for work.  It was right across the street from the Eastman School of Music.  The Spiegelgarden, as they call it, was just as quaint as I remember from nine years ago when I dragged the kids over there after the Grounded Aerial show.  Only this time, it had this:

That is the Daedalum, the reason we were there.  It's a giant, multi-room inflatable that is lit up in fun and funky ways.  I suppose for $7 I expected a little more, but in the end it was a fun experience and very visually stimulating.  Fully immersive art is a favorite of mine, and this definitely fit the bill.  I was maybe most entertained by the artsy millennials and Gen Z folks wandering around taking funky photos (some with real cameras!) or copping a squat in one of the many alcoves they encouraged you to hang out in.  

We had to take off our shoes and wait to be let into the air lock, the first "room".  Because it's an inflatable, they have to be careful with the air flow and not open the inside to the outside.  That means everyone comes in and you have to wait to go in the inside door to ensure both are not open at the same time. 

While we waited we took our first picture!

The inside was a series of hallways, small rooms, and little alcoves.  The colors came through in amazing ways, usually from one source that lit up entire sections.

Pardon the angle, but it was the best way to capture all three colors.

The middle section was a bit more yellow than it looks here.

There were two main feature rooms.  This one was pretty breathtaking with this giant shape on the ceiling.  The areas below it were rounded out (like bumps from the outside), though it's harder to tell from this.

I loved this yellow room.  I feel like this should be an album cover or something.

The other feature might have been my favorite from a photography standpoint, since every angle was different.  It was called "The Tree".  It was just a series of circles going up through the ceiling, and depending on which of the three spaces you were in while looking up, they were lit differently.

You can see the "tree" look a bit more here.

That pretty much ended our first walk-through, but that took maybe only a bit more than five minutes so I decided we should do it again to look for other angles or at least soak it in a bit longer.  When we went back in the room with the cool shape on the ceiling, Carter noticed that he could see it reflected in my eye.  So I took of picture of it happening with him!

Why not grab a cool new profile picture while I'm there, right?

I wished the thing was about twice as large as it was and had a few more fun things to see, but I was  still happy we did it.  The pictures are cool and it's just another one of those weird things you never knew could be added to your bucket list!  

Back out in the Spiegelgarden, the sun was starting to set.  It was a perfect night, no jacket needed, and the lighting was lovely.  We decided to wander around and see what all they had there.  Carter wanted to play corn hole, but it was busy so we decided to play Connect Four instead.  We played two games, the second of which was quite the heated battle.

We also tried to play this little tiny version of shuffleboard, but it wasn't very successful.  I think the pavement under the mat was too bumpy and the discs kept flipping.  Carter's kept flipping on their sides and rolling like 15 feet away from where we were playing!  We did eventually get around to corn hole.  We played three rounds (we didn't want to hog it) and Carter sunk two in the third round (one with an assist from my bag) to break our tie and win by a bunch!

The lanterns and the pretty sky really made the area look so pretty!

There was a huge line for the show in the Spiegeltent.  It always looks so cool from the outside.  Hopefully someday I'll get in there!  Might need a few more years post-COVID for it to feel a little less icky, though!

We walked around to see the food truck offerings and the heated sitting area with a large projection screen, and then took one more selfie before heading out. 

I asked Carter if he wanted a picture with the giant triangles by the entrance and he decided they looked like giant Doritos, so...

It was a fun little outing.  I think Carter's patience is waning a bit on this stuff (darn you, approaching puberty) as he was a little hesitant to go.  Sometimes I'm not sure if he's actually hesitant or giving me crap entirely as a joke because he thinks it's funny.  He knows that Jacob gives pushback on almost anything, so he pretends to do that, too.  There are times where I think he thinks it's more fun to be home and playing video games or watching videos, but in most cases that's entirely why I drag him out, since he already does too much of that.  And he does usually have fun.  I know it's not going to be that easy within another couple years, but I'll keep trying.

I had forgotten when we were there that I'd actually be back there less than 24 hours later because I had to go to a photo shoot for work.  I manage the Eastman annual giving program and we're instituting a new event this year that's an offshoot from the College that involves selling school gear for a price that includes a gift to the school's emergency support fund for students.  We had students modeling the sweatshirts we're doing this year, which meant wandering all over the campus to take cool pictures.  I can't wait to see them!  This was the little park area just outside the offices.  It was so nice out!

I love this staircase and couldn't resist taking a pic.  I think it's better directly below the light, but I like the top of the light, too. 

And of course, there was this.  It's obviously my favorite spot on campus, and I was hoping to get some photos there, but I didn't even have to ask!  We just ended up there!

While I was watching music cases while the students were getting their pictures taken upstairs, I managed to catch a glimpse of the Daedalum inflating!  We were told they deflate it every night and someone said it was cool to watch it inflate.  I didn't have a great view, but I did catch a bit.  That red bump you can just see ends up really high, higher than the blue bump, once it's fully inflated.  It's slow and hard to see, but you can just see it moving around and rising a bit.

The rest of the weekend was a decent mix between rest and productivity.  After the rough end of the week, I just needed some mental space to get myself back in a good place.  I cleaned up a bunch of surfaces, did a handy craft, bought a couple things at Lowe's, changed our sheets, did a couple errands, and finally built my roller coaster car from Cedar Point.  It turned out to be a giant pain in the butt for a couple reasons, but it's done.  My craft was creating a spot to hold the beaded earrings I've been making lately.  I bought a piece of plastic canvas for $2, cut it to fit an extra picture frame I had here, cut out most of the back of the frame so it would hold in the canvas but be open behind the canvas, screwed two eye hooks in the top, strung an extra purple ribbon through it, and hung it on my wall near my jewelry armoire.  It initially sat too close to the wall and pushed the earring wires back out, but I added some pieces of foam I had to the back to hold it away from the wall.  It's cute and colorful, like a mini piece of art, and I'm really happy with it, especially for only $2.  I had more I wanted to do, but the balance felt important this weekend.  

Now we're on to another week and Jacob came down with a nasty cold that's making him miserable.  Dude can't catch a break.  At least it's not COVID?  I just don't want to catch it because I have important work stuff tomorrow and my friend's funeral visitation on Friday, let alone all of the work I need to get done this week.  Good luck to me with Jacob doing massive sneezes and coughs all over the house.  With a lot of busy weekends coming up I'm glad I had one that checked most of the boxes, but no rest for the weary when a week starts like this.