Mon, 16 Jan 2006

I was in the Boar's Head Festival last weekend.
It's Bethesda's annual medieval festival. Most of the parish turns out to appear in it. This year the church decided to tape ther performance and make a DVD. I thought it would be a couple people with cameras, but it turned out to be a crew of four. There was a boom camera, a camera on a tripod, a guy walking around with a camera, and a line editor / director at the back of the church.

The guest of honor is a large boar's head. The story goes that this was actually shot in the north end of Palm Beach by one of the Cluetts. You can see the bullet hole if you look carefully (not in this photo).

The rehearsal was Saturday morning. Most of the participants have been in the production before, so it was mostly a matter of working out details. This year introduced a (fake) (life-size) camel.

The sunday school classrooms double as changing rooms. There are some hard-working volunteers who keep the costumes in order. The Palm Beach Pipes and Drums have provided the bagpipe music since the first festival, back in 1978.

My dad's friend Jim appeared as one of the lords this year. He took my photo out in the courtyard. It was my second year as the student. The student is the person who kills the boar, but not during the production. The story is that student was out reading his Aristotle in the forest, when he was attacked by the boar. He killed the boar by stuffing the book down the boar's throat. During the procession and recession I get the wave the book around and point at the boar to reinforce the fact that it was me who killed the boar.

posted at: 07:03 | permalink |