#am quite proud of my booth setup

[simply-sithel]

Well, the craft fair has come and gone. I feel like I might have had a good time? Sales weren't overwhelming, but they were constant and I made back booth fee + some extra money for coffee and cannabis. More mutterings on the matter under the cut...

Of the 21 Christmas minis I specifically made for the event, 10 remain. The new bird leg book I made for the fair sold, along with several of my older monsters-- the pink legged one, the green legged one, and the Capricorn. Happy to see them gone.

The real winner was the crimson alcohol edged Fleur du Mal mini-- purchased immediately upon fair opening and envied by someone else who eventually settled on the loquat dyed copy pictured above. Unfortunately, I was so busy prepping for fair I never actually photographed my most popular book!

Am on the fence about doing another holiday craft fair... Am haunted by the memory/fact that I used some less-than-stellar cover paper on a couple pieces-- a fact that I only noticed after seeing how scuffed my remaining copy was after lugging it home ungently. 🙈 hurts to consider some of my work floating out there not being up-to-snuff, especially given I charged for it. Still not fond of that....

I'd wanted to know how well I worked, crafting at full tilt. Do things get easier when aiming for 'mass production'? NO. Will I ever try and binge crafting books like this again? NO. Do I want to 'make books professionally'? NO.

The positive take aways are that I enjoy working on things in sets of 5. I enjoy my new travel-crafting setup for minis. I enjoy expanding my mini typeset collection to draw from. Seeing my mini shelf temporarily packed w/ the leftovers before I disperse them makes me happy.

Special shout out/thanks to @aetherseer for gifting me so many small sheets of excellent paper and apologies that I failed to photograph most of them. Her taste is impeccable and it elevated my work from the normal ho-hum selection of origami paper I indulge in.

[dandthegods]

So my area has a pagan fall art festival thing going on today. And I have some…thoughts.

first off, this is not meant to offend or accuse anyone of anything. We all practice differently and our lives are different. This whole thing is just based on what me and my fiancé experienced while there.

the whole week we’ve been looking forward to this. We’ve been to a few other art fair events around our area, but this was a pagan one so it added an extra bit of intrigue to it and it seemed exciting. But being there was kinda underwhelming with expectations and overwhelming without sensory issues and personal vibe checks.

just as a basic review of the event, it wasn’t laid out very well. Not sure if it was due to a cost to rent out the park they were in or what, but all the booths for the vendors were quite close together and the alleyways for people to walk through were so narrow. I would have preferred if they had a setup to direct the flow of foot traffic so it wasn’t just a crowd of people going both ways everywhere. The couple booths we went in and felt comfortable stepping into were nice, but the rest gave off very strange vibes. My fiancé picked up on them more than I did and can articulate better about it. But basically it was a very off vibe the whole time.

i think a big downside with this was there was little variety at what the vendors had to offer. It kinda felt like an Etsy search page where there are a couple dozen shops selling identical crystals, herbs, tarot decks, and jewelry. Some of the stuff there was cool looking, but all in all it was like “seen one, seen them all” type thing. Which, yeah that happens. Pagan and metaphysical shops tend to be few and far in between so they tend to carry the same things so people who want them can get them. But when you bring all those shops together they kinda just feel redundant. This is opposed to the other general art fairs we’ve been to over the past year. There are many booths that sell carving pieces or paintings or photo prints, but there is so much more variety there in terms of style, subject matter, and medium. And very few shops feel the same. With these shops, it’s the opposite.

im a very socially anxious person and when it comes to paganism I’m very reserved and private about it. Add that to the fact that Hellenism isn’t super common where I am and in the pagan supplies community in general, and I just feel out of place with a lot of these things. I’m not Wiccan, never have been, and don’t stray too far away from Hellenism stuff, so when things like this are 99% Wiccan/Druid based, it’s hard for me to not feel imposter syndrome wondering if I’m actually pagan. It’s awesome to see people be out and proud regarding their paganism, and I would love to do that as well (I’m trying at least) but some of the vibes I got from a good portion of the booths there just wasn’t good. Can’t explain it further than that, I’m afraid.

there was also a dude there that I’m pretty sure was from the AFA or some white supremacy sect of Asatru/Norse paganism. He was probably the worst vibe we got when we was silently stalking around, trying to hand out small pamphlet stuff. Luckily, the group that organized the event didn’t allow any white supremacy groups like the AFA or anything to have a booth there and I don’t think I saw any that could have been similar. But this guy was just bad news. And there’s only so much you can do with that kind of event, especially without any security detail, so it’s hard to stop people like that from coming in and trying to do their thing. He wasn’t talking about anything, he was just silently intimidating and creepy. But, on a happier note, we saw a lot of diversity there in terms of race, ethnicity, gender identity and age. So I don’t think the organizing group would have condoned that guy being there if they found out about him. The event goes on for the rest of the day so I hope he gets kicked out at some point and that everyone stays safe.

this was the first pagan event I’ve been to, and as an experience to say “I did this” it was nice. I honestly might not go again just out of personal preference and how my personality and mental health is. I wish everyone there the best, the vendors to be successful, and for all to be safe and get home safe.

Cheers,

-D

[winstonhcomedy]

How’d Winston Do Last Night? 11/1

I HAVE BEEN BLOGGING CONSISTENTLY FOR A MONTH! Shit I guess it is a habit now. Hopefully I can’t kick it because this has been a super cool exercise. It keeps me accountable and I like knowing that good or bad I have to share my experience/set. 

Sometimes when you do comedy you have to drive far to do fun stuff. Sometimes you have to drive far for stage time. Sometimes you have to drive far to be seen. Sometimes you have to drive far for little/no money. Sometimes you have to drive far and then drive immediately back. Sometimes you have to drive far to show you will drive far. Sometimes you drive far for delicious pizza and drink tickets. The point is driving a long ways for ten minutes of stage time is going to happen.

I did this last night. I am not complaining one bit. I was soooooo damn happy/lucky to be asked to do a show in Baltimore. I know that where I am as a comic I need to be doing this. I need to go to other cities when asked and absolutely murder so I can get booked even more. That’s the goal. Kill all the time wherever you are and keep getting booked. I was excited because this was going to be my first time doing comedy in Baltimore, and I got to do it at Umar Khan’s Gin and Jokes at Joe Squared. So I hop in my car after work and drive 3 1/2 hours to do my ten minutes for some gas money, drinks, and delicious pizza (REAL GOOD PIZZA).

This show has a great reputation. Umar is a funny/genuine/nice dude who I legitimately really enjoy talking/hanging with. So when he asked me if I would drive up and do this show I was ALL IN! Umar has built a super solid show that I would honestly reccomend people try to get on.  

It is once a month in the basement area of a cool little Italian/pizza joint. You walk down the steps into a dope setup of about 60 seats, a bar to the side, and lots of standing room. 

I get there pretty early and Umar is setting up. We have a fun time shooting the shit about recent shows we had done, and shows we want to do. He talked about a heckler named “Juan” who he lost his shit on the month before, and how he hopes tonight’s show doesn't have that. He said the dude was being super rude, and he went in on him. Then I meet the bar/venue staff and they’re also super dope. You can tell they want the show to be as successful as Umar and that is absolutely huge. I can’t tell you how many places will give someone a show and then expect it to all rest on the show runner. Having a successful local show relies just as much on the venue supporting/advertising as it does the show runner booking good comics/advertising. 

I set up my camera as I wait for the other comics to show up. The other comics on the show are Franqi French (very hilarious lady who runs some dope shows in DC), Eddie Morrison (a dude I met doing Jon Yeager’s comedy wars show. Super funny and fun hang), and closing out is Cerrome Russel (funny ass dude I met when he opened for Stavros Halkias at The Southern). 

Once the doors open the other comics show up and it starts to get pretty packed. The room has crazy good energy. Sometimes you can tell if the crowd is going to suck or not, but these guys had good show energy. I could tell it was going to be a positive experience. I get to talk/joke around with Franqi, and Eddie for a bit which is always a treat. 

We start the show about 15 minutes late because people are still filing in and getting drinks. The energy is electric and Umar finally goes up. He has a super strong set mixing crowd work with material. He does some local humor I didn’t understand at all. Apparently something called Union had banned children and started talking about Squeegee Kids (I legit have absolutely no idea what the hell that meant BUT IT KILLED). He’s up there for about 15 minutes, and really sets the show up to succeed! Right before I go up Eddie jokingly leans over and goes, “if you bomb here you are terrible at comedy.” 

He brings me on stage next and laydees/baybees DADDY HAD A HOT ONE! I hit the stage and immediately go into my crowd work. I am zipping back and forth between a hot black guy, a dude wearing a “let’s f**k in a voting booth” shirt, a guy in a ravens hat, sexy fella named Doug, and a 25 year old guy who dates a 48 year old woman.  Umar had spoken to the dude with the older gf first and got some good laughs out of it so I already knew where I wanted to go with the crowd work on him. I got to do my favorite thing which is make a joke about one person and keep calling back to it during crowd work. I was really feeding off of the energy of the crowd, and could have done that set for an hour.

After about 6 minutes of crowd work I did my joke about arming teachers. It works super well and I get an applause break. The joke keeps building and I ended on a super solid laugh. All in all this was an amazing set. I felt like that set is the kind of comic I want to be. I will never be an all jokes guy. I know that. Crowd work feels too good, and is too natural for me to not do it. I also know that I don’t want to only do crowd work. I love a good 50/50 mix. 

I’d give this set an A. I’m really proud of it. 

After I get off stage I start packing my stuff up while Franqi continues the energy of the show and keeps killing. I grab my pizza, thank Umar, and get in my car and drive 3 1/2 hours back home. 

This was a night for the ages. 7 hours in a car for 10 minutes of jokes. I’d make that trade everyday of the week. Night’s like this really make me think I should be doing this and I will never quit. Only time will tell if this is true, but I really hope so.

That’s it for today sweetums. I love you all very much. Thanks for reading (if anyone is reading) these posts for the past month. It’s been super cathartic for me to just write this stuff down and be accountable. If you like reading this and have any suggestions let me know. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH !!! XOXOXOXO