#hamilton pagan pride day

[tyetknot]

I'm really proud of these constellation witch hats I've put together and while part of me is sure that they'll sell in a heartbeat at Hamilton Pagan Pride Day next weekend another, more insecure part of me is worried that they won't.

[minnesotadruids]

2022 Pagan Pride Days in US & Canada

Here’s a list of Pagan Pride fall festivals and a handful of similar events coming up. Want to meet other druids, witches, heathens, and similar like-minded individuals? Most Pagan Pride Days are free, unless otherwise specified below. Please be sure to verify these events for yourselves before venturing out. Be safe and have fun!

Alabama: Auburn: Kiesel Park: September 17, hours TBA…

Alberta: Edmonton: Richie Hall: September 10, 11 AM to 5 PM

Arizona: Phoenix: Steele Indian School Park: November 5, 9 AM to 5 PM

British Columbia: Vancouver: Trout Lake Park: August 13, 12 PM to 7 PM

California: Los Angeles/Long Beach: Rainbow Lagoon: October 2, 10 AM to 5:30 PM

California: Sacramento: Phoenix Park: September 10, 10 AM to 6 PM

Colorado: Denver: TBA: Usually announced in October for last weekend of month

Colorado: Fort Collins: City Park: August 21, 10 AM to 6 PM

Connecticut: Berlin: Veteran's Memorial Park: Weekend near Autumnal Equinox TENTATIVE

District of Columbia: See Frederick MD and/or Reston VA

Florida: Jacksonville: Riverside Artist Square: September 25, 11 AM to 5 PM

Georgia: Athens: Washington Street between Pulaski & Hull: October 22, hours TBA

Illinois: Chicago: Garfield Park: September 24, 10 AM to 6 PM

Illinois: Wheaton: Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library lawn: September 10, 10 AM to 5 PM

"TheosoFest" with free admission, vehicle parking is $5

Iowa: Burlington: Dankwardt Park: August 27, times not specified

Kentucky: Louisville: Waterfront Park: September 10, 11 AM to 6 PM

Louisiana: New Orleans: October 1, updating website soon for full details

Maryland: Frederick: UU Congregation of Frederick (lawn), September 17, 10 AM to 6 PM

Massachusetts: Lakeville: Ted Williams Camp: September 11, 10 AM to 6 PM

Massachusetts: Northampton: 1 Kirkland Ave, September 24, 9 AM to 5 PM

Michigan: Ann Arbor: Washtenaw Community College: September 10, 10 AM to 5 PM

Michigan: Grand Rapids: Richmond Park: September 17, 9 AM to whenever

Minnesota: Mankato: Jack McGowans Farm: August 13-14, 10 AM to 5 PM

Minnesota: Minneapolis: Minnehaha Falls Park: September 10, 10 AM to 6 PM

Missouri: Joplin: Cunningham Park: September 10, 9 AM to 6 PM

Missouri: Springfield: 405 Washington Ave, September 17, 11 AM to 5 PM

Montana: Kalispell: UU Church, 1515 Tumble Creek Road: September 17, 11 AM to 6 PM

New Jersey: Old Bridge: 144 E Greystone Rd (registration required): August 6, 9 AM to 6 PM

Technically a "Pagan Picnic" by Hands of Change with similar stuff to Pagan Pride Days

New Jersey: Cherry Hill: Cooper River Park: October 1, 10 AM to 6 PM

New Mexico: Albuquerque: Bataan Memorial Park: September 25, 10 AM to 6 PM

Has admission fee: donation of one non-perishable food item

New Mexico: Las Cruces: Pioneer Women's Park: October 15, 11 AM to whenever

New York: Buffalo: Buffalo Irish Center: October 9, 11 AM to 4 PM

New York: Syracuse: Long Branch Park: September 17, 10 AM to 5 PM

Ohio: Cincinnati: Mt. Airy Forest: Stone Steps Picnic Shelter: August 5, 12 PM to 8 PM

Pagan Pride Potluck Picnic: free event, but bring food to share

Park Vehicle Fee: $5 for Hamilton County residents, $8 for non-residents

Ohio: Cleveland (Bedford): Bedford Public Square, Aug 18-21, 5-10 PM, 12-10 PM, 12-5 PM

Has admission fee: donation of two non-perishable food items

Ohio: Dayton (Fairborn): Fairborn Community Park: October 22, 9 AM to 6 PM

Oklahoma: OK City: Wiley Post Park: September 24, 10 AM to 5 PM

Oklahoma: Tulsa: Dream Keepers Park: October 1, 9 AM to 6 PM

Ontario: Toronto: Gage Park: September 11, 10 AM to 6 PM

Oregon: Eugene: Alton Baker Park: August 7, 10:30 AM to 7 PM

Oregon: Portland: Oaks Amusement Park: September 18, 10 AM to 5 PM

Pennsylvania: Allentown (Easton): Louise Moore County Park: August 20, 9 AM to 4 PM

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia: Clark Park: September 3, 10 AM to 6 PM

Pennsylvania: York: Samuel Lewis State Park (no entrance fee): September 24 10 AM to 6 PM

South Carolina: Greenville (Easley): Maynard Community Center: October 1, 9 AM to 5 PM

Has admission fee: donation of one non-perishable food item

Tennessee: Knoxville: The Concourse: September 10, 10 AM to whenever

Has admission fee: donation of one non-perishable food item (or cash)

Tennessee: Memphis: Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park: October 20-23, starts at Noon

"Festival of Souls" Registration required: $60 for whole weekend or $25 per day 

Tennessee: Nashville: Two Rivers Park: October 1, 10 AM to 5 PM

Texas: Dallas-Fort Worth: Arlington UU Church: November 6, 10 AM to 5 PM

Virginia: Reston: Lake Fairfax Park, October 1, 10 AM to 5 PM

Washington: Spokane: UU Church of Spokane: September 17 10 AM to 4 PM

There may be more Pagan Pride Day events than the ones listed here, but they’re either difficult to find info for online or plans are still tentative. Sorry if I missed any major ones!

[ryanmeft]

Mary Poppins Returns Movie Review

Of all the words I thought I might end up using to describe the new Mary Poppins film, “cynical” was not one. Yet here we are. It is a very pretty thing, engaging the use of many very talented people, that nonetheless feels like it was assembled by a marketing department. What you do to get a movie like this is realize no one’s cashed in on a beloved property in quite some time, see dollar signs, snag some well-respected actors and a musician to give the thing the illusion you cared about it, then sit back and rely on the fact that you’re Disney and everyone is in goddamn love with you to avoid having it criticized. A quarry of sugar wouldn’t help here.

The plot barely needs mentioned. Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane (Emily Mortimer) Banks are all growed up, and Michael is having trouble making ends meet after the death of his unseen wife. He still lives in the same house, but has three children of his own, who with one exception feel they have had to grow up quickly in the absence of a mother. Michael very much needs to find proof he owns stock in the bank to prevent them foreclosing and wait just a damn minute here. Disney, we had this conversation, back when you decided to give the Mad Hatter depression: do not inject real-life problems into settings that depend entirely on being ridiculous to work. I do not care about the stocks, and neither does anyone else, especially when you utterly waste Colin Firth on the role of a villainous banker so entirely cliche he could have been lifted straight out of It’s a Wonderful Life. Then Mary Poppins shows up, played by Emily Blunt, and this is the point where the movie should finally wake up.

It does, for a bit, despite the insistence on saddling her with the most cliche plot device possible: Michael and Jane refuse to believe her childhood magic feats were real. I propose an instant punishable-with-lashings moratorium on this most tired of family film developments. But let me take a breath. The shoes of Poppins are switched from the feet of Julie Andrews to those of Emily Blunt, who is a more than satisfactory pick for the role. She wears an updated costume that is either meant to show off Blunt’s figure or does a good job of it entirely by coincidence, has a slightly sharper edge to her sarcasm and the hinted-at presence of such a human emotion as sadness, and in general has been upgraded just enough to capture the rapt attention of modern five-year-olds without sacrificing a bit of the old-school charm that has made the character a classic. She is just a little flirtatious, just a little prideful, and still as inexplicable; my personal theory is she’s some kind of pagan god, but that just opens up a wormhole we probably don’t need.

Speaking of entrances, she insists this time she will not go until “the door is open”. It’s an effective bit of mystery that occasionally hints at more plot than the movie needs, but is resolved in a sweet and touching way. She has the movie’s one truly attention-grabbing musical number, “A Cover is Not The Book”, in which all those strange feelings young you (admit it) had about the character as you approached teenagerdom are made as explicit as a family film can make them. It includes a verse about a tree and its roots that is so obvious to any adults in the audience I’m frankly shocked it made it past the censoring. It’s a raucous, Moulin Rouge-style number in which Poppins-Blunt dons a sensational purple outfit, lets down her practically perfect hair and goes full vaudeville, and the one point in the entire film where it effectively stamps out a distinct identity from the original (the animation it is accompanied by is delightfully throwbackish). Blunt was just about sculpted for this role in every way.

Indeed, perhaps in too many ways, because in nearly every scene where Poppins is not the center of attention, the film rolls over and dies. The original movie is well-known as one of Disney’s best musicals, leaving this one a lot to live up to. A wonderfully unreal song set in the ocean finds the right tone, with the perfect sort of unreality to the special effects that we’ve come to lose appreciation for in the age of computers, but sadly these are the only two memorable numbers. The rest, which include a soporific thing about London’s gas lights and a blatant-but-unsuccessful shot at recapturing that wonderful chimney sweeping routine, were in desperate need of the masterful touch of Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Hamilton mega-star is for some reason in the movie as a somewhat effective replacement for Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney working man, but didn’t get so much as a verse on the soundtrack. That’s incredibly puzzling, given Hamilton was such a sensation it actually got me into a non-movie theatre, and his work on Moana made it the only modern Disney musical with a soundtrack entirely worth having. I don’t see a lot of (read: any) Broadway, so I can’t say if Marc Shaiman and/or Scott Wittman are otherwise worthy as composers and lyricists.

I can say I’m thankful most of their numbers are merely forgettable, because then there’s the tragic case of “Turning Turtle”. This is clearly meant to fill the same hole as “I Love to Laugh”, but fails utterly, with a cringe-inducing cameo from Meryl Streep, doing a horrific Russian caricature that brings any momentum the movie had built to a thunderous halt. It’s a mystery why it, and Streep, are in the movie, especially considering Disney can’t appear to stop paying her despite her arrogant and unfounded rant a few years ago about their founder. That would be fine if she were doing good work, but even the Academy would have to stretch to justify nominating her for this, and that is saying something. Not-so-special appearances from Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury are equally groan-inducing, forced into the film in order to get bonus credit from long-time fans rather than because they actually work. In one respect and one respect only is the film a total success, and that’s visually. Depression-era London (it’s the Great Slump to them) is handled gorgeously, like a fine China vase with almost nothing in it.

The rest of the film, somewhere between unbearably dull and oh-so-brief flashes of brilliance, is a muddled stew of homage, preferring to wink and nod at the audience when a beloved scene is given tribute or an old character is seen (portrayed by a new actor); rather than invent a new ride for us to go on, it is content with slapping different branding on the old one. Most of the film isn’t outright offensive, just horribly dull, and if your standards are somewhere around “anything will do as long as the kids sit still for a few hours”, this is your movie. The trouble with holding onto the past is that, even if you do it well most of the time, the slightest misstep can capsize you. In a time when the Paddington movies have claimed the Mary Poppins magic for themselves, this is a relic already.

The ultimate question concerning this sequel, directed possibly under duress by Chicago helmsman Rob Marshall and written by David Magee (Finding Neverland, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day), is why? Why, if it is neither going to take the property anywhere new nor effectively pay homage to the original, does it need to exist? The obvious answer is money, which it is sure to have thrown at it in oceans. If you want a movie that’s worth the increasingly asinine price for a ticket, though, this, as Mary would say, will not do. No, it will not do at all.

Verdict: Not Recommended (1 and 1/2 out of 4 Stars)

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

 You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

 Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

All images are property of the people what own the movie.

[tyetknot]

Oh my God I'm so tired of making witch hats.

Hamilton Pagan Pride Day is TOMORROW and I am actually ready for once but I think once festival season is over I'm going to need to take a break from sewing for a bit.

[tyetknot]

Scenes from a pagan festival.

Hamilton Pagan Pride Day started off cold as hell and it was uncomfortably windy but I met a lot of lovely people, scored TWO commissions, saw some folks I haven't seen in ages, made record profits, and almost sold out of witch hats! I have another event in Toronto in two weeks and now I have to worry about restocking, which is a great problem to have in some ways!

[tyetknot]

I am shocked and delighted that the distasteful display of regressive ideology that we were subjected to at Hamilton PPD on Sunday actually made it to the Wild Hunt. I have been to every HPPD since its founding and have been one of the organizers for the last two years, and this was the first time we've had someone set up with a megaphone. Usually people just walk through and yell.

Fortunately the guy could not project to save his life, and could barely be understood from where I was working my booth, but he did disturb many festival patrons. This kind of activity is merely the death-throes of a regressive ideology that is struggling for relevance in a society that is moving on from such hateful views, but it can still be very upsetting to deal with and we are already planning what to do next year should this person or any others try to interfere with our Pagan Pride Day in this fashion.

[tyetknot]

Scenes from a pagan festival.

I am indescribably tired, my feet hurt, my neck is sore, but I sold LOTS of things to lots of people, had my most profitable event EVER, and some local assholes didn't even bother showing.

Being the ritual/workshop co-ordinator is a lot of work on top of being a vendor, but it contributes to the event and I'm very proud that I got some really great workshop leaders for Hamilton Pagan Pride Day 2023. Lots of great feedback and lots of happy people and I'm glad everything went so well.

[tyetknot]

I don't think there's a lot of local people here on Tumblr, but hey, it's worth a shot - Crown and Crescent will once again be a vendor at Hamilton's Pagan Pride Day!

[tyetknot]

A finished commission - someone asked me to make him an Inanna pentacle at Hamilton Pagan Pride Day and I've got it ready to be picked up at Toronto Pagan Pride Day this coming Saturday. He wanted the star of Inanna in ultramarine with gold outline and flecking, and a lapis lazuli cabochon in the centre. This turned out absolutely beautiful and I'm sure he'll be delighted by it. I LOVE doing commissions and custom work, and if there's something you're interested in, or something I make that you like but want something just a bit different (say, a geomancy set in a particular wood and stone combo) please reach out and I'll see what I can do!

[tyetknot]

Hey folks! After two years of cancellations due to COVID-19, Hamilton’s Pagan Pride Day will be back up and running this year under the guidance of a new organizational committee, which I happen to be a member of. Tumblr is a wide-ranging place and I am not sure how many of you are local here in southern Ontario, but we’re looking for vendors, ritual leaders, and workshop facilitators, so I’m putting this out there in case there’s anyone following me who would be interested! 

[tyetknot]

In which our intrepid hero quite capably ran his booth at Toronto Pagan Pride Day and will do so again in Hamilton tomorrow.

I sold a ridiculous amount of incense today and I'll probably sell even more tomorrow.

[tyetknot]

Getting stuff together for Hamilton Pagan Pride Day tomorrow. I've been selling at this festival for almost ten years and without fail I'm working on stock till late the night before. Every. Damn. Time.

I managed to get a big box of Three Kings and I hope people will be interested. It's such a wonderful and versatile incense.

[tyetknot]

New bollines and altar pentacles ready for sale at Hamilton Pagan Pride Day and Toronto Pagan Pride Day. The metallic blue in the one pentacle is absolutely stunning! The other two are a soft pearlescent white, one of which is set with five blue moonstones, just perfect for lunar rituals.

One bolline has twisting vines and is set with a beautiful peridot, the other is decorated with moons, stars, galaxies and comets (trying something new!) and has three luminous blue moonstones. I'm looking forward to these beauties finding their forever home in the next few weeks!

[tyetknot]

I had a crazy busy weekend! Saturday was spent being a vendor at Brantford's Pagan Meet and Greet, where we had a great time catching up with some old friends and making new ones (the people behind us made beautiful runes and wands and were so nice! I was burning a sample bit of incense so someone could try before they bought and our neighbours came right over asking WHAT IS THAT AND HOW MUCH DOES IT COST BECAUSE I NEED SOME RIGHT NOW, it was great) . I ended up making a little over $200, which will end up being a donation to the Wiccan temple I attend / work for. I've been running a table for that group at various Pagan Pride Days for a while now and it's one of our main fundraisers - everything on the table is a donation from the community. That evening we went to participate in our Toronto temple's Divination Night, where I caught up with MORE old and rarely-seen friends (fellow initiates, my teacher, members of a student group I used to be in, etc) , read the Arcane Bullshit oracle to great effect, and had an absolute blast. I'm super excited for Hamilton's Pagan Pride Day in September and Toronto's at the end of September where I'll be a vendor under my own name instead of my temple's. I'm curious to see how well a new market will work out.