Saturday, December 10, 2005

Warm Thoughts In Winter 

When we left Falcon Ridge Folk Festival last summer, we knew, all of us, that the Brennan farm was on the block. Rumors of miracles, sure, from the festival will buy it to the vague promise of some anonymous millionaire patroness -- we even started one, just to watch the meme pass around.

But truly, we knew there was no real hope. Farmer Bob, longtime host and loving horsecarriage restorer in the 51 week a year offseason, made less profit off us that we did; despite a loving one-week-a-year community of thousands, neither festival nor farmowner could afford to continue running such a precarious existence at the whim of rain and popular performer schedule.

All the better, then, to see that arrangements have been made for a new farm, just a few miles down the road from the old.

And an interesting subsequent experiment in community, too. Want to see what happens when, given only the address of a new site, a geocommunity with the 'net at their fingertips tackles the dilemma of "will it be like before?" Even before the first semi-official announcement, the half-confidential crew-chief messages had been leaked; soon, maps from topo to satellite had been posted in the Falcon Ridge LJ community for all to see.

If nothing else, proof that an otherwise empty field can, for so many of us, be more home than home, even over months and miles.

The skeleton of a community -- from tents and tarps to signage and soundstage -- has already been moved, waits for us through the long and snowy winter. It remains to be seen if the instinct towards recreation will result in at least some attempt to reinstate neighborhoods and geographical relationships as before, as if a new face were transplanted wholesale onto this new landscape. My guess is that human layout will end up surprisingly similar, though surely the varience of land and the novelty with which we repopulate "our" new hill will have its effect.

Can't wait 'till summer, either way. Thank God I didn't have to leave teaching, and the summeroff it includes; it just wouldn't have been the same without Falcon Ridge. So glad that now, in as many ways as possible, it will be.

posted by boyhowdy | 7:48 PM |

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