Tsunami 2009

Saturday was this year's Tsunami on the Square. If I were asked to describe what a Tsunami on the Square is, the best I could come up with would be a Fringe Festival, but in one day on one stage. A parade starts the affair, followed by non-stop acts all afternoon and well into the night. All part circus, part serious. However, no lions or elephants.

The crowds are gathered; the Courthouse steps are choice seating.

The blue lady chanted of "Water!"

Which brought these lights up.

One of the acts...

... and another. while behind the stage (below), another pair of performers practice.

I presume we have an octopus lady at right, all wired for colored lights. As for the instruments below, the red tuba is outstanding. Sorry I wasn't there to hear the concerto for red tuba, concertina, glockenspiel and gong.

Meanwhile, in the kiddie corner, the moppets are learning to use musical-ish noise makers.

Tsunami also includes a circus school for the young ones. Likely this stilted drummer is one of the recent grads.

The Seussmobile circled the Square on a regular route.

So is it any wonder that when I returned home, it was to collapse for a well deserved nap?

Linkage: The obvious place to start is with Rich's first post on Tsunami, which includes a stream of 22 pictures from the parade. Next, a Flickr link to pictures of the Yavapai County indigent graveyard; I didn't know there was such a place! The True West blog has a comment on the financial problems of the Sharlot Hall Museum. And, if yesterday's post interested you in Prescott's cool loos, here (and here) are a couple more. Addenda: boonie takes his digicamera apart & doesn't mention whether or not he reassembled Humpty Dumpty.

Tsunami I -- You Can't Tell the Players without a Scorecard

So what is a Tsunami on the Square? Well, if it lasted 30 days in assorted venues, I'd call it a Fringe festival. If it occurred under a big top, it might be confused with a circus. Whatever. The day of the Tsunami is crazy. This was my first.

For instance, the crowd included people in all sorts of get-ups. Like this lady. Goodness knows what her fantasy might be. Hard to tell members of the audience from the entertainers sometimes.

This fellow is probably part of the show -- I didn't see any civilians with juggling equipment.

Nothing unusual about this chap -- except the orange lily. Maybe that was how his blind date was to ID him.

Surely part of the show? Nope, this medieval quartet was present to promote a forthcoming Renaissance Faire.

Oh, yes, I saw more than one person sporting a tail.

Spotted this pirate (or gypsy) couple crossing the street mid-afternoon.

And this rifleman appears to be patrolling the Square to protect it from good-fer-nothing varmits.

No idea who or what we have here.

Even Mr. Coyote Radio, who announced the first acts, was topped off by a faux leopard skin fez.

And look at the interesting character who gave GrannyJ a free ride in his foot-pedalled machine. Like I said, the day was crazy. More madness later.

Note: My computer is located so that I am forced to look at great tho reasonably tidy stacks of magazines. Imagine my delight -- and amazement -- when I discovered that, like museums, the New Yorker has established its own on-line store. One remarkable product: an 80 gig hard drive with the complete NYer from February 1927 thru April 2006; beats stacks all hollow! The other: a DVD containing the complete NYer cartoons on sale at $14.95! And, over at eBay, you can bid on several 32-CD-rom sets of all the National Geographics up to 2000 -- 112 years of the magazine.