Until my family and I can get a durable vaccine that prevents COVID-19 infection, the answer I must make is: somewhat, and always masked in a minimum of a KF94 respirator mask.   While the #UrgencyOfNormal movement is rewarding government for removing all COVID-19 pandemic mitigations (restrictions on gatherings, mask requirements, providing masks and tests, protecting the vulnerable) and pretending that the pandemic is over in order to enable private businesses to profit...it's not over. COVID-19 is still surging worldwide and killing and permanently disabling wide swaths of the population.

I have an immediate family member who lives with rheumatoid arthritis (click here to learn more about this devastating chronic autoimmune disease). The medications they take for it suppress their immune system, making COVID-19 a much more serious threat. I cannot risk exposing them to this vascular-system-destroying, brain-damaging virus, which is airborne, transmits even out-of-doors, and is increasing in infectiousness with each new variant.    Outdoor events may be relatively 'safe' for many people, but they are not completely safe for my family. I will be making small, brief appearances at Faires, masked, as a result.

I want so badly to bring Jane the Phoole back to Faires, with my whole face, but until a truly-sanitizing vaccine is approved, and my family and I can get it, I cannot do more than brief visits until we get a durable infection-preventing COVID-19 vaccine.   I know that it is not in any way comparable to the experience of getting up to hijinks with Jane in person, but in an attempt to continue to connect with Phooligans, I do host a live interactive webshow called Phoole & the Gang. When it is on the air, it is live online on  Fridays from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Central US time (visit https://everytimezone.com to find out what time this happens where you live) at slipmat.io.phoole, mixcloud.com/live/phoole, and twitch.tv/phoole. You can watch the show on a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop, a desktop computer, or a streaming-enabled TV, and you can chat live with other Phooligans who are tuned in from all over the world. You can make new friends, reconnect with old friends, and enjoy a 2-hour weekly visit with me, my spouse, our cat  Angelo, and our skeleton, Uncle Fweddy. We play music, talk about all kinds of things, and try to make the world a little less gloomy and a little more fun for everyone who tunes in. If you miss the show, you can listen back to it or watch it again using the links at https://phoole.com/gang.   If you are (correctly) concerned that you are not receiving correct or complete information about COVID-19, because public health agencies have ceased tracking and providing complete infection data, independent data trackers and epidemiologists have not given up. I recommend following The People's CDC at https://peoplescdc.org/ and The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative at pmc19.com. I follow this subject with great interest, to protect my family and my community as much as one person can. I also maintain a list of helpful links at https://phoole.com/links. If you are NOVID, zero-transmission, zero-COVID, or otherwise COVID-smart, and are feeling really isolated and lonely about it, we all are, and the Zero-Covid Community on Reddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCommunity/ is a place to commiserate and keep hope alive. If you use social media, I  post regular updates about upcoming events on Mastodon at https://mas.to/@phoole, on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/phoole.com, and on the Phoole & the Gang Discord server, which you can join via https://phoole.com/discord. I do have FaceBook and Instagram accounts but they're rarely active, as Meta is problematic.

I am a professional Court Jester! I began fooling professionally in 1996; I've fooled at Shakespeare festivals and Renaissance fairs for decades, and I've fooled on two separate occasions at the the International Festival of Fools at the UK home of the original Tom Fool himself, Muncaster Castle, in England's beautiful Lake District. I'm also the official municipal jester of the City of Milwaukee, by unanimous resolution of Milwaukee's Common Council in 2004.

NO! My folly is provided PRO BONO to the City of Milwaukee. Zero tax dollars pay for my Fool services; no public resources are expended for me to be the City's official municipal jester. I simply am. YOU'RE WELCOME! 🃏

Whatever they ask of me - which to date has been...nothing. My appointment is lifetime, and I have never been asked by the City to do any fooling on their behalf. In the past, the Mayor's Office has been concerned that if they use my services, they will appear to be profligate with public funds, despite the fact that I would provide my folly pro bono for public functions. They've also been afraid to make fun of themselves, despite the city's chief claims to fame being beer and the television comedy programs HAPPY DAYS and LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY. I hope that future administrations will have the courage to use me for my talents. I am fantastic at leading parades, hosting events, starting conversations, introducing people to one another in unusual and positive ways, and being heard and understood at great distances. Might be fun, Milwaukee!

"Fool" is a contronym - it's a word that has two meanings that are opposite to each other. Other examples of contronyms are these: "Aught" can mean "everything," or "nothing." To "bolt" can be "to secure something in place" or "to flee." "Cleave" can mean "adhere" or "separate." Today, in most understandings of the English language, "fool" means somebody who's not smart. But before the Industrial Revolution, a Fool could also be an entertainer, a companion, and someone whose job it was to tell the truth to people in power - even if, and especially if, the people in power didn't want to hear it. Because the Fool lacked political mobility, they were invulnerable to influence; their powerful boss could rely on their word as a reflection of actual truth, instead of merely being flattery for political aims. A Middle-Low-German-folklore-famous Fool, Till Eulenspiegel, has a last name that can mean either "owl-mirror" or "wise mirror." Till is often depicted holding either an owl or a mirror as his symbols, or sometimes both. In many Fool traditions worldwide, fools are "wise mirrors" that tell you the truth about yourself. If you buy a Playmobil jester, half the time you will get one that comes with an owl, and the other half of the time you will get one that comes with a mirror. This is why that happens! "Owl-mirror" - the Fool is your friend who reflects the honest truth back to you.

Towns and cities in the United States are not built for people to walk around in, to see one another in, and to enjoy as pedestrians. Cities in the United States are built for automobiles. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large, people living in the United States can't just step out of their front door and saunter down to a public plaza, meet up with friends in the neighborhood, sit by a fountain, and enjoy a drink while people-watching or telling one another stories - even though these are all things people are driven to do as a part of being social. Shopping malls briefly satisfied some of these needs during the 1980s and 1990s, but most malls are now defunct and no longer fulfill any of these needs. There are excellent books available giving the full, detailed history of Renaissance fairs in the United States - but, in the shortest possible summary, I will try to outline their evolution. In the late 1960s, in California, a charismatic and inspiring schoolteacher wanted to immerse her students in pastoral Shakespeare-era living for the purpose of an educational experience, and she established the first Renaissance fair as a backyard event, which flourished and blossomed into the first full-fledged "Renaissance Pleasure Faire," fueled by the Folk Revival counter-culture movement. Imitators soon launched similar medieval-and-Renaissance-themed events across the country. Most events were transient happenings in public parks and forest preserves, but some prospered sufficiently to purchase land and build elaborate and intricate towns as settings for historical reenactment and fantasy immersion. Across the nation, guests flocked to these fairs to escape a fraught and dangerous modern world and hide away in pastoral, bucolic bliss amongst verdant hills, shady forests, whimsical cottages, imposing fortresses, and every kind of setting for fantastic adventure. Today, Renaissance fairs continue to attract crowds in the hundreds of thousands annually. Some are families who can't necessarily afford a weekend at one of the massive corporate theme parks on the country's coasts but who are looking for interactive fun for everyone, young and old alike. Some are devoted fans of the milieu who live to dress up, play a part and get involved in a fair's story or theme. Many just enjoy the ambiance of a city, town or village that feels more human, with public plazas, fountains, benches, shady places to repose, and many vistas for people-watching. Many others use Renaissance festivals as a kind of Comic-Con, where they can cosplay to their hearts' content and enjoy the company of like-minded enthusiasts. Yet others just want to immerse themselves in another world and leave the modern world and all of its horrors behind every weekend during a fair's season.

Jerzy Grotowski once had the opportunity to ask the great Stanislavski, "Is your Method ideal for training young performers?" Stanislavski laughed in his face. He explained that his Method is intended for performers who are at least of middle-age. The Method is for people who are already emotionallly experienced and who have lived in the world a long time already. What, then, did Stanislavski recommend as the ideal training ground for young performers? Comic opera, circus, rodeo, and Vaudeville. These are the places where you learn technique. Renaissance Faires are exactly these things. Renaissance Faires are a combination of comic opera, circus, rodeo, and Vaudeville. If you are a new entertainer, and you need a crash course in listening, improvisation, second-support, entrances, motivating exits, supporting other players in crowd scenes, throwing focus, pulling focus, learning what the hell 'focus' is, supporting the big picture, playing in an arena, playing with 360-degree visibility, staying in character despite an infinite number of possible disruptions, the RenFaire experience is worth it. New entertainers, or entertainers new to this type of show, should be aware that many venues are run unscrupulously, with the aim of exploiting as many performers as possible to minimize operation costs and maximize profit. Many of these venues will portray themselves as if they are some kind of non-profit or charitable organization. Some venues ARE genuinely charitable organizations, and a little bit of research will reveal whether a venue is exploitative or genuinely supporting charitable aims. If an organization is asking you to perform for very little compensation, and if you can afford to make a bargain in which you trade your labor for the experience and education you derive, weigh all of the factors carefully and do what you think will benefit you most. If you cannot afford that kind of bargain, seek out the small handful of shows on the US circuit that value performers and reward them with a living wage and benefits, such as housing, clothing, relocation costs, and the like. You must make it worth it for yourself.

At the height of my RenFaire folly, I had the great good fortune to work with a director named T. Stacy Hicks, who for many years directed the Bristol Renaissance Faire's Guilde of St. George, the ensemble portraying Queen Elizabeth I and her illustrious and populous Court, on Royal Progress from London to Bristol, in 1574. If I had been at any other show, with anyone else running the Court, I probably would have just ambled around causing trouble. This is what I do when I'm Jane at a show where I'm booked in for short engagements - I accumulate Phooligans and vent folly around town. Stacy, however, built an entire cosmos, and he let all of us be stars in the vast firmament he launched. Stacy has many gifts, including the ability to create opportunities for every kind of participant, whether they are a gregarious, bombastic, technique-driven actor or a quiet, reserved human who just wants to be in the place doing the thing with everyone else. Stacy sees value in every kind of participant, at every place in their journey, and he does not discourage participants by labeling, boxing, or minimizing their potential for contribution. Stacy understands that audiences require spectacle, and that the spectacle must be overwhelming in scale to begin to compete with what audiences are used to receiving in film, television, and video games. Since live, environmental, improvised entertainment can't benefit from post-production, special effects, or even a physical lens to guide audience perception, all of these effects have to be achieved organically, primarily through sheer scale. Stacy researched Elizabeth I's actual progress from London to Bristol in 1574 and cast literally hundreds of participants to portray Elizabeth, her courtiers, and all of their households and retainers and attachments. He cast people with acting and improv experience and skill in certain principal roles as key historical figures whom the audience might recognize from throughout Elizabeth's reign, echoing the refrain, "We are a chapter, not a page, of history," so that audiences could experience moments with everyone from early-reign personalities to those emerging later in Gloriana's long reign. Everyone from Doctor Dee and Doctor Lopez to Don Bernardino de Mendoza to Sir Walter Raleigh to Lady Elizabeth Throckmorton to Sir Francis Walsingham to Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to Lady Catherine Grey to Mistress Helena Von Snakenborg could engage guests personally within the 250-member ensemble during a dizzying daily schedule of dances, masques, parades, presentations, tournaments, banquets and audiences. Participants who were less zany and impulsive could flourish in docent-oriented supernumerary roles, each of which had an engaging and fascinating story for guests in smaller and more concentrated interactions. Cooks, valets, maids and servants of every function provided endless "ins" for guests curious about the goings-on and the personalities in play. It was an ideal launching ground for Jane the Phoole, and I am forever grateful to Stacy for the venting of my own particular folly in his playground of power and prosperity. During the height of the Stacy Epoch, my festival day saw me bellowing welcome to guests at the Front Gates of the town during the day's opening ceremonies, joining a company of nobles outside the town's booksellers' to welcome guests through the town and inspire them on their way with wit and laughter, becoming the Mistress of Ceremonies for the first jousting tournament of each day, building the crowd's anticipation of the Queen's arrival mid-day at the stage where her procession would be received by the city's Mayor and other local dignitaries, hobnobbing with guests and introducing them to courtiers throughout the royal dancing and banquet, then spending afternoons strolling the town with my perpetual entourage of Phooligans (beloved and devoted guests-who-became-friends, who went with me absolutely everywhere and even achieved titles and positions in my own little miniature court), eating, drinking, being merry, for ten continuous hours, rain and shine, come ruin or rapture. It was the absolute best, and I miss it with every fiber of my being. We had the best conversations and the most ridiculous adventures, and you cannot explain any of it to anyone because none of it makes any sense at all out of context. You had to be there. I hope you were. I'm very sorry if you weren't.

When I was a freshman at Northern Illinois University in their Acting program, on the Irene Ryan Scholarship, a fellow cast member in a show I happened to be in exclaimed, "You are way too loud and funny to be indoors!" Then they explained what they meant. They were playing a main character at the regional Renaissance fair, and they thought I would have a lot of fun and do well in that venue. I auditioned, was cast as a walkaround "street character" as that show called it, and hopped around as a variety of supernumerary villager characters for the first few years there, learning technique and building ensemble. When I discovered that Jane the Fool existed, I thought, "Why is nobody playing this woman?" Jane's last name might have been "Bede," "Bedde" or "Beddes." She was bald, and royal accounting records from the era show a barber-surgeon having been summoned frequently to shave her head, for an unknown reason. Court correspondence mentions Jane as often speaking out of turn, to chaotic and comic effect; it is possible that she may have lived with profound autism. But she was a well-loved fool: royal accounts list many expenditures for clothing, shoes and pets for her to look after. She had her own horse, which none of the other fools at the English court had at the time; she had ducks, chickens and geese to look after; and while other Court fools were often attired in cast-offs from their patrons, Jane's motley was specially made for her at considerable expense. Royal accounts show her having received several pairs of shoes annually. The more I learned about Jane the Fool, the more desperately I wanted to bring her to audiences. She's a woman with an occupation that seems unusual to the average person, who tends to have been taught a version of history that assigns women to few and strict societal roles. I saw a way to present her as a human access portal to court life - while she is attached to the Court, she is in the center of the social hierarchy, and she can cheerfully and wholesomely connect guests to anyone they'd like to meet in the ranks of nobility. 

I began my folly at a Renaissance fair, which was a theatrical, environmental, immersive performance venue portraying a 16th-century English city. English-language spelling did not become as standardized as it is today until after the Industrial Revolution. The playwright and poet William Shakespeare spelled his own name 80 different ways throughout his writing. When I started fooling, I based my fool character on Jane the Fool, who was a real person who served as one of Queen Elizabeth I's jesters. I thought it could be fun and different to adopt a non-standard spelling of "Fool" to help add to the uniqueness of my portrayal, so I began to go by "Jane the Phoole" professionally starting in 1995.

You are! You've begun to explore the Phooliverse, so you are a Phooligan. Thank you! Many wonderful people are Phooligans, with some having been gathered by Jane the Phoole in person, and some having joined Phoole & the Gang online. All are welcome and adored! Some Phooligans are very brave and march right up and join in the fun. Others I have to encourage to join the party. Still others wander on the distant fringe until I rope them into the core. At the time that I'm writing this FAQ, the COVID-19 pandemic is still killing and disabling millions of people worldwide, and it is uncertain when I may get to spend time with Phooligans again in-person. Some Phooligans who have joined the Phooliverse by interacting with me live in person have moved across to the online Phooliverse by tuning into Phoole & the Gang and joining its various communities on different online platforms, but I know the format isn't for every Phooligan. I am always looking for the next way for us to be together and have insane times again.

A Fool is an entertainer, a companion, and a truth-teller. Today, entertainment is ubiquitous, and often generated by large language models; companionship is weird and too often digital; and no powerful person wants to know the truth. No one hoarding the majority of the world's resources wants to be told that, in order for everyone to survive and thrive, they have to give up what they're hoarding.

I can juggle three objects, and I know how to say the phrase 'bad monkey' in 159 different languages as of March 2022. In college I studied with a Kristin Linklater certified vocal trainer, and I continued that study after college, so I can free my natural voice and be heard over great distances, especially when I'm laughing. Many Phooligans report being able to pinpoint my location in a large festival by listening for my laugh. When I entertained at Muncaster Castle during their 2007 International Festival of Fools, I also competed in their Jester Tournament, which I knew from the outset that I would not win, since all of the other competitors were what are called 'variety performers' or 'cabaret artists' with high-spectacle stunt-type acts: jugglers, fire performers, acrobats, physical comedians, prop comedians and comedy-music acts. When I arrived at Muncaster Castle, a girlfriend of one of the other competitors, another American entertainer, said to me, "I've seen you at RenFaires, and you're fine and all, but...what do you do? You don't really do anything. You just walk around talking to people." She was quite right. I do just walk around talking to people. And I very much didn't win the competition. But I did have a crowd of patrons around me at all times when I was 'onstage' (in the public and in the view of the public), and I had a specially-devoted entourage of small children who went with me everywhere and told me the most amazing things about ideas they had for screenplays and telly programmes they wanted to write and produce, and one of them, the child of the Master of Ceremonies for the competition Maynard Flip-Flap, had given himself a fool name, Eric Tree-Head, which is pretty much the best thing ever. And as soon as the competition was over, and the winner had been whisked away to do television studio interviews in Carlisle an hour and a half away, all of the television crews at the castle turned to me. "Get her," a producer said, pointing at me. "She can talk." And talk I did, to several BBC numbers, and Sky, and ITV. I ended up as the "poster girl" for the festival the next year - and the kind Pennington family has invited me to come back and fool up there whenever I wish to, which is pretty wonderful. So that's a thing I can do that some people value. I can talk, about anything, with anyone, for any length of time, sometimes even remembering to finish every point on which I begin to expound. And even though I didn't win the competition, all of the other "losers" and I won bowls carved from the very wood of Tom Fool's Tree, carved from a large branch that fell off during a storm. I cherish my bowl. And Eric Tree-Head bestowed upon me a gift of a Very Good Stick, which was too large to fit in my luggage to take home, so I stood it by the trunk of Tom Fool's Tree, and I mean to make more than one pilgrimage back to Tom Fool's house to visit it in the future.