This Blague Post is excerpted from a longer (and therefore more sweet and meaty) Phoole Patreon Platoon post. Whither Platoon? https://patreon.com/phoole to know!
I chose Henri Rousseau's 'Carnival Evening' for the promo art for this year's Phooleoween, because I want to be in this painting so badly, and I have wanted to be in this painting ever since I first saw it, when I was a little girl, before I was even a Phoole.
I know that the Carnival Rousseau depicts is in the February-March part of the year, but this painting has always felt so autumnal to me. Today, this painting evokes for me the feeling of being at the Stronghold Olde English Faire in Oregon, Illinois, with the sun setting early, crispness and fallen-leaf petrichor both in the air at once, and that end-of-the-show-day dilemma: you've got to get showered and changed to do the Evening Things, but it feels so nice to be in 16th-century drag in this tall forest full of owls and dark and crunchy fallen leaves and sky.
Phooletographer Prime, Patron and Friend Ivan Phillips captured this accidental Carnival Evening way back in early 2010 at what used to be called ReenactorFest, which later became Military History Fest. T Stacy Hicks was there as Queen Elizabeth I's fool Monarcho, and I think about this moment and this image a lot. Perhaps someday I will ask an actual painter to mush us into Rousseau's charming forest.
Here is a close-up image of what Stacy and I wore to that splendid event. The following photo, also by Ivan, is both funnier AND less funny now. Jane and Monarcho, feeling awkward around Nazis 400+ years before Nazism went mainstream worldwide. Stacy's hat is called a 'chaperon' and it is among the most beautiful hats I have ever seen, and I have seen A LOT OF HATS. His whole Monarcho ensemble seismically intensified motley quality in the fool business.
On Halloween itself, I have the day off from the DayJob (the whole week, in fact), and to better connect with Phooligans across the Atlantic and time zones beyond, I'm jumping on-air for a few hours starting at 2:00 p.m. Central US time, which will be 7:00 p.m. UK time, due to daylight savings time happening later here and earlier there. I have so much Phooleoween music and always so little time to play it yearly, so it will be fun to dig into all of it and play things I don't normally get to play. I will also PULL UP A DAMN CHAIR and sit down for the show, if I even can, and I might not even do hair or makeup or any kind of costume. Just laid-back, comfy Halloween goof-off-ery. Join the broadcast at the usual places at https://phoole.com/gang if you want a little more Phooleoween this year!