A year after Reverend Mothers, Empaths of Enlightenment and American buskers at the Park Avenue Festival

A year after Reverend Mothers, Empaths of Enlightenment and American buskers at the Park Avenue Festival
the I Dream

from “To readers and contributors, much thanks”

I knew last year’s Park Avenue Festival would be hard to top.

reverend mother

“Reverend Mother” Phyl Contestable from “Reverend Mothers, Empaths of Enlightenment, American buskers and more at the Park Avenue Festival”

Jackson

Jackson Cavalier from “Reverend Mothers, Empaths of Enlightenment, American buskers and more at the Park Avenue Festival”

As seen in Reverend Mothers, Empaths of Enlightenment, American buskers and more at the Park Avenue Festival, last year I met “Reverend Mother” Phyl Contestable of Nunsence fame. Perhaps back at her convent, this year I did not have an audience with Her Saintliness.

Joy the C

from “Reverend Mothers, Empaths of Enlightenment, American buskers and more at the Park Avenue Festival”

Rather cavalierly, Jackson Cavalier was not American buskering at the Festival. Or maybe I just missed the One-Man-Band-Entertainer.

Joy

Joy, of Caricatures by Joy at the 2016 Festival

Last year, Joy, of Caricatures by Joy, kindly made my caricature. Unfortunately, this year, her tent jammed full of clients, Joy could not readily squeeze us into her schedule.

So Talker will have to be to be a caricature of itself for another year.

doria

from “Reverend Mothers, Empaths of Enlightenment, American buskers and more at the Park Avenue Festival”

big-gulp

from “7 Eleven cuts off Big Gulp”

And I admit disappoint with El Doria: palmistrist, empath of enlightenment and spiritual counselor. El Doria did not recognize me from last summer when I asked the mystic; Where will my love life be at summer’s end?

Although I have a year’s worth of romantic quandaries to resolve — and the burning question; How long will Talker last? — I skipped this year’s palm reading. El Doria, how quickly you forgot.

raCAlso, as seen in Dreaming of Big Tents at Asbury First, this year Asbury First United Methodist Church did not have the “I Dream” graffiti wall in its tent (see featured pic). I’ll just stick with the 2015 dream.registration

But any disappointment was more than eclipsed with the good news.

7 Eleven cuts off Big Gulp was the sad story of the 7 Eleven on Monroe Avenue no longer allowing BG to be refilled with coffee for $1.61.

But to the rescue has come the 7 Eleven on Park Avenue where BG can now be filled with coffee for $1.61. Including mocha and French vanilla iced coffee!

Fully caffeinated just on life, we stepped out in style on the Avenue. At the Women’s Rochester Athletic Club, BG (yes, BG is girl) won a free year of ground roast toasting in the sauna.

Then good citizen BG registered to vote. Don’t call her an undocumented!

campaing

(top l-r) with Rachel and campaign manager Lori; (bottom) BG. Park Avenue Festival [Photo: Eric Stevens] 8/6/16

Then BG met our friend Rachel from Rachel’s Rebel Roots. Now that BG was registered, Rachel and Lori, her campaign manager, tried winning BG over with some sweet cream and sugar talk. But like us, BG, is not yet endorsing.

kelsey

Kelsey Merkle, fine artist and illustrator, with BG at the Park Avenue Festival, 8/6/16

Finally, we met “People Painter” Kelsey Merkle. Seeing the frowny face painted on BG, Kelsey quickly offered to give BG a real smile. Thanks, Kelsey, who is painting faces to help pay off her art school loans. One BG at a time.

SEE ALSO ON THE LILAC AND CORN HILL ARTS FESTIVAL

Emerging artists coming of age in Rochester at the Corn Hill Arts Festival

Living Lilac. On the Road.

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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