Inman Park Festival

Either the change in seasons or the broken AC at work messed up my sinuses. It’s made it difficult for me to sleep at night. Jamie and I were planning to leave at about 7:30 this morning to go to the MorningSide Market , but my sinuses made sure I was up by 5:00 just in case. I laid in bed until about 5:30, then decided it wasn’t worth it. I may as well do something productive if I’m going to be awake. When Jamie woke up at 7:00, she must have thought I was pretty eager about this whole market thing. In truth I would have at least tried to sleep past 5:30 if I’d only had a clue how long the day was going to be.

After we visited the Market, we decided to get some breakfast at Alon’s Bakery. Here we ran into Jamie’s friend Anna Leah. She told us about the Inman Park Festival . Her anybody-whose-anybody-style review, made us at least curious to check it out. But since it was only 8:30 in the morning and the Festival didn’t start until 11:00, we had to kill a few hours. The yards and homes around Virginia Highland were more than sufficient for the task.

We walked around various neighborhoods for about an hour. The homes are stellar and yards similarly radiant. Most of that time Jamie was on the phone, and I was paying about as much attention to where I was going as a puppy chasing a butterfly, so needless to say we got lost. When we decided our legs were thoroughly tired, we learned we had no clue where we were. After about 15 minutes of wondering we eventually found a street name we recognized. This gave us the illusion of soon to be enjoyed rest, but it would be another 45 minutes before we finally made it back to the car. These 45 minutes were spent walking back and forth down the same mile of road. We’d walk half a mile one way, then three quarters back in the other direction. A full mile in the direction we’d initially started, then a mile and a half back in the other direction. This is a good way to kill a lot of time, if that’s you goal.

After we found the car, it was nearly 11:00. I wanted to go to a camera store before we headed over to Inman Park. Recently, I’ve been taking a lot more portrait shots than I normally do (If you’ve seen Jamie, I’m sure you understand why). The zoom lens I currently use has a relatively poor maximum aperture at 50mm, so I wanted to get a faster lens. After doing a little research I figured out that I could get a 50mm fixed lens with a f1.8 maximum aperture fairly cheaply. I looked at the lens, feigned deliberation for a little while since Jamie was with me, then I bought it. Now I was really excited about the festival. Not only would it prove I was somebody who was somebody, but I had a new toy to try out.

The festival was definitely more than I expected. Hundreds of craft booths, dozens of bands, multiple breweries present, a parade and thousands and thousands of people. It was easy to spend the entire day at the ten acre park turned museum. We saw handcrafted didjeridoos and old tin tiles from theatres turned into brilliantly colored living room art; learned the difference between horse hair and raku pottery; and heard an eclectic mix of music.

At about 1:00 we decided to sit down for lunch. Five dollars for an order of french fries and some water. As we ate our fries we listened to the Buddy O’Reilly Band. The Atlanta-based Irish folk group, played an impressive array of instruments, including a set of uilleann pipes, a bouzouki, and bodhran. You can’t have Irish folk music without dancing, so the band had a dancer as well. We stayed and watched for about 30 minutes longer than it takes two people to eat an order of fries. Which is of course to say, about 30 minutes.

We walked for a little while and stumbled on the Dappled Grays. A traditional bluegrass band that would occasionally jazz things up a little by playing songs like George Gershwin’s “Summertime.” Like every other bluegrass band I’ve heard the instrumentalists were amazing. It’s almost like their must be a secret race of human beings called the bluegrass sapiens. I imagine the babies of this race are born with banjos or mandolins attached to their hips and nourished on a steady diet of Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley. It’s really the only way a thinking person can explain the amount of talent in the genre.

When the Dappled Greys finished it was time for the parade. This was the most amazing spectacular of color and American Liberalism I’ve seen in a long time. The highlights of the parade included the a strangely-attired, middle-aged marching band known as the “Abominables” several political floats that wanted Bush imprisoned for war crimes; a Karate dojo that included a tiny girl in pink bows and pink Velcro shoes who punched and kicked the entire length of the parade; and most importantly the “ambassador of mirth” himself . . . Baton Bob. A large gay baton twirler dressed in a butterfly outfit.

When the parade ended we still had a little energy left, so we checked out another three acres of festival booths. By 4:00 we were so hungry we had to get a bite to eat so we stopped by the Figo pasta at Edgewood before heading home.

If my eyes are bloodshot and red come Monday morning, there will be little reason doubting why.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

The Art:















The Crowds:

The Parade:

The Music: