Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

There were a few interesting people and scenes at the Philadelphia Folk Festival that I didn't mention in my previous writings.

For example, on Sunday there was a guy walking around with long blonde hair, a blonde beard, wearing some kind of tunic made out of natural fiber.

"Oh, Jesus showed up!" I said. "It's about time. They sang about him enough on Saturday."

"Yeah, I was hanging out with him last night," said a friend of ours. "His name is Bill."

"He has to go under cover, calls himself Bill now," I said.

On Sunday, Elli and I had brought beers again. Her suggestion, so that we wouldn't have to pour them in front of festival staff, was to go into the porta-potties and pour them inside. It was a good idea, in theory. The strangest part of it was going in there with an empty cup and the bag containing the beer, then coming out with a cup full of dark, frothy liquid.

There were plenty of funky outfits, mostly coming out at night but some during the day, as well. Like, there was a woman in a sundress, short-cropped gray hair sparkling in the sun. She wore a black, flat-brimmed hat with black feathers all over it. Truly amazing to look at it.

We'd hoped to get CD's signed by Ani DiFranco, but she was about the only artist who wasn't doing a signing. We understood: she would have been mobbed. That day, Sunday, a whole new crowd of people showed up to see Ani. In addition to the families in sundresses, tie dyes and shorts, there were androgynous looking women in sleeveless shirts, hair spiked or moussed, wearing low-slung jeans and studded belts, many of them holding hands with their girlfriends.

And then, of course, the New Age Sensitive Guys, too. Like two of my male friends, who had come to see her.

There was also the sprightly old man who danced with us during BeauSoleil on Saturday. The next day I saw him and said hi. I noticed his professional-style camera. "Are you taking pictures?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm going to get Ani DiFranco."

I quickly made him swear to send me copies, since I hadn't brought my camera. I would have, but you couldn't get close enough to the stage, even with my long lens, to get the kind of pictures I wanted with my old Pentax.

We sat down on the grass and I gave him the address to my Wild Violet post office box. We chatted about all the concerts he's gone to see. I guess that's pretty much what he does now. Either he's retired or he's a hippie who's been living on the road for 40 years.

After he left, my sister asked, "How old do you think he is?" I said I couldn't tell. Judging from his hair, I'd say in his sixties, but his eyes seemed younger than that. He seemed younger than he was, and older, too.

If I had brought my camera, my sister and I could have taken photos of ourselves behind these big wooden stand-ups of flowers and such, with a hole to put your face through. Near the place where the Magic Bus came to pick you up, three wooden Kilroy faces peered over the fence.

These little touches of humor, and the easy mixing of different groups of people, added to our folkfest fun.

More Folkfest Fun:

August 23, 2003 - Folkfest Fun

August 24, 2003 - Folk Needs Funk

August 25, 2003 - Fabulous DiFranco

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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