Christy and I headed on up to the northern hinterlands (of Kansas anyway) to get a weekend in at KCRF and correct our long absence of faire going lately. It was 40 degrees or so late morning so we thought it would obviously get warmer, obviously right? Well we undressed to say the least but back to that in a little while. We were greeted at the gate by my old sidekick and compatriot Matthew Failing AKA Sancho AKA The Village Baker among other guises. We caught up on things briefly and made our way through the front gates and into familiar Canterbury. It was wonderful to be back among the pleasant sights, smells and sounds of faire. We hit a few shops; I picked up an extra mug hanger at a leather shoppe and met another couple who had planned to join us later.

I have to say that I was a bit surprised at the absence of lane characters or the rarity in which we saw them. I did see Evil and Toy and occasionally saw an FSB or two but the streets seemed a little void of garb for some reason or another. We did catch Bob the Juggler and a few other acts and of course Human Chess Match where I did see many familiar faces. Passing by Barbarian Battles made us sad for Jim :(. By this time (late afternoon) the temperature had dropped and most folks were seeking whatever warmth they could fine. The lines for hot chocolate were very long and one of the two places that sold it ran out eventually. We finally decided it was too chilly to enjoy ourselves so we made our egress.

We decided not to return on Sunday because of similar weather conditions but we are glad that we did go and look forward to next season.

Many of you may know by now of the untimely and tragic death of Jim Gasser also known as Gunnar the Barbarian in an accident while on his way to the Pleasure Faire in CA. His passing is being felt immensely by the many folks in Kansas City and elsewhere that knew and loved him.

I knew Jim as a fellow performer at KCRF for a number of years. He never failed to great me with tremendous warmness every morning during faire and then later during the day we would always exchange a "warrior's salute." I often wanted to stop and chat with him beyond those greetings but I knew this would be keeping him from his always huge audience of children. I know Jim wouldn't have minded as he always had time for everyone, but I reminded myself he belonged with his young admirers.

Jim was a man of striking stereotypical contradictions. He indeed looked incredibly formidable with his sculpted physique and barbarian garb but as soon as he spoke you knew you were in the presence of a man with of a unique placidity and gentleness of spirit. You couldn't walk away from him without feeling better. I know it is cliché, but Jim did indeed touch every life he encountered.

Jim and I did have the opportunity to finally sit down and converse for an extended period several years ago at the Alcott Center. I will always treasure our discussion although now I do not recall its' particulars. I just remember how genuine and without guile he was, and how dedicated he was to his pursuits.

 In all the traits we admire and call honorable in our fellow man, Jim possessed. In all that Jim set his immense energies to, he mastered.

To Jim's family I offer my heartfelt condolences, to my KCRF brethren I offer my love and support. To Jim, sitting on his gleaming warrior's throne in the place we will all be reunited someday, I offer my thanks for your friendship, encouragement and inspiration. I have never known a better man than you. Rest you well Gentle Warrior.

This is me and my new buddy and cabby Cornelius at Fort Cahrlotte in Nassau. Fort Charlotte is the largest of the three forts in Nassau and was buit by Lord Dunmore and named for the wife of George III.

When did the facts of life first enter literature? I mean the basic facts of life - like if you don't pay your bills you get into serious trouble. At first literature dealt with gods, and they had no money problems. Then there were godlike heroes who simply took what they wanted and filled their ships with slaves and booty. There follow several centuries filled mostly with the lives of saints and hermits, to whom worldly goods were of no interest. With the medieval literature of chivalry a new kind of hero arrived, the high-minded knight whose attention was fastened on the glory of dying in battle for an ideal. No room for humdrum daily concerns here.

Then about halfway through the sixteenth century, at the height of the humanist Renaissance, appeared a ragged hungry boy called Lazarillo de Tormes guiding his blind master along the roads and through the towns of Castille. Two features of this anonymous tale were new and remarkable. First, the narrative was told in the first person. Second, not only did the hero, or rather anti-hero, have no money, but not having it was a real problem for him. The untidy, seething, chaotically colorful world of the picaresque was born. It's a world no one had seen before in quite this form. The feudal social order was in decay, towns and taverns were filled with the dregs of wars and conflict trying to survive from day to day through wit and trickery. Into this world, in 1547, was born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. He was to learn the facts of life at the age of four, when his father, a surgeon, was imprisoned for debt in Valladolid and had all his goods confiscated.

Cervantes' own life was to proceed from one misfortune to another. His early career as poet and author came to an abrupt end, possibly as a result of a duel forcing him into exile in Rome. He became a soldier of fortune, and was badly wounded in the battle of Lepanto in 1571. Then among other adventures he found himself imprisoned in Algiers for five years, captive of the Berber king for a ransom that his family could not possibly afford. Money is yet again intimately linked with freedom, a recurring theme for him over the years. Back in Spain, he led a life that can best be described as one of inventive survival, dogged by legal claims, debts and again, in 1597, imprisonment in Seville. He seems to have made good use of these months in prison to progress with his novel, Don Quixote de la Mancha, and with innovative plans for its publication.

Early in 1605, his fortunes appeared finally to change with the instant success of Don Quixote, though by the end of the same year, he was back in prison for spurious reasons, having acquired a reputation as troublemaker. Nonetheless Cervantes' gamble in publishing his book as a commercial venture, going straight to the marketplace, would soon pay off, and before long both he and his hero, the ingenious hidalgo, would leave their mark on literature with a creation born of pure imagination, acted out in a world as solid as the windmills that bring Don Quixote crashing to the ground.

"That Cervantes is a great friend of mine," quips the priest in Don Quixote's village, finding one of Cervantes' own books on Quixote's bookshelf, "he knows more about reverses than he does about verses." Here is the other face of the modern world as we know it. Following the new humanism of Lazarillo de Tormes, Cervantes brings up the complex issues arising from self-consciousness, the dimension of irony, even self-deprecation. In the person of Don Quixote himself, this self-consciousness shows as melancholy, the mood in which the ingenioso hidalgo approaches his end.

Yet Cervantes rescues us from a potential and terrible pit of cynicism through finding his characters' redemption as individuals. Neither Don Quixote nor Sancho Panza is truly mad, but they are human, noble, absurd, caring, confused, often mistaken, like ourselves, in a real world governed by the facts of life. This year we celebrate the 400th anniversary of that literary redemption of humanity.

-CJ Moore

Director Terry Gilliam disclosed Thursday that he plans to restart production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote next year after securing rights from the insurance company that paid out $15 million when the movie's sets were destroyed by a flash flood in 2000 and one of the stars of the movie pulled out following a serious injury. Speaking at a tribute to him Thursday night by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in London, Gilliam, who created the graphic images for the Monty Python TV shows and movies before launching his career as a film director, said that he now believes that God stepped in to "save his ass" on Don Quixote when the storm occurred. "I was in some way relieved that it did fall apart," he said. "Because I didn't have the money to finish it. It's a good thing it went down when it did because I would have got the blame for going over budget. I think this time we will make a better film."