First Friday Artwalk Nights Friday, January 2nd 2009

First Friday is damn interesting.

I got to listen to a number of different prevailing philosophies and actually got a chance to stand out and stand in at the same time—by this I mean, I met other people with steampunk aspirations. One guy in particular wanted to get my photograph, he wore an interesting vintage leather vest and a pair of goggles. Go steampunk.

I tell ya, when I have Helljammer up and running steampunk is going to become a way of life.

For those who don’t know much about the steampunk aesthetic, you have a great deal of studying to do! I would suggest starting with this video done by a fan of Abney Park.

This night I had a chance to actually range a little bit further and wider than usual. I split from the usual location between the obnoxious preachers and the obnoxious Scientology Corporation (the Phoenix Anonymous were protesting them again, with their V for Vendetta masks on.) After quitting these depressing locales, I found myself wandering the bazaar of bazaars.

Not a single city block away, past a fading building that had seen better times and sported a “Safe Place” sign (an image of one person hugging another on a yellow diamond sign.) And past the sweet, meaty smells of cooking and food—a beautiful restaurant that plays music and plies apparently good food. There, between dirty roads and loud traffic, I found stalls set up with all manner of artwork portrayed.

Apparently these are even pretty cheap to buy space for. Much less than any Con.

I walked past people selling paintings—even painting paintings while they sold them—some playing strange EBM music to the wind and selling CDs. Stalls that contained brittle metal fragments tortured and bent into beautiful, intertwining shapes. The best one, really, though that really caught my attention was selling mustard.

Mustard. Right next to the hotdog stand.

Now that was brilliant.

And from what I saw, it was amazingly good handmade mustard.

The entirety of my observations about the preachers that come out to First Friday is taken over at my Mill Avenue Resistance blog for Friday, January 2nd. Suffice it to say that new preachers already caused something of a stir by insulting the egalitarian sensibilities of some of the members of the Resistance. And one of the Resistance also decided to go visit the Scientology Corporation and discover what their free stress test was like.