1-888-WEJOUST
22 September 2008I (still) currently live in new jersey (let’s not talk about my issues with new york real estate right now), and, despite what the tshirts will have you believe, living in new jersey is not without its charms. Whenever I try to detail said charms to nonbelievers, though, it makes me realize that most of the best things about my current living situation aren’t specific to the state, they’re specific to my town, or to my family. Like this past Saturday morning, when I woke up at 6:30 and was unable to fall back asleep (stupid adult sense of responsibility and efficiency) and just moved my whole operation– turtle pajamas, comforter, ugly half-ponytail– to the couch so I could try to blow through the entire first season of Mad Men DVDs before they won the Best Drama Emmy when my mom came down the stairs and went “Hi! Do you want some scrambled eggs?” Yes. Yes, I do. Then 5 minutes later she went “Do you want peppers and onions in there, too?” Yes. HELL yes. I don’t get service like this living in new york, and though I know I’m might officially be out of “extended summer vacation at home” territory and square into “borderline pathetic adult child who doesn’t want to do her own laundry”-ville, every time I start feeling lame, my mom shows up with scrambled eggs or my dad’s entire extended family comes out for his birthday wearing matching tshirts and it makes me heart NJ. But these benefits are a little hard to convey to people who don’t have my last name. Awhile back when Em was considering a NJ layover I tried to list everything I thought she would love about it in one fell swoop “We could go to the bookstore so you can see what I’ve been talking about for these last 5 years. And we can go to 4 different malls with 10 miles. And we could take my dad’s dog to the dog run and watch him go on hyper speed until he collapses.” Similarly, when Julie was considering how to spend her last few weeks in the greater NYC area she mentioned not having given NJ enough of a fighting shot, and I gave her a similar list of garden state attributes. “I can show you where I went to high school. And the 3 different places in my 2 square mile town where I got into car accidents during my senior year. And we could go to the park and watch the evil canadian geese attack each other.” With each of them, I saved the big guns for last: “And we can go to Medieval Times.” I have yet to meet someone who can resist the pull of Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament.
When I went to college, I was genuinely freaked out to learn that there were people who not only had never experienced Medieval Times, they had never even heard of it. This was my first lesson in the Great Big World beyond my hometown– the other one, which I just recounted fondly at work the other day in a conversation about cheerful childhood ignorance, was how I really thought that the religious population of the country was mirrored in my hometown, that we were somehow a perfectly representative sampling even though nearly every single person I knew was catholic, with a handful of jewish people thrown in. When I got to college and people would be dressed up on Sunday mornings I’d go “Oh, are you going to mass?” and they’d go “No, I’m going to church,” and I’d be all “Same difference, idiot,” before eventually making the shift from “how weird, you’re not catholic” to “I’m weird, ’cause I’m catholic.” But I never got used to the idea of growing up without Medieval Times. What did those people do for class field trips that are completely unrelated to any of the state approved curriculum? How did they learn that eating with their hands is not only okay, it’s awesome?
I have a weird obsession with reenactments. I didn’t even realize that so many parts of my weirdness fell under this category until jeremy pointed me towards an episode of This American Life that I missed called Simulated Worlds in which they bring a Medieval Lit professor to Medieval Times to see what he has to say about the whole thing. I am in touch with exactly one professor from undergrad, which I think is probably one more than most people, and more than enough for me considering how much awesome Dr. C possesses on his own. He’s one of the reasons I wound up obsessed with Middle English in college (don’t judge) and nearly everything I remember from actual classes came from him. So I almost fell over listening to this because I was picturing Dr. C at Medieval Times instead of wearing a Red Sox sweatshirt and railing against the Yankees as he was when I saw him on his last visit to NYC. The radio piece also describes a phenomenon that I thought was only specific to the trip that Julie, my mom and I took last weekend in which, when in the presence of people so wholeheartedly reenacting something ridiculous, you immediately become incredibly awkward. When the bar wench handed me a Diet Pepsi I half-curtsied, and then whipped my head around to make sure no one had noticed.
The other Simulated Worlds that they touch on, let it be said, are just as good if not better than the Medieval Times piece, and they are the parts of the show that made me realize I could group all of these strange fixations I have under one large, extremely weird umbrella. Before I thought I was just some random chick who happened to love museum dinosaur displays, Medieval Times, and Graceland and who randomly thought that going to school in Colonial Williamsburg would be the coolest thing EVER and who got really, really inappropriately upset when she found out she had missed the recreation of the Battle of Brooklyn this summer in Greenwood Cemetery. And I figured that dragging my mom to all of those frontier museums this summer was just some latent Oregon Trail fascination that I hadn’t yet killed by downloading the Apple IIGS version for my laptop. No, no. Now I’m pretty sure that the real obsession is fake worlds– anything where anyone is forced to stay in character around people acting anachronistically. And really, how could you not love this:
The knight we were assigned to was the red knight– supposedly the most bloodthirsty of all the knights, though he did totally bite it in the first round of jousting. Of all the times I’ve ever been to Medieval Times, I don’t recall ever having so much trouble following the “plot” as I did during this round. There was a princess and her father in law but the prince was missing, and the green knight was the bad knight. Then people would fight, and it would be awesome. Then there was something about a falcon, which I didn’t totally understand. But then they would fight, and it was awesome. I think Medieval Times is basically like porn– you don’t really have to follow the storyline, because the only reason people watch is for the action. Julie and I spent a lot of time wondering out loud if you could rent Medieval Times out for your wedding reception. The food was pretty fantastic.
Immediately to our left was the Green Knight’s section, populated in part by a group of dudes in their 30s who were acting like they were at a Jets game and not, say, watching fake revelry at 4pm on a rainy saturday. Within 5 minutes of us being seated they started The Wave. They were the most cheerfully enthusiastic group of adult men I have ever seen at Medieval Times. About halfway through the tournament the master of ceremonies dude read out the celebration list so that all of the Birthday Kids could cheer, and I was just about to doze off when he read “…and Michael is here celebrating his bachelor party,” and the Green Knight section went nuts, high-fiving each other and cheering. “you could be anywhere today, and yet you’re here, watching men wearing tights play with sticks,” he continued drolly into the microphone, which would have made my day if I hadn’t already been having an effing fantastic time.
The first thing I did after listening to the Simulated Worlds audio (it’s on iTunes, I would never steer you wrong– you need this in your life) was email Sorority Sister Cathy because she’s my favorite History Buff Who Has Fun With It (proof!) and because I needed to talk through these revelations with someone. I’ve never considered myself that into American History beyond trying to win the Name The Presidents In Chronological Order game we play in the car en route to the Stickles Family Christmas Eve every year so I couldn’t figure out why I suddenly wanted to buy books about civil war reenactments off of Amazon. “Turns out that while I like history, I love pageantry,” I told cathy in the email, which I think is true. At one point I was scanning through stations looking for The Weather Channel and wound up watching the Hooters pageant and the next time I knew it was an hour later and I was thinking about becoming an occupational therapist because so many of those bouncy girls were into it.
Far from telling me that I should maybe take it down a notch lest I become one of those terrible people in cocktail party settings who can only talk about how while she was shocked at the first season of the Real World where all of the housemates were younger than her, she was truly shocked to find out that John Wilkes Booth was younger than her when he assassinated the president and even though she has no similar goals it’s still a reminder that she should probably be attempting to accomplish SOMEthing in her life and did you know that there’s a 12 hour bus tour that traces Wilkes’ escape route and they book up a year and a half in advance, Cathy has open encouraged me to Go On With My Bad Self in all of this. So now I am reading a lot of Sarah Vowell and thinking about how natural history museums are put together and wanting to know why this obsession with reenacting history seems exclusive to the country that has the least of it and looking to come up with a time when Cathy and I can join forces at the Mutter Museum to see the pieces of Lincoln’s skull on display there (and also because I am similarly, though unrelatedly, fascinated by conjoined twins. PS in the Mutter Museum gift shop you can get a shot glass with famous conjoined twins Chang and Eng that says “Make Mine A Double”) and I am going to be completely impossible to live with because of it. Good luck, mom.
8 Responses to “1-888-WEJOUST”
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Guys, if you have any questions on the above, please call 1-800-WE JOUST for more information.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:53 am
You know, you don’t post for quite a few fortnights (is that right?) and then you come out with this brilliant, yet random, post. Leave it to you.
You never did get back with me about those song compilations. I thought “What you stalkin’ about Willis” was one of my best inventions EVER!
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:08 am
i went to the mutter muesum with my boss last year during ALA MW and it was creepy. and awesome. but really, really creepy.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I missed you. I feel better now,Wench.
L,AK
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
You are really, really going to enjoy the Harry Potter theme park, aren’t you. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Frankly, I’m a little jealous. I entertained the idea of moving home for about ten minutes yesterday and the main problem was not that I would have to buy a car but that no one would be making me eggs. (That is not true. My dad would make me eggs. But I would have to buy a car. And wake up very early in the morning. Generally it was a bad idea.)
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Oh man I want to go to Medieval Times in the WORST WAY.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Can we please, please, please go to Medieval Times together, and SOON, since you are apparently refusing to move at least somewhere near my neighborhood? More importantly, would my first flask of mead be free if I told them it was my birthday (once, about a month ago)? I would totally take YOU to Casa Bonita if we were ever both in Denver at the same time!
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/154195/
Count me among your fans who have missed your amusing banter, btw. I was going to write a sternly worded letter to the editor if that post about your brother’s band was still the latest news. Now call me and let’s go DO something together!!
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I also forgot to say that I think Jennifer Weiner had her wedding reception at the Mutter Museum. Her fan base is entirely justified as a result of this excellent trivia! Of course, now she’s ruined it for the rest of us. I guess I’m getting married at Casa Bonita!