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Pickle Art
Part One: Pickle People
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The Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire holds "theme weekends" throughout the season: pirates one weekend,
the Irish another, and so on. Well, as pirates weekend approached back in 2003, those of us in the Blackfryar
cast were asked to find a way to adapt our costumes, or our dialects, or our behavior, or something
to "be more piratical."
Well, Heins is already a Germanic-Elizabethan pickle-monger. I figured
if he started growling "Arrrr" too, he'd just become completely unintelligible.
So instead,
I found an artificial cucumber and gave it a hat with a little feather, and tucked a plastic toothpick
sword and a little gun (yes, it's from Clue) into a sash around its waist.... and the "Dread Pirate Pickle"
was born. It was a hit!
Now, the costumed pirate pickle was always intended to be a one-time
thing. But then came Scottish Weekend, and I'd gone around on Irish weekend telling people, "Behold!
In honor of Irish Weekend, my pickles are green! Just wait until Scottish Weekend--PLAID!" So I was
browsing a fabric store trying to work out a way to make a plaid pickle, and I noticed a scrap of plaid
fabric. Just enough to make a tiny kilt....
Within fifteen minutes of the opening of the gate
on Scottish weekend, a woman came up, looked to see the Scottish warrior pickle ("McPick, the brave-hearted
hero of his people"), and said, "I always love seeing what your pickles are wearing today. It's the
high point of my day!"
And in that instant, I realized... I'll be dressing pickles 'til I die.
Enjoy.
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ABOVE, left to right: Romance, Irish, Music & Dance, Pirate, Octoberfest, Children's Fantasy, Wine Harvest,
and Halloween Weekend pickles. For details, keep reading.
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ABOVE, left to right: "the Dread Pirate Pickle," complete with toothpick sword, the gun from Clue, and
a jaunty feather in his hat. The Octoberfest pickle, aka Heins' self-portrait. Closeup: the only pickle
with a pickle of its own! (Bonus points if you know why the pickle--and Heins--each have two different
flags in their hats.)
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ABOVE, left to right: The Scottish pickle, "McPick, the brave-hearted hero of his people," complete
with a scrap of real tartan presented to him as a gift by one patron. (As for the blue ribbon, also
a gift, "I don't know where ye've been, m'lad...") The pot o' pickles at the end of the rainbow. And
the one-pickle band, complete with bagpipes.
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LEFT: The Children's Fantasy Weekend pickle, complete with wooden sword and teddy bear. Kudos to Rhonda
for pointing out that kids carry their swords point-up, not tucked into belts like the pirate pickle.
RIGHT: The Halloween pickle. Don't be vague; ask for what you want: say, "Trick or Pickle!"
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LEFT: Yes, that's right, a "Love And Romance Pickle" doesn't have to be dirty. This is actually a copy;
two patrons on their honeymoon actually bought the bride-and-groom pickles the Saturday of L&R Weekend.
RIGHT: Wine Harvest Weekend. Look close--it's even a Mt. Hope Wineshop label!
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Ahhh... Halloween Weekend at the pickle cart. I pull out all the stops....
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The pickle cart, transformed--and a hungry hitchhiker.
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THIS SPACE RESERVED
FOR MY "NEVERMORE"
JACK O' LANTERN.
ANYONE HAVE A PIC?
Incidentally, I won an award for the
decorated cart--and another
for the two jack o' lanterns.
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But Halloween also brings out evil pickles. Good thing there's a well-armed Pickle Slayer to defend
the realm against good pickles gone bad!
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Over the years, I've coaxed, bribed, harrassed, cajoled, teased, and otherwise "force" hundreds, probably
thousands, of Ren Faire patrons to join me in rousing choruses of Heins' favorite pickle song, written
for him by "the Earl of Guthrie" and sung, of course, to the tune by Arlo Guthrie:
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The Pickle Song
by Heins Kosher LVII
as sung to Steve Anderson
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I don't want a tickle;
I just want a bite of a juicy pickle.
And I don't want to giggle;
I just
want a bite of a juicy pickle.
And I don't wanta kick;
I just want a bite of a juicy pick... le.
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There are, however, also other pickle songs. This one, for instance, as written specifically
for Kirk to sing--and he actually did once. It's to the tune of the traditional song, "Beer, Beer, Beer"--also
known as the PA Ren Faire radio jingle.
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Pickles, Pickles, Pickles
by Heins Kosher LVII
as sung to Steve Anderson
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A long time ago, way back in history,
When all that came on sticks were
Twigs and bits of leaves,
Along came a man by the name of Heins the First,
And he invented a wonderful snack
That's sure
to slake your thirst.
A barrel of pickles, made from scratch
With a secret recipe!
You take
a stick and whittle it
As straight as straight can be.
You turn a pickle on its end--that is the
trick;
You push in a stick and then you've got
A pickle on a stick
(Stick, stick, pickle-on-a
stick, stick, stick!)
The recipe's still here today,
Though Heins has gone to Heaven,
Passed
down the generations
To Heins the Fifty-Seventh;
So have a pickle on a stick,
Or two, or three,
or four--
The snack on a stick so good that you'll
Be coming back for more!
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There are more, of course ("O, I came to Mount Hope Shire with a pickle on my knee...."), but to
record them all would be to open the way to a complete collection of my filk songs, and nobody wants
that. (Well, okay, maybe you do. You can find some of them on my Stories site.)
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