Candy Danced

How much grease will accumulate on a surface elevated approximately two feet above a grill at Candy Dance on a Sunday, over the course of the lunch rush? Here are the experimental results of that query, compiled last weekend:


It was the 90th anniversary of Candy Dance this year -- the sprawling craft fair that takes place in picturesque Genoa, the first town established in Nevada. The SNC art department sells burgers there to raise some extra dough for supplies. I was on the frontlines Sunday, and was quickly inducted into the secret nomenclature for the typology of burgers on the grill -- cheeseburgers and veggie burgers et cetera re-christened "dairy farmers," "darth vaders," and so on ("darth vaders" were well-done burgers -- though it never came to pass, if someone were to order a well-done cheeseburger, there would have been a cry of "DARTH VADER DAIRY FARMER," which I think may be an actual spinoff series George Lucas is contemplating for the Cartoon Network).



The wares at Candy Dance range from edibles to musical instruments to lawn ornamentation to jewelry to ceramics to whatever decorative fancy you may wish to indulge. It was hard for me to imagine what sorts of crafts would have been on sale 90 years ago in Genoa (frilly bonnets for your farm goats? fancily-braided hanging nooses for special occasions of vigilante justice?). Logan informed me (and Logan's usually right) that the 90 years of Candy Dance stretch back beyond crafts, which were only part of the event starting in the 80s. Before then, there was an annual festival where candy was to be had, in concert with a town dance. Which, even if Logan is wrong, at least has the benefit of sounding very plausible, what with the "candy" and the "dancing" and all.





At one point, looking up at the open roof of the spot where we grill, I was struck by its resemblance to the apex of the dome the Burning Man class constructed for Black Rock, and wondered if there was some subliminal influence at work, since many of the students who participated in that class had served time before the Candy Dance grill, steeling themselves for the desert heat via prolonged exposure to propane flames.



Below is a statue of "Snowshoe" Thompson, located at the main crossroads in Genoa -- he stands frozen as passersby haul their purchases and lick their ice cream cones, immobile and sadly immune the the wafting scent of sizzling burgers.


Here's Russell with the day's count. And thus were cows (and also vegetable matter compressed into patties) converted to cash, eventually to be converted into art supplies. I think that's what's usually referred to as "The Circle of Life."