My Fairfield Adventure - cont'd

I did mention my Fairfield adventure a few posts ago. It began with a radio interview with Monica Hadley on the similarly remarkable radio station KRUU - an all-volunteer FM station, as open source as it is possible for sources to be opened, operating at a mere 100 watts, and yet having something very close to a global following.

This was the first of many marvels I got to witness during my stay. I think Fairfield has more vegetarian restaurants, per capita, than probably India. And a friendlier, more engaged and supportive community than probably anywhere I've ever visited. (You can read more about Fairfield on Wikipedia).

Friday evening, as part of the monthly Art Walk, I got to introduce two new games: Socks and Boxes, and Extreme Pick Up Sticks. Both games were semi-instant variations, created in response to a change in weather from clear and mild, to windy and threatening. Socks and Boxes: build a city out of large cardboard cartons, water bottles and styrofoam packing blocks - make many balls out of many socks - and then use the sock balls to knock the whole thing down. Extreme Pick Up Sticks: take very long (12-foot), and potentially dangerously hefty cardboard tubes from the inner core of carpet rolls, paint them in manifold patterns, stand them up in a large circle (at least 12 feet wide), let them drop towards the center, and then try to pick them up, one at a time, without disturbing any other sticks. Or play tug of war with them. Or jump over them. Or see if you can use them as baseball bats.

Then I did something like a reading/performance of Recess for the Soul at a typically remarkable Fairfield institution called Revelations - a restaurant, used book store, wifi hotspot and town gathering center. The audience was remarkably receptive, responsive, down-right enthusiastic. There was much laughter and something close to complete Grokkage.

Saturday I led a workshop based on some of the concepts in The Well-Played Game. We played, of course, Bernie Found Nirvana (did I tell you that Fairfield is the home of the Maharishi University of Management?). And after a few more games and discussions, we played two different rounds of Junkyard Sports Tabletop Olympics. Very different rounds. The first with a core group of around 30 people. The second with that group and another 20 or so people (with kids, even).

The vast majority of the responsibility for the success of these events rests squarely on the shoulders of Steve Cooperman, who put everything together, and on the amazing spirit of the townsfolk. Fairfield, Iowa. A most remarkable community. A most remarkable experience for your personal Funsmith.


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith