Indiana State Fair 2023 Photos, Part 9 of 9: The Year in Miscellany

September 29, 2023 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne curled up inside a yellow wheel on a giant green tractor.

Anne all ready to nap inside a tractor big enough to hold her.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

It all comes down to this: all the other photos we took that were fit to share but didn’t lend themselves to themed galleries. Enjoy!


Indiana State Fair big logo on the ground in front of the fairground coliseum entrance.

The obligatory big Indiana State Fair logo.

Big letters F, A, and R stand in grass, with a gap where you're supposed to stand like an I and spell "FAIR". Behind the letters is a giant tennis shoe with stylized faux graffiti. Farther back is the Harvest Pavilion building.

Can YOU guess what you’re supposed to spell by placing your body in the right position? Or would you rather leave it as “FAR” and pretend it’s modern art waiting for you to imprint meaning upon it?

An orange mural reading "Cheers from WINEDIANA. We're ferment to be!" There are grapes and leaves drawn around it. I don't get the pun.

Mural for one of the alcohol-forward mingling areas, for those who need some.

Red banner hung on a wooden fence advertising a performer named FIRE GUY, who did fire stunts five days a week during the fair.

Sadly not a promise that B.J. Novak would be doing photo ops; rather, a fire-breather act we missed.

Indiana historical marker near a tree.

A historical marker for the fair that I don’t recall seeing before.

A baby doll in old--time purple clothes lying as if dead, in front of a nude faceless fabric doll and a female doll dressed like Buster Brown.

At the Indiana Arts Building there has been A DOLLY MURDER.

A 7-foot-tall angel statue with wings spread, standing on a concrete cube.

A guardian angel at one of the Mercantile booths offering free Bibles.

A giant milk bottle outside with big fake milk drops floating above it as if spraying out.

A giant milk bottle over by the Dairy Barn, not one of our favorite restaurants.

An 8-foot-long/wide chess board lying in the grass. Black has made more progress in the game than white has.

An unexplained, lawn-sized chess board in the northeast corner.

A 7-foot tower dressed in fake cowskin. A bubble machine on top spits out lots of bubbles. At right is the weirdly angular roof of the Glass Barn.

This year the Bubble Tower was moved from the Family Fun Park over to the Glass Barn on the north side.

Closeup of a bunch of bubbles glommed together.

We played around for a while, catching bubbles and photographing them and trying not to trample the li’l kids around us.

Another group of bubbles floating in midair with nothing behind them except the blue sky above.

I got bored after a while, but Anne kept going and going and I thought she might not stop.

A pig statue covered in educational icons that are explained on the app they want you to download.

The Indiana Pork Producers booth had a pig promoting their organization’s educational AR app.

A guy in a Nitro mascot costume, talking to a plainclothes coworker in front of a bottled water concession stand.

Nitro, dragon mascot for the Indy Fuel (our minor league hockey team), who showed up and seemed like he might do something…but then kinda didn’t.

Four white male musicians wearing farmer clothing (no overalls) in a gazebo. Two guitars, one fiddle, one standing bass. All wear straw hats.

A live cover band playing at Pioneer Village.

Eleven musicians in a curved row, playing in front of a beige building with a 10-foot rock fountain in front of it. Three saxes, two trumpets, three trombones, one tuba, one snare drum and one bass drum.

The Circle City Sidewalk Stompers Clown Band, a frequent afternoon sight on the north end.

The head of a carousel house painted alarmingly bright green.

A radioactive horse head on the two-story carousel, landing somewhere on the carousel fright scale between Something Wicked This Way Comes and Strangers on a Train.

On our kitchen table at home: a stuffed GEICO gecko, a small yellow Indiana Department of Transportation frisbee, three strips of duck jerky, a chocolate chip cookie, a bag of coffee beans, and a jar of za'atar.

Our collection of freebies given to us and some Hoosier-made foods we bought at the Mercantile on our way out.

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you next fair.

Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Our Year in Food
Part 2: The Year in Food Art
Part 3: The Year of Basketball
Part 4: The Year in Lego
Part 5: The Year in Art, 3-D Division
Part 6: The Year in Art, 2-D Division
Part 7: The Year in Animals
Part 8: The Year in Antiques

Anne making a weird constipated face while holding an Old West frame around her that says, "WANTED: Reward $113,000, Last Seen at the Indiana State Fair."

Prospector Anne, wanted for the crime of Hoggin’ All Them Bubbles. Back in them there olden days, $113,000 was all the money in the world, so you knew they was real serious. Time was, bubbles was rarer’n gold!

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