Tag Archives: state fairs

Indiana State Fair 2019 Photos, Part 4 of 6: Cake Bosses

August 9, 2019 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
NASA 50th!

NASA’s 50th: where “spacewalk” meets “cakewalk”.

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…

4-H has always had two buildings in the northwest corner of the Indiana State Fairgrounds. (A third one next door remains an unsolved mystery to this day.) For decades, one was their official Exhibit Hall and the other was a dormitory of sorts. The latter was remodeled years ago, but I continued ignoring it because I presumed it still had nothing to do with me. This year someone thoughtfully posted signs in the Exhibit Hall alerting attendees that the other building — now called Centennial Hall, if it wasn’t before — likewise featured exhibit space for general audiences.

This year therefore marked our first time stepping foot in said building. Among other sections new to us was a bevy of beautiful cakes, the results of hours of effort, imagination and concentration on the part of whoever was blessed with these amazing colossal talents. A shame we couldn’t eat any of their works, merely behold them.

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Indiana State Fair 2019 Photos, Part 3 of 6: The Marvel/DC CAN-ematic Universe

August 8, 2019 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
CAN Black Panther!

Black CANther welcomes you to WaCANda, homeland of King TIN’Challa. (Look, I didn’t start it, okay?)

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…

One of the many creative events each year is the Canstruction contest, which isn’t necessarily exclusive to local 4-H youngsters. Canstruction is a charitable organization that holds nationwide events in which engineers and other clever planners compete against each other in building the best sculpture made entirely from canned goods, preferably in recognizable shapes and not ordinary stacks with boring titles like “Can Do!” After the judging and the public displaying are over, all those meticulously planned figures are torn down and the components are donated to local hunger relief charities, who in turn forward them to needy families totally unaware their next few meals used to be Art.

In keeping with this year’s “Heroes in the Heartland” theme and its inclusion of beloved mainstream superheroes, contestants were asked to make superheroes out of cans. The results were amusing for all but the most cantankerous.

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Indiana State Fair 2019 Photos, Part 2 of 6: The Heroes Theme

August 7, 2019 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
FAIR me!

FAIR. Just like a superhero should be!

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…

Each year they used to celebrate a specific food theme. For 2019 they took a different direction and declared the fair’s overall theme “Heroes in the Heartland”. In the Midwest “hero” can mean many things, though first responders come immediately to mind for many. Being that this is a Midwest state fair, the definition had to have enough latitude to include farmers. As explained further on the official site:

“This year we will pay serious tribute to the heroism of everyday Hoosiers whose exceptional commitment and caring enrich our lives without the benefit of capes, costumes or superpowers. They are our nurturers, protectors, guardians, and guides –- our support and our strength. They grow our food. They feed our minds. They keep us safe and free.

“Here’s to our Hoosier farmers, first responders, teachers, law officers, firefighters, and Armed Forces members past and present — our Heroes in the Heartland!”

Many participants approached the theme with a different idea in mind: superheroes!

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Indiana State Fair 2019 Photos, Part 1 of 6: Our Year in Food

August 6, 2019 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Relleno de Papa!

Frying! It’s what’s for dinner!

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. Usually we’re all about the food. Each year a new lineup of “Taste of the Fair” offerings showcases new ideas from assorted food vendors in hopes of luring in foodies and/or impressing attendees who want to do more every year than simply eating the same tenderloin again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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Indiana State Fair 2018 Photos #1: Our Year in Food

August 7, 2018 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
turkey tips!

Turkey tips, marinated in a house rub and drowned in an eminently lickable barbecue sauce.

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. Usually we’re all about the food. Each year a new lineup of “Taste of the Fair” offerings showcases new ideas from assorted food vendors in hopes of luring in foodies and/or impressing attendees who want to do more every year than simply eating the same tenderloin again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

This year’s edibles expedition had a couple of setbacks, but we made the most of our day anyway. For one, this year’s Indiana State Fair app failed me in the precisely one job I asked of it. The Map function was ostensibly designed with an option to pin the locations of any and all participating “Taste of the Fair” stands. I pressed the correct buttons and received zero (0) results. The option to show all restaurants worked fine but was unhelpful. By and large the State Fair’s vendors go by their boring, adjectiveless company names that describe none of their products and aren’t even featured on their signs. Perfect example: the official Taste of the Fair site lists two new items from a company called Urick Concessions, but hopeful diners could spend days wandering the fairgrounds searching in vain for “URICK CONCESSIONS” banners. Worse still, Urick has more than one booth. We found both items, but at separate booths on opposite ends of the fairgrounds. You’d never know any of this from that failed app.

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Indiana State Fair 2016 Photos, Part 4 of 4: The Best of the Rest

August 17, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
GOAT FACE!

I AM GOAT. I HAVE GOAT FACE. I MAKE POSE. YOU GIVE ME SNACKS NOW.

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 that other people love, and farm animals competing for cash prizes and herd bragging rights. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

In Part One we covered this year’s food, both the delicious and the deadly. In Part Two, the Parkour Show starring acrobatic dudes. In Part Three, selections from the great Indiana BISONcentennial herd. In this, the exciting probable conclusion, selections from the dozens of other photos we took during our visit. Other photos may surface when you least expect it, but these were among my favorites of the bunch.

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Indiana State Fair 2016 Photos #3: The Bicentennial Bison

August 15, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Bison Welcome!

Introducing you to the concept is this Welcome to Indiana bison at the Indiana Arts Building (formerly the Home & Family Arts Building), which has a giant ear of corn on it because of course it does.

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 that other people love, and farm animals competing for cash prizes and herd bragging rights. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

In Part One we covered this year’s food, both the delicious and the deadly. In Part Two, the Parkour Show starring acrobatic dudes. This time we bring you highlights from Indiana’s Bison-tennial Public Art Project, a statewide collaboration between the United Way and any interested parties down with the intent to create one art-covered bison statue for each of the Hoosier State’s 92 counties in honor of our upcoming 200th statehood anniversary in December 2016.

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Indiana State Fair 2016 Photos #2: Parkour!

August 11, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Fernando over Kids!

Hey, kids! DUCK!

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 that other people love, and farm animals competing for cash prizes and herd bragging rights. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

The State Fair also brings in entertainers from around the globe at various levels. Musicians bring in their Top-40, country, gospel, or sometimes hair-metal tunes; local acts play an even smaller stage; and a few touring entertainers perform in the farm-equipment areas, around the animal-education section, near the 4-H Building, or over by the Grandstand. Some charge no admission, earning only the intake from whatever merchandise they sell after their performance. Others aren’t there to huckster; they’re just there to show off their skills and presumably make money from State Fair officials without passing the hat around to visitors.

One event we attended this year was called simply The Parkour Show, a fun display of acrobatics. Four guys leaped, bounced, tumbled, did standing somersaults, and wowed a crowd that hopefully knows better not to try this at home.

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