Ron was kind enough to send me all my photo's in a big zip file, so this week I'll be posting pics for your amusement.
There were many, many characters to be seen at this fest. You can just sit around and see interesting things go by. I did not get pics of even a fraction of the interesting characters. Sometimes I just forgot, or I was self conscious about pointing a camera at them. Regardless, here are a couple:
Magic Mojo man. I saw this guy everywhere. Whenever there was music playing, he would be right in front, dancing all by himself. Apparently he was not just dancing, he was working up some Mojo, for even when he tired himself out and sat down he would pick up a couple of magic shakers and rattles and wave them around the crowd. I think I am going to give this guy credit for keeping the weather so nice.
Tall bike guy. I saw this guy zipping along every now and then. I have no idea how he actually climbs up to the top of that thing. First time I saw him zip around the corner I started laughing.
Tiny beggars. I saw this little girl a couple of times. She played simple yet very good tunes on her fiddle. She had a very serious expression on her face. I gave her a dollar.
Cooler scooter girl. Ron and I were in awe when we first saw her zipping down the lane. She was hauling ass, too. At first I thought she was sitting on a cooler on a scooter, then I realized the cooler WAS the scooter. She was kind enough to stop for a photo, but then zipped on her way. I am jealous. I want a scooter cooler.
Hoola girls! Hoola hoops were everywhere. They were selling them there and women young and old were buying them. Out in front of the stage they would get the hoolas going and dance to the music in a special way that only a girls hips maneuvering a big loop can move. I found it to be enthralling.
More pics tomorrow...
2026 Update
Firing up the machine for Suwanee Springfest 2007, where Ed is cataloguing Mojo men and cooler scooters.
Ah, 2007. Ron sends photos in a big zip file, and Ed has to sit and upload them over the course of a week because that was simply the bandwidth economy. Now we would have 400 photos on a cloud link before the festival's last funnel cake cooled, and every bystander would be live-streaming the tall bike guy from six angles. The camera shyness is the most antique thing here—today everyone is a documentarian, and no one blinks at a lens; the self-consciousness has been replaced by a desperate hope that someone, anyone, captures their bit. Also, a dollar to a busking fiddler? In 2026 that fiddler has a Venmo QR code taped to the case, and the "tiny beggar" is running a Patreon. The cooler scooter would not just be a local marvel; it would be a startup, an app, a monthly subscription, and eventually a cautionary tale about micro-mobility overreach. And Magic Mojo man? He would have a TikTok account and a merch line. But I do miss the era when a man could wave rattles at a crowd and we all just credited him with the weather.
“2007 Ed, did you ever ask Magic Mojo man if he knew he was keeping the weather nice, or was that just a theory you kept entirely inside your own head while he danced on?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, it was entirely inside my own head. I never spoke to Magic Mojo man once. I figure if you're the kind of person dancing solo in front of every stage and shaking magic rattles at crowds, you probably know exactly what you're doing, and asking would just ruin the mystique. Plus, I was self conscious enough pointing a camera at people, no way I was walking up to a sorcerer and going, "Hey, thanks for the sunshine," like some kind of goofball. Nah. I kept it as my own private little theory, the way I keep most of my best ideas. He did his mojo dance, I did my observation thing, and the weather stayed nice, so who am I to mess with a good system? Take that, foul cosmic doubt.
