China Clown Wedding.

This was the genesis of my stilt cam idea.
The angles are unique.
What a wonderful day.

Seth and Christina got married, half Chinese traditional and half Clown wedding with many fellow clowns in attendance in China.

Hand-balancing; Different perspective.

From the only other small town Canterbury international NZ mime I know [Boy with tape on his face]

His friend Reuben Kuan

Street Performer, Lee Ross.

Lee Ross started in NY, then wandered round the planet playing on the street then got two principle roles at once for Cirque's first Asian tour and now lives in LA.
I first saw him in NZ, he was doing the audience participation hero/villian/ damsel railway rescue module. Or the cowboy gunfight audience participation, or maybe both were integrated. Old stuff, he was slick but he was an american, slick came with the territory, how else could they maintain their entitled overconfidence. [gotta remember I was a provincial NZ bloke with a precious arrogance]

But he innovated and he was the first to do what has now been used as a foundation of many peoples shows. He would do what he calls 'verbal following' he would stand, watching people pass with a mike in his hand and he would vocalize the thoughts in their heads.[ My character Lurk does something similar using mime, it's a different more abstract beast] It was quicksilver and inventive and really risky and funny. I remember three suited businessmen walked past, talking among themselves in what appeared to be a defensive, self important way. [because they knew they were going through his stage, anyone who passed by was going through his stage and the size of it was defined by who he included in his improvised remarks, he could send it out long or keep in in close, there had to be a border because that would be where his audience formed]...anyway these stiff and suited guys went past conversing and I remember Lee getting in close to the mike and muttering, "Bullshit bullshit bullshit, yes bullshit bullshit bullshit, oh really bullshit bullshit bullshit."

He won me over. He took risks, he invented.

Very rarely he still gets out and visits street festivals, I saw him at some small canadian fest 5/6 years ago.

interview 26 mins,

Street Performer-Otis Mace-Guitar ace.

Otis works mainly on stage but he's done his fair share of busking and he was beguiling. His lyrics told stories or celebrated absurdity. I loved coming across him strumming on the street.
His heartfelt parodies of country and western  teetered on the cusp of authenticity.
With lines like...
"You can water your hydrangeas on the grave of our arrangement...but it's only disappointment's gonna grow."

Effort Money and Time

Pumkins Are Actually Rocks

Thunderbirds Are Go



Don't Shoot Down The Only Woman To Ever Love You.mp3

Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch and it's ultimate conclusion

and it's conclusion

Genki Sudo, Clown, Mime, Fighter.

This is Genki Sudo, a Japanese performer, choreographer and director of a modern mime theatre.




I have a clown antenna. It delights me when it picks up a frequency.

There is a certain truth in comedy, it's unspoken and hard to put into words but with clown,  I just know it when I see it and it delights me.

There is a certain truth, a primitive profound energy to be found in martial rituals also. I was marinated in Rugby, growing up in NZ and there's a spirituality to be tapped deep in the clash that the game frames.

So to with men and women who fight. Contesting the moment for dominance is not everyones cup of tea but I'm drawn to it.

Genki Sudo was a fighter, he was exceptionally good,
 [21 pro fights on World stage, won 15, lost 4, drew 2]
 He was so proficient at fighting that he 'played' with it. My antenna hummed when I saw him fight. I was delighted. I thought gleefully to myself,
"This guys a Clown!"

He admitted that he had grown to a point where he saw a fight primarily as a means of self expression and had respect and gratitude towards his opponents for giving him the medium in which to work.

In the world of men who try to beat each other up for a living Genki Sudo was deep.

he wrote essays

The theory of Happiness

How to Marry　The Woman living in　the Valley of the Wind

God is The Tablecloth

Revolution

Genki Sudo, The Bashar

Subconscious Always Talks to You

Catcher In The Octagon

Renaissance Of Love and Revolution

Let's Cat

He rarely lost.
Win or lose he would brandish a large flag representing all the nations of the united nations with the words "We are all one" on it.

Japanese Mixed Martial Arts [MMA] placed theatrical emphasis on fighters entrances to the ring. Genki Sudo, who held a degree in performing arts, constructed elaborate entrances with subtext and layers. He was the master of the theatrical entrance. He had his own theatre group [still does but he doesn't fight any more]



and his fighting? disciplined, unorthodox, playful, dominant.



He retired from hitting people expressively and now creates performance thus..



He's my favorite Buddhist.

A most interesting fellow.

Alt Thanksgiving History.

The Real Thanksgiving

Quoted from: The Hidden History of Massachusetts


Much of America's understanding of the early relationship between the Indian and the European is conveyed through the story of Thanksgiving. Proclaimed a holiday in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, this fairy tale of a feast was allowed to exist in the American imagination pretty much untouched until 1970, the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. That is when Frank B. James, president of the Federated Eastern Indian League, prepared a speech for a Plymouth banquet that exposed the Pilgrims for having committed, among other crimes, the robbery of the graves of the Wampanoags.


 He wrote:
"We welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people."


But white Massachusetts officials told him he could not deliver such a speech and offered to write him another. Instead, James declined to speak, and on Thanksgiving Day hundreds of Indians from around the country came to protest. It was the first National Day of Mourning, a day to mark the losses Native Americans suffered as the early settlers prospered. This true story of "Thanksgiving" is what whites did not want Mr. James to tell.


What Really Happened in Plymouth in 1621?


According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim, a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though it later became known as "Thanksgiving," the Pilgrims never called it that. And amidst the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony is some of the most terrifying bloodshed in New World history.


The Pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the agricultural expertise of the Indians had produced twenty acres of corn, without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. The Indians often brought food to the Pilgrims, who came from England ridiculously unprepared to survive and hence relied almost exclusively on handouts from the overly generous Indians-thus making the Pilgrims the western hemisphere's first class of welfare recipients.


 The Pilgrims invited the Indian sachem Massasoit to their feast, and it was Massasoit, engaging in the tribal tradition of equal sharing, who then invited ninety or more of his Indian brothers and sisters-to the annoyance of the 50 or so ungrateful Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served; they likely ate duck or geese and the venison from the 5 deer brought by Massasoit. In fact, most, if notall, of the food was most likely brought and prepared by the Indians, whose 10,000-year familiarity with the cuisine of the region had kept the whites alive up to that point.


The Pilgrims wore no black hats or buckled shoes-these were the silly inventions of artists hundreds of years since that time. These lower-class Englishmen wore brightly colored clothing, with one of their church leaders recording among his possessions "1 paire of greene drawers." 


Contrary to the fabricated lore of storytellers generations since, no Pilgrims prayed at the meal, and the supposed good cheer and fellowship must have dissipated quickly once the Pilgrims brandished their weaponry in a primitive display of intimidation. 


What's more, the Pilgrims consumed a good deal of home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people's "notorious sin," which included their "drunkenness and uncleanliness" and rampant "sodomy"...




The Pilgrims of Plymouth, The Original Scalpers


Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local Indians. They were engaged in a ruthless war of extermination against their hosts, even as they falsely posed as friends. Just days before the alleged Thanksgiving love-fest, a company of Pilgrims led by Myles Standish actively sought to chop off the head of a local chief. They deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians, pitting one against the other in an attempt to obtain "better intelligence and make them both more diligent." An 11-foot-high wall was erected around the entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.


Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder. The Pilgrims further advertised their evil intentions and white racial hostility, when they mounted five cannons on a hill around their settlement, constructed a platform for artillery, and then organized their soldiers into four companies-all in preparation for the military destruction of their friends the Indians.


Pilgrim Myles Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He went to the Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, "as a symbol of white power." Standish had the Indian man's young brother hanged from the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name "Wotowquenange," which in their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.


Who Were the "Savages"?


The myth of the fierce, ruthless Indian savage lusting after the blood of innocent Europeans must be vigorously dispelled at this point. In actuality, the historical record shows that the very opposite was true.


Once the European settlements stabilized, the whites turned on their hosts in a brutal way. The once amicable relationship was breeched again and again by the whites, who lusted over the riches of Indian land. A combination of the Pilgrims' demonization of the Indians, the concocted mythology of Eurocentric historians, and standard Hollywood propaganda has served to paint the gentle Indian as a tomahawk-swinging savage endlessly on the warpath, lusting for the blood of the God-fearing whites.


But the Pilgrims' own testimony obliterates that fallacy. The Indians engaged each other in military contests from time to time, but the causes of "war," the methods, and the resulting damage differed profoundly from the European variety:


o Indian "wars" were largely symbolic and were about honor, not about territory or extermination.


o "Wars" were fought as domestic correction for a specific act and were ended when correction was achieved. Such action might better be described as internal policing. The conquest or destruction of whole territories was a European concept.


o Indian "wars" were often engaged in by family groups, not by whole tribal groups, and would involve only the family members.


o A lengthy negotiation was engaged in between the aggrieved parties before escalation to physical confrontation would be sanctioned. Surprise attacks were unknown to the Indians.


o It was regarded as evidence of bravery for a man to go into "battle" carrying no weapon that would do any harm at a distance-not even bows and arrows. The bravest act in war in some Indian cultures was to touch their adversary and escape before he could do physical harm.


o The targeting of non-combatants like women, children, and the elderly was never contemplated. Indians expressed shock and repugnance when the Europeans told, and then showed, them that they considered women and children fair game in their style of warfare.


o A major Indian "war" might end with less than a dozen casualties on both sides. Often, when the arrows had been expended the "war" would be halted. The European practice of wiping out whole nations in bloody massacres was incomprehensible to the Indian.


According to one scholar, "The most notable feature of Indian warfare was its relative innocuity."


 European observers of Indian wars often expressed surprise at how little harm they actually inflicted. "Their wars are far less bloody and devouring than the cruel wars of Europe," commented settler Roger Williams in 1643. 


Even Puritan warmonger and professional soldier Capt. John Mason scoffed at Indian warfare: "[Their] feeble manner...did hardly deserve the name of fighting." 


Fellow warmonger John Underhill spoke of the Narragansetts, after having spent a day "burning and spoiling" their country: 


"no Indians would come near us, but run from us, as the deer from the dogs." He concluded that the Indians might fight seven years and not kill seven men. Their fighting style, he wrote, "is more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies."


All this describes a people for whom war is a deeply regrettable last resort. An agrarian people, the American Indians had devised a civilization that provided dozens of options all designed to avoid conflict--the very opposite of Europeans, for whom all-out war, a ferocious bloodlust, and systematic genocide are their apparent life force. 


Thomas Jefferson--who himself advocated the physical extermination of the American Indian--said of Europe, "They [Europeans] are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of labor, property and lives of their people."


Puritan Holocaust
By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans calling themselves Puritans had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston-which only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.


In one incident around 1637, a force of whites trapped some seven hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, near the mouth of the Mystic River. Englishman John Mason attacked the Indian camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken-to the apparent delight of the Europeans:
To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God.


This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving. In just 10 years 12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had reduced the population of the Massachusett nation from over 24,000 to less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.


By 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the great Indian chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Philip" by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle and culture of his people as European-imposed laws and values engulfed them.


In 1671, the white man had ordered Metacomet to come to Plymouth to enforce upon him a new treaty, which included the humiliating rule that he could no longer sell his own land without prior approval from whites. They also demanded that he turn in his community's firearms. Marked for extermination by the merciless power of a distant king and his ruthless subjects, Metacomet retaliated in 1675 with raids on several isolated frontier towns. Eventually, the Indians attacked 52 of the 90 New England towns, destroying 13 of them. The Englishmen ultimately regrouped, and after much bloodletting defeated the great Indian nation, just half a century after their arrival on Massachusetts soil. Historian Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end:


The ruthless executions, the cruel sentences...were all aimed at the same goal-unchallengeable white supremacy in southern New England. That the program succeeded is convincingly demonstrated by the almost complete docility of the local native ever since.


When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered Metacomet in 1676, his body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." 


The great Indian chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole on the real first "day of public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy." Metacomet's nine-year-old son was destined for execution because, the whites reasoned, the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of their father. The child was instead shipped to the Caribbean to spend his life in slavery.


As the Holocaust continued, several official Thanksgiving Days were proclaimed. Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving"-not in celebration of the brotherhood of man-but for [God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors...In defeating and disappointing... the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands...


Just two years later one could reap a ££50 reward in Massachusetts for the scalp of an Indian-demonstrating that the practice of scalping was a European tradition. 


According to one scholar, "Hunting redskins became...a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were worth good money..."


References in The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A Guide for Black Folks ©© DR. TINGBA APIDTA, ; ISBN 0-9714462-0-2

Figwit, the 3 second global superstar. Documentary

I love nutty NZ Comedy and it seems the world does too. Flight of the Conchords are huge, The Boy with tape on his face is getting that way with a Royal variety performance this year. The whole 'NZ quirk' brand is a large reservoir of potential. We seem to not appear to be trying thst hard when we act silly. It's a casual, relaxed silly that the rest of the world find charming I guess.


Anyone interested in forming a NZ Quirk Export company please bear me in mind.


The documentary looks at the rise to celebrity status of NZ actor and musician Bret McKenzie, who appeared for 3 seconds as an extra in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", during the Council of Elrond scene. His brief appearance sparked a huge internet fan-base dedicated to his "brooding pout" and "elvish good looks"


. McKenzie has been dubbed "FIGWIT", an acronym of "Frodo is Great; Who is That!!?"

Featuring Bret McKenzie, Jermaine Clement, Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood, Sir Peter Jackson and Sir Ian Mckellan


I think it's hilarious and shows that the internet empowers people who recognise that power, that they can get gleefully subversive with it.

See? Non verbal communication is the shit!

Obviously aware that this could not be conveyed without the spoken word to the many however the quality of the communication between two men, unspoken, is what these words reveal.
And as always I breath a profound sigh that this is so.

US History, lest we forget.

The ruling elite proceeded in 1933 to organize a coup intended to topple the Roosevelt administration and replace it with a government modelled on the policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. (A 1934 Congressional committee determined that Prescott Bush, granddad of Dubya, was in communication with Hitler.) The plotters included some of the foremost members of the business class, many of them household names at the time. Prominent insurgents included Rockefeller, Mellon, Pew, Morgan and Dupont, as well as enterprises like Remington, Anaconda, Bethlehem and Goodyear, and the owners of Bird’s Eye, Maxwell House and Heinz. About twenty four major businessmen and Wall Street financiers planned to assemble a private army of half a million men, composed largely of unemployed veterans. These troops would constitute the armed force behind the coup and defeat any resistance the in-house revolution might generate. The revolutionaries chose Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Butler to organize its armed forces. Butler was appalled by the plot and spilled the beans to journalists and to Congress. FDR nipped the thing in the bud. The attempted coup was a landmark event in US history, baring the soul of America’s standing wealth. (We find no mention of this event in US history textbooks. History unfit to print.) We have no reason to think that these fascist instincts have been expunged from the class character of our rulers. No less important, the scandal alerts us to the elite’s Leninism, its identification of the State as the political prize of prizes, the seat of class power.

Who needs mercenaries when you've bought the senate and brainwashed the constabulary, when you own all the major media outlets and if you do need mercenaries for the really dirty jobs well there's ten years worth of war hardened 'private security forces' on hand. Bred to shoot anything they are paid to.

Sorry, back to clown stuff.......

My interview for the 'Busker Hall of Fame'

It's close to an hour which is a long time. Longer than I'd be prepared to listen if it wasn't me but that said I guess it's interesting. I'd suggest putting it on in the background rather than giving it your undivided attention. I'd rather you did that than not listen at all. Do what you like just don't email and tell me you didn't listen to it as that would hurt my feelings.

Notes: In this episode Robert interviews performer, author and clown philosopher, Martin Ewen and discusses a career from it’s beginnings as a Bank Robbing Clown to Stilt Dancing oddity in Tokyo to the discovery of of his Lurk persona in Paris and the realization that you don’t need to be nice to an audience to fascinate them. In the interview, Robert mentions Martin’s book Panto Damascus. For more information about this title, go to Amazon.com, Lulu.com or MartinEwen.com and order your own copy.




Here's the interview....


http://buskerhalloffame.com/audio-files/episode103-interview.mp3

Jason Webley; Street Performer

Jason is a lyricist and a performer. He plays big stages but he also plays under bridges to the people that gather there and on the streets to passers by. He's timeless and his work is to me quite powerful.

He goes to NZ and Europe and anywhere he's asked or is curious about, he himself is vaguely North American.

He's one of those rare jolly fatalists who amplify the obvious tragedy of our short tawdry confused and bumbling existences in a way that we can all sing along. He lends dignity somehow to all that is shambolic. I think so anyway.

Last Song(c)1999 by Jason Webley

One day, The snow began to fall,
 And slowly, inch by inch, Covered up the earth.
 'Til finally, The top of the tallest building,
Was lost beneath a powdered sea, As quiet as a shadow's grave.


And we say that the world isn't dying. And we pray that the world isn't dying. And just maybe the world isn't dying. Maybe she's heavy with child.


One night, A woman took my hand. I left my home and followed her Into an icy field.
When I wanted to go back, I'd lost the way.
So she beckoned me to lie beneath The stone that always bore my name.

One morning, We woke up in an alley. To the smell of urine, alcohol, Trash and gasoline,
With a dim sense of a notion We'd held something in our hands,
That was bigger than us or God, And we can never touch again.

I've been looking at the symptoms for a while, Maybe she's heavy with child.


Jason: vocals, accordion, stomping, vodka bottle, pump organ, double bass


Trained monkeys: igga-di igga-di igga-digga-dup.

Dance While the Sky Crashes Down(c)1999 by Jason Webley

The flowers by your bed are wilting.
 The sun is setting in the west. A fog is covering your eyes, Your stockings are attracting flies, Decay is nibbling at the boards on which you rest.

There's someone waiting at your window,
 Familiar face without a name.
 One night he'll creep in like the mist, To touch your forehead with a kiss, And lead you back into the void from whence you came.

We've all begun to die, and don't know what to do.
Since it hurts to pray to God, when God is dying too.
Takes strength to laugh, when you start to drown.
And we dance while the sky crashes down.

Like that the earth begins to quiver, And all the oceans turn to black. A ship of maniacs with knives, Are playing Blackjack with their lives, To kill the time until the giant rats attack.

It's raining leprosy and acid.

The saints were taken out and shot. 


When someone proffers you a pear, You sink your teeth in unaware, That just beneath the skin lies pestilence and rot.


All that now breathes, and all that you love, All that we weave, will find its way back to the dust.


A band of skeletons is playing, Don't act like you don't know the tune. 


Your part is echoed in the path, Of every dead leaf blowing past, Against a counterpoint reflected off the moon.


There is a banquet at the table, Exotic cheeses wines and cakes. 
And every one of us is damned, Until we start to understand, That living is to gorge ourselves at our own wakes.


When the stakes are high, best to play the clown. And we dance while the sky crashes down.



Jason: vocals, guitar, accordion, marimba, double bass, drums.


http://www.jasonwebley.com/index.html

Feelgood Sunday; Explosions in the sky, first breath after coma.

Feelgood Sunday; Against The grain

Hudson - Against The Grain from Dropbear on Vimeo.

St. Charles festival clips Sugar Plum Fairy's wings after she violates anti-cursing rule

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-charles-festival-clips-sugar-plum-fairy-s-wings-after/article_b826c8b1-47b1-50ee-951f-08827d864ad2.html

This is a story about how the Sugar Plum Fairy got fired.

Laura Coppinger played the holiday sprite for six years during the Christmas Traditions festival in St. Charles. By all accounts, the 29-year-old was a popular character at the monthlong festival along historic Main Street.

"The spin that I gave to her was that I was a fairy on a sugar high," she said. "I was really loud and really over the top, and that's probably why I was the Pied Piper of children,"

Her trouble started with a drug test. Festival hiring came under the control of the city of St. Charles this year, and all city employees are required to take the test. Coppinger was told to report to a local testing facility to give a urine sample.

After she filled the cup she accidentally flushed the toilet, a no-no. Apparently, some people try to dilute their samples with the incoming water.

"I don't have to take drug tests too often," she said, 'so out of habit I flushed the toilet, and as soon as I did it I was like, oh, no."

Coppinger said the woman working at the facility dumped her sample and told her she would have to go back to the waiting room until she could supply another one.

Coppinger, who also works as a substitute teacher in the St. Louis Public Schools, said that meant she was going to miss a job interview.

"Out of frustration with myself and frustration with the fact that I was going to have to sit another hour, I cursed," she said.

Coppinger said she didn't direct her words at anyone, but she was visibly angry, and she stomped back to the waiting room and started slurping down soda and water. A short time later, the woman working the counter told her that she should go home.

"I asked her why and she said, 'I think you should call St. Charles HR about that,' " Coppinger said.

When she called the city, special events coordinator Karen Godfrey told her she had broken the Christmas Traditions code of conduct, specifically a section titled: "Christmas Characters Don't Know Naughty Words."

Coppinger protested. She told them that the section refers to her behavior while she is in costume as the Sugar Plum Fairy, not while she is in a hallway at a private drug testing facility.

"I said, 'Look, can I just apologize? I understand it was rude to curse,' " she said.

But the city told her it was too late.

St. Charles would not discuss Coppinger's dismissal. Carol Felzien, a spokeswoman for the city, provided only a statement from the city's legal department. "It is the policy of the city that personnel matters are not commented upon, including the recruitment process for prospective employees," she relayed in an email.

Coppinger hired a lawyer to ask the city to reconsider, but several emails and letters got no response.

As word of the Sugar Plum Fairy's dismissal has spread, some merchants have started to grumble.

Jim Brown, owner of Riverside Sweets, said his livelihood depends on the success of Christmas Traditions, and the Sugar Plum Fairy has been one of the big draws.

"I think it's unfortunate that the city would use an out-of-context situation, a trivial matter in my opinion, to judge somebody's job capabilities," Brown said. "Come on, who amongst us hasn't said a bad word in our lives?"

Coppinger said that over the years, she has developed the character far beyond her appearance in "The Nutcracker" ballet.

She invented a full story line and gave the fairy a mischievous streak.

"I even had this obnoxious high-pitched voice that you could hear three blocks away," she said.

Coppinger got into the role so much that she paid someone to make her a big, glittery pair of wings. And, in the spirit of Christmas, she volunteered to fix other characters' costumes and work with some of the new actors to help them perfect their roles.

Being the Sugar Plum Fairy was not a high-paying gig. This year Coppinger was going to make $13.08 an hour. Her earnings gave her enough extra cash to buy Christmas presents for friends and family. But she said that wasn't the real draw.

"I loved going back year after year and inspiring all those kids to still have magic at Christmas," she said.

Theresa Rubio, owner of Grandma's Cookies on South Main Street, said the Sugar Plum Fairy has always been professional as well as energetic.

"If anything, they should pay her double for what she's done for Christmas Traditions," she said. "This whole thing is stupid."

As for Coppinger, she said it's difficult to think about an unhappy ending for the Sugar Plum Fairy.

"I'm heartbroken," she said. "Everybody makes mistakes."

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-charles-festival-clips-sugar-plum-fairy-s-wings-after/article_b826c8b1-47b1-50ee-951f-08827d864ad2.html