In Memorium:

I remember Jack Albee diving off the front gate on those hot mornings in Agoura: the mornings when you can smell the weeds baking in the sun and knew what kind of day it was going to be. I remember Jack diving into a crowd of upturned hands, and being floated overhead until he reached the gate again, to waves of cheers.

Inventive, sardonic, even ruthlessly nonconformist, Jack was one of the original spirits of those Faires in Agoura. I'd lost touch with him years ago, I'm sorry to say, but I never forgot him.

Jack was your uncle with that wild look in his eye: the look that might have frightened and even digusted your parents---but thats why you stayed by him. He was irascible, and funny and sometimes too sensitive and he explored realms you might never have thought of.

Jack's  kind of spontaneous fun and absurdity has almost entirely gone from the recent Faires---its just a different creature now, with all its new rules and its guilds and all the strict, stifling orthodoxy. There are gigs and goofiness Jack would have loved that might get him kicked out, now.

That's the passing I wanted to remark on: not just Jack himself, but the spirit of those earlier times when we are all Jack's nieces and nephews--- it lives in the oaks. In our hearts, in our memories, in a way that can't really be captured unless you live it and remember it there under the trees.

Thanks for listening. Goodbye Jack Albee, and all the mad spirits that went with you--- Peace, abundance and joy to you all in the new world we find ourselves in.

Patrick HB Porter