Names Of Pirate Ships

Trying to build on last year

The Erie County Fair is looking for a repeat performance of last year, when its all-time best attendance of 1,022,164 was tops among 51 state and county fairs held in New York State.

The 172nd edition, dubbed "Red, White and You," opens at 2 p.m. today for a 12-day run, through Aug. 21.

Tuesday, many of the 436 vendors were busy dodging raindrops to put the finishing touches on their stands, as workers finished assembling the rides that arrived by train Friday.

"I really think today is going to be pushing the docket as one of our busiest days ever, with [Nickelodeon stars Big Time Rush] sold out, $2 admission and $2 parking," said Jessica Underberg, assistant fair manager and agricultural manager.

Longtime visitors will notice some physical changes to the 172nd annual Town of Hamburg extravaganza.

Moving to new locations are the creative arts building, 4-H and the mall tent, while the new configuration introduced last year to widen walkways will remain.

The carnival's tallest ride, the Ferris wheel, will be lit with LED lights. Another sizable entry appealing to kids is the "Dinosaur Tour" -- a 30-foot-tall, 150-foot-long green dinosaur.

Making a new splash on the roster of animal shows is "Dock Dogs." After the handler throws a decoy, dogs scramble the length of a dock to catch it, landing in a pool of water. Rare Bengal tigers will be featured in one exhibit.

The fair's circus attractions also include the return of the Peking Acrobats.

New foods being introduced include beer-battered burgers.

There's also the doughnut burger.

Calories? Forget it.

"It's a glazed doughnut cut in half that [acts as] the bun, so it's about 4,000 calories," Underberg said.

Familiar attractions include the crowd-mingling Wacky Wheeler -- a giant wheel with a man in the middle. Also featured are Rocket the Robot and an actor portraying Deputy Barney Fife from the old "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Mayberry R.F.D."

Agriculture, of course, remains a major part of the fair.

Underberg, who grew up on a dairy farm in Collins, showed animals at the fair as a child. She said the fair remains a vital link to people who may be unfamiliar with rural life.

"People used to be able to go to a farm at their grandfather's, or go to their uncle's and spend the summer. People don't have that anymore. The fair is the last touch-point for people to be able to be involved in agriculture," Underberg said.

Seattle Opera Blog: No Scurvy Sea Dogs Allowed: Piratical Opera ...

As one of the interns in Seattle Opera’s Education Department, I was lucky enough to spend a week at “Song Pirates Ahoy!”—a creative writing workshop at 826 Seattle --which had eighteen 9-11-year-old landlubbers acting, writing, and dancing to the tunes of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance . This summer, the workshop is one of three opera camps the Education Department is leading which include another Pirates of Penzance production camp with Seattle Public Theater and a technical theater workshop for students and teachers with Western Washington Theatrical Training Trust. At 826, participants spent four days creating treasure maps and pirate adventure journals to chronicle their exploits on the high seas. From traditional to non-traditional pirate voyages (buckets of gold doubloons to alien abduction) even the characters in the stories had fun. Throughout the workshop, participating song pirates focused on creating stories with all the elements of a good narrative (character, setting, plot, obstacles) and revising them to be collected and published by 826. To get the participants thinking like pirates, Sue Elliott, Seattle Opera’s Director of Education, asked everyone to name his or her pirate ship. From there, we brainstormed good pirate names, nautical crew members, ship figureheads, and unique superpowers. Once everyone had a ship, we set sail with pen and paper and started writing our pirate tales. To create a seafaring atmosphere, we used the format of a travel journal for our sailors to record their adventures at sea. Seattle Opera and 826 staff supported the writers as they took their characters through scrapes with sea monsters, encounters with vampire crews, and vaults of buried treasure. Sue also led activities like pirate charades to get writers to practice using descriptive adjectives and showing instead of telling. At the end of each day, the participants had a chance to read their work for everyone, and we all enjoyed hearing the stories fresh off the page.

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Pirate ships, sailing the high seas