In Which a Legend is Born

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire is a way of life, a state of mind, a modicum of slack and an excuse to get really drunk. jD began working Faire three years ago, and has since worked his way up to the position of manager at Lisa Bruner's booth, "Fyne Leather Masks", and also as sort of a folk hero amongst the Faire geeks.

In the summer of 1994, jD. came up with the notion of a "geek favour". A traditional favour is something like a pin that is handmade and given out to others. A visitor at Faire will recognize veteran workers by the ornaments hanging from their chests. Generally all the workers at a particular booth and perhaps their immediate friends will have a particular favour. Each favour becomes an individual collector's piece.

Well, jD. took this tradition one step further, by designing a "geek stamp" consisting of the infamous "triple @" symbol. Modelled after a traditional celtic treskal and formed with modern day "@"'s, known far and wide to the geek community, a cult item was born. To obtain a favour, the geek must email jD. requesting one, so the artist has a record of everyone who has one of his pieces.

The geek stamps were immediately wildly popular among all of the Faire workers who are geeks (about 90%), and word came down that the Queen herself was indeed also a geek and desirous of a stamp.

jD. worked for hours on the Queen's Stamp, attempting the perfect combination of the leather pattern, purple background, and gold accents. The day finally came when he, risking his Faire neck by doing so, personally presented the favour to the Queen during one of her daily processionals. Thankfully, the Queen accepted this gift graciously, and can still be seen wearing it to this day.