HEAVY LITTLE OBJECTS

#21 :: Nipple pick

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire is a seasonal, regional form of temporary insanity. Every spring, several thousand Angelenos clad in "authentic" reproduction garb ranging from medieval knights and servant girls to nearly Victorian ladies and Renaissance swordsmen crowd a mock Tudor village in the chokingly hot and dusty hills west of the city to spend six weekends guzzling mead, saying things like "forsooth" and "methinks" and acting out cornball face-to-face costumed melodrama like the worst sort of Trekkies. But for the fact that they're almost completely surrounded by entire overweight, stroller-shoving families wearing Oakleys, fanny packs and zinc on their noses, it's a ridiculous amount of fun, and you could almost forget yourself for an afternoon and pretend you're living 400 years ago ...

The coarse food is good and filling (turkey legs and grilled, unshucked corn). You can stagger around swilling beer from your flagon (or logo'ed paper cup, as the case may be) and thrill to the refreshingly un-wired jousting matches, parades and impromptu concerts for bagpipe, war drum and sackbutt. You can also shop - a dizzying number of the Faire folk have spent years honing skills at ancient methods of weaving, swordcraft, millinery and even smithying. This vicious-looking device was orginally used to clean carbon deposits from the nipple of one's flintlock firearm - a pinhole in the gun's body that allows the spark to travel from the flash pan to the charge and shot lovingly hand-packed into the barrel. Crafted of true, unplated stainless steel, it is wickedly sharp and doubles as a bloody effective toothpick.