Indus Arthur, Renaissance Pleasure Faire, photo, 1984

I posted some photos of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire on Facebook’s Lost Marin site. My post was wildly popular and soon I had hundreds of hits—and so many wonderful comments emerged as people began identifying each other, and sharing the post. I wanted to capture a slice of oral history so I asked people for their stories. One viewer took umbrage because I had asked people to tag themselves, or their friends on my posts. I asked, so that I could credit the Ren Faire actors, and also so they could have a copy of the photos for their own archives. Her rage—it toppled my house of cards. She started maligning me, calling me a stalker because I wanted people to share their stories.

In frustration, and dismay, I took the entire post down rather than leave the negativity up. Katelin Stuart said don’t rent space to them in your head. But it was too late. The reason why it was so distressing was that because for 35 long years those slides were locked away behind cellulose, never before seen by the world, and I was so excited to finally have a scanner that could scan those slides and negatives, and I thought Lost Marin would be the perfect venue to do a wild release of those photos... But Carrie Smith wanted to equally share my photos—while berating me, the photographer, for wanting to know performers' names, and of their Ren Faire stories... Kill the messenger.

Indus Arthur, Renaissance Pleasure Faire, Agoura, CA, 1984

The photo that set off the imbroglio was of Indus Arthur, a beautiful harpist, which ignited a FB war in the Lost Marin group. The reason was completely lost on me. It was like a bully scene right out of Animal Farm. Sadly, Indus died in December, of 1984, a few months after my photo was taken. Complications of skin cancer, and a brain tumor.

This may be among the last photos ever taken of the stage and screen actor, Indus, who, like her grandmother, was named after a river in Tibet. I remember that we talked about our grandmothers. I had no idea that Indus was a popular TV star—none of that mattered, we were in a time out of place, in a backlot of Paramount Ranch, in Agoura.

The photo was a moving tribute, or so I thought. I had spent the afternoon talking with her, a lovely soul, both ephemeral, and fey. Did she know she was dying? That this was her last gift to the world, this harp music? She died so young, she was only 43. She is buried somewhere in a secret location in Los Angeles.

But Carrie Smith wouldn’t let it go, she objected to my asking people to tag themselves, or my even knowing who Indus was. Then Carrie waged war on me, she began tagging her equally obnoxious friends, dragging them into the fracas. Where did all this anger and rage come from, over an old photo? Clearly Carrie (aka Mrs. Owens, Dickens’ cook for the Dickens Faire) had some deep-seated anger management issues, but for some reason, she came unhinged when I asked for people to tag themselves. It was the last straw, too many other negative things going on in my life. I saved the vitriolic conversations thinking I might someday use it, but it’s so depressing. And I so wanted to honor those actors who brought us such delight during the heyday of the RPF.

Apparently Carrie, thought I was a stalker, or worse, because I was asking people to tag themselves in the photos of themselves. But it’s not my job to explain her aberrant behavior. Get out of my head. I had merely asked people to tag themselves so that THEY could keep my photos—and/or share stories from the Ren Faire days among themselves. After all, that was the whole point of the Lost Marin Group. Here I thought that it generous gift from the past. No strings attached. The cadre of Ren folk even objected to my use of the word Ren Faire, took umbrage to the term Ren Faire, and to the rather endearing term, Ren folk... All of this tempestuousness is so ironic as the Renaissance Pleasure Faire’s actual web address is renfaire.com

Suffice to say, it was a total bloodbath. So, rather than leave the negativity up, I deleted all 36 photos. Most folks were thrilled to see the photos, one woman even tagged the Patterson sons... but I didn't want to leave an album of my photos up, as a chronicle their bad behavior.

From a Facebook post

Phyllis Patterson RIP – She changed my life! JoshWillTravel blog, a good inside peek into the Faire.