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I've spent the past few days scheming, researching an ambitious project I've been cultivating for months. Or perhaps I'm merely indulging my obsession with the blogosphere. Hard to tell. More on that later.

This week in Seven Days... I penned four performing arts spotlights for our Fall PA preview. And had this to say about the Champlain Valley Fair:

Scene @ Champlain Valley
Champlain Expo, Essex, Wednesday, September 1st, 5 p.m.

Agriculture has become less and less a part of our lives, but Vermonters still love a county fair. Each year, the Champlain Valley Expo throbs with crowds craving fatty foods, freak shows, and shiny new farm machinery. It’s a spectacle guaranteed to both quicken the pulse and turn the stomach.

The young are quickly overwhelmed. Barely inside the gates, a small boy stood transfixed by the first booth he saw, which sold plastic trumpets. His mother spoke to him slowly, outlining his options: “If you would rather have a trumpet than go on any rides...” she said, trailing off ominously. He froze, unable to decide.

Adults wandered wide-eyed through the expo warehouse, where businesses and organizations hawked their wares. A sixty-ish couple reclined on a motorized adjustible bed, as a salesman explained its features.

At the Amazing Grace Mission table, two women tried to sell salvation. They handed out religious tracts, including one that warned, in cartoonish script, “sinners will burn in hell forever.” I took a few, then turned to leave. One of the women tried to reel me in. “I just have one question,” she said. “Are you 50, 75, or 100 percent sure that you’ll go to heaven when you die?”

Nearby outside, a vendor sold white t-shirts that read, “Bump ‘n grind Redneck style—nothin’ wrong with a little chew while you screw.” Inside his tent hung shirts bearing a red-eyed cartoon Grinch, sucking smoke from a bong. “I would smoke weed in a boat, with a goat, in my socks in a box, in a car at a bar...” read the caption. Where are the missionaries when you need one?

Over at the midway, Tom Krug of Essex tumbled out of one of the Zipper’s metal cages, designed to keep riders from falling out when they’re flipped upside down. Krug’s 14-year-old daughter hopped out, grinning, ready to ride again. Her father was less enthused. “I didn’t like it,” he groaned. “I really didn’t like it. That was way too much spinning around.”