Pinkos in Red Tights

Remembering the SoCal Eccentrics Who Launched the Modern-Day Renaissance Faire

The “Renaissance Faire” as we know it began in 1963—in California. It couldn’t have come from anyplace else.

Contemporary Renaissance faires like The Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, which begins in Irwindale this weekend, aim to portray aspects of 14th to 17th century Europe, and many visitors and workers have told me what they relish most about the experience is being taken out of the time and space they usually occupy—which they call their “mundane” life—into that special place called “faire.” But California made such experiences possible. In 1963, Southern California was …