Your Daily Awesome

The State Fair of Texas starts this weekend, and no matter what it is you’re doing, it’s not as interesting as the Fair. As you might guess, it’s an impossibly enormous event, where you could walk for miles without covering the same territory twice. Besides the perennial record-breaking livestock shows and trade showrooms (imagine multiple airplane hangars of electric knife demonstations and jacuzzi displays), you’d see jewelry booths selling custom-made bling specific to the major gangs of Dallas/Fort Worth, “mammy” dolls in the craft fair, women in Liederhosen yodeling “Yellow Rose of Texas,” an mechanized bible that turns its own pages, the world’s smallest horse (it’s pretty tiny), the world’s biggest shark (it’s pretty huge), Jerry Jeff Walker, roving Gang Patrols, and the spot where the corndog was invented.

This year, the Fair unveils Fried Coke, described as such: “smooth spheres of Coca-Cola-flavored batter are deep fried, drizzled with pure Coke fountain syrup, topped with whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry.

Every year this woman shows up to sculpt enormous statues out of butter, which are shown on a revolving platform in a chilled, windowed room. After the Fair, the sculptures are melted down. The last one I saw was a life-size rendition of Roy Rogers and Trigger.

I’m only 30 years old, but when I was a kid they had actual freak shows, with the amazing handpainted signage and everything. I remember the fat man, the sword swallower, and the elastic lady. It cost extra to see the really freaky stuff.

There’s a chicken there that will tell your fortune. And another one who will play tic-tac-toe with you (and probably win).

Thorrific has taken the best (if meanest) photos of the Fair I’ve ever seen, but his fancy website won’t allow me to grab the jpegs. (Just navigate to the Photos section.) His site will probably make you never want to step foot in Texas, but that would just be your loss. Where else is a dancing chicken tell you if you’re going to get rich or not?