As with many, I knew Mark from the Renaissance Faire in Agoura, California. I first saw him as a traveler when he was playing the role of an executioner prowling about outside the main gate. He would walk up to men wtth an ax over his shoulder and look them straight in the eye (his head above the nose was wrapped in a black kerchief with holes cut for the eyes). He would hold out his heavy black-gloved hand to shake theirs and then laugh a deep menacing laugh. For the ladies, he would walk up to them and hand them a rose in silence. An original, was our Mark. In the mid-seventies, when I became a participant, he was captain of the Queen's chair-bearers, carrying the Queen about the Faire on her royal Progress. At each stop, Mark would lead the other chair-bearers (of which I was one) in bawdy songs. That started our friendship. Although we were not bosom buddies, we did once go together to the theatre to see a performance by The Flying Karamatzov Brothers, who also got their start at Faire. And I was around him at other festivals where he told stories and I performed as a musician or workshop leader. So over the years, we would run into each other and catch up. As Hamlet might say, "He was a man of infinite jest." A profound loss. I'm glad I knew him Alan Maslac