Festival of Freaks
23/01/2016 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaIt is that time of year. In the spookiest of parks where the Cthulhu trees grow, circus tents are popping up like mushrooms and a mysterious labyrinth extols all who dare enter its tangled verdant shrubbier to “Get Lost”
There is a very real enormous bunya nut tree without the giant seed pods that have been known to seriously maim or even kill those who encounter them but the rest of the maze is made of plastic plants and shrubbery. With a decadent entry fee of $15 and no early bird discounts, I guess I will just have to die wondering about what really lurks within those plastic walls.
It is the time that the freaks and wierdos come out of their broom closets and take over the town. It’s the most fabulous time of the year. Much more fun than Christmas and a whole lot freakier.
It is the only thing that makes the sizzling stinking hot summer here bearable.
But sometimes one can have too much of a good thing. The fringe festival has now gotten so mainstream with so many shows and venues that the brochures require a microscope to read them. Or maybe that’s only the case for old farts like this ancient serpent.
This year it’s time for the Fringe Binge diet. Gone are the years of seeing 15-20 shows. Of course most of them were on the cheap but the nest eggs aren’t what they used to be. But there’s another big reason. The fringe festival has gotten so big that there is too much choice. Not just the fear of missing out but they seem to have given up the good old fashioned ritual of putting up a list of the shows each day which have the discount tickets.
I would check if anything on my wish list was going cheap and then queue up at the box office for the pretty pink tickets.
People are now expected to trawl through the website which is often on a go slow simply because there’s a whole army of fringe junkies out there now addicted to all the crazy cabaret, comedy, burlesque, circus and an assortment of perverted weirdness.
After 40 minutes of frustrated trawling online this afternoon in search of cheap tix after seeing that the actual box office did not have a list, I simply did not bother and just sat reading the paper while watching the world go by.
Some of the tasty morsels include parodies of “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead” which are definitely on the serpent wish list along with a choral performance by “The Spooky Men of the West”
Yesterday was so much better. It was the first day and I was happy to snaffle a ticket for a stand up comedy show about whistleblowers featuring stories about the 3 usual suspects. It was sick and twisted and strangely included a snippet from the infamous Apache incident in Iraq that was unleashed on the world wide web by Wikileaks. Aside from that creepiness followed by a crazy clown and squirrels on jet skis - very likely taking the piss of Fox News,
The rest of the evening was spent slinking about the gardens and lurking in the outdoor library while watching the world go by. That did not cost a single cent and it was amusing to watch an army of freakish photobombers stalking an assortment of folks taking selfies, clowns, assorted angels and fairies and even a pair of ‘mermaids’ in a water tank.
Many of the performers wander around spruiking their shows so that in itself is most entertaining. It's the 'elevator pitch' on steroids.
Next week’s menu of freebies includes this tasty morsel
"It's Bingay! Bingo hosted by a drag queen. Get ready for the rudest, crudest, and most non-politically correct hour of Bingo you've ever played. We can't tell you much about the prizes, but we can tell you they're kindly donated by Libido Adult Superstores... "
It is really rather like Mardi Gras on steroids. Instead of one single solitary Tuesday of feasting and partying, it goes on for a whole four weeks.
A government can spend millions on grand architectural statements, monstrous carbuncles and giant ego inflating edifices all in the name of bringing life to the city (and glory to its Goblin masters) but the Fringe festival run at a fraction of the cost (it is very dependent on artists and an army of volunteers to organize them all) has done far more to bring a buzz to the city known all over the land for being boring.
We’re not in Dullsville any more Dorothy. Well at least not until the end of March
There is a very real enormous bunya nut tree without the giant seed pods that have been known to seriously maim or even kill those who encounter them but the rest of the maze is made of plastic plants and shrubbery. With a decadent entry fee of $15 and no early bird discounts, I guess I will just have to die wondering about what really lurks within those plastic walls.
It is the time that the freaks and wierdos come out of their broom closets and take over the town. It’s the most fabulous time of the year. Much more fun than Christmas and a whole lot freakier.
It is the only thing that makes the sizzling stinking hot summer here bearable.
But sometimes one can have too much of a good thing. The fringe festival has now gotten so mainstream with so many shows and venues that the brochures require a microscope to read them. Or maybe that’s only the case for old farts like this ancient serpent.
This year it’s time for the Fringe Binge diet. Gone are the years of seeing 15-20 shows. Of course most of them were on the cheap but the nest eggs aren’t what they used to be. But there’s another big reason. The fringe festival has gotten so big that there is too much choice. Not just the fear of missing out but they seem to have given up the good old fashioned ritual of putting up a list of the shows each day which have the discount tickets.
I would check if anything on my wish list was going cheap and then queue up at the box office for the pretty pink tickets.
People are now expected to trawl through the website which is often on a go slow simply because there’s a whole army of fringe junkies out there now addicted to all the crazy cabaret, comedy, burlesque, circus and an assortment of perverted weirdness.
After 40 minutes of frustrated trawling online this afternoon in search of cheap tix after seeing that the actual box office did not have a list, I simply did not bother and just sat reading the paper while watching the world go by.
Some of the tasty morsels include parodies of “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead” which are definitely on the serpent wish list along with a choral performance by “The Spooky Men of the West”
Yesterday was so much better. It was the first day and I was happy to snaffle a ticket for a stand up comedy show about whistleblowers featuring stories about the 3 usual suspects. It was sick and twisted and strangely included a snippet from the infamous Apache incident in Iraq that was unleashed on the world wide web by Wikileaks. Aside from that creepiness followed by a crazy clown and squirrels on jet skis - very likely taking the piss of Fox News,
The rest of the evening was spent slinking about the gardens and lurking in the outdoor library while watching the world go by. That did not cost a single cent and it was amusing to watch an army of freakish photobombers stalking an assortment of folks taking selfies, clowns, assorted angels and fairies and even a pair of ‘mermaids’ in a water tank.
Many of the performers wander around spruiking their shows so that in itself is most entertaining. It's the 'elevator pitch' on steroids.
Next week’s menu of freebies includes this tasty morsel
"It's Bingay! Bingo hosted by a drag queen. Get ready for the rudest, crudest, and most non-politically correct hour of Bingo you've ever played. We can't tell you much about the prizes, but we can tell you they're kindly donated by Libido Adult Superstores... "
It is really rather like Mardi Gras on steroids. Instead of one single solitary Tuesday of feasting and partying, it goes on for a whole four weeks.
A government can spend millions on grand architectural statements, monstrous carbuncles and giant ego inflating edifices all in the name of bringing life to the city (and glory to its Goblin masters) but the Fringe festival run at a fraction of the cost (it is very dependent on artists and an army of volunteers to organize them all) has done far more to bring a buzz to the city known all over the land for being boring.
We’re not in Dullsville any more Dorothy. Well at least not until the end of March
