festival notes., sick of lists sick., condition of the arts.,

late august, edinburgh.

the festival has drawn to a close. it is now time for me to draw together the very scattered notes , to write the piece on the festival, to do the job, to write about the belly of the beast.

initial thought on the condition of the arts in this country and elsewhere represented by the festival : they are sick, degrading sweaty self-debassing spectacles sponsored by the bank of scotland and E4 tv channel media puss fueled, stagnating wringing every penny out of your pocket sick, unfunny stand up joke routines sick that play on stereotypes and knob gags sick, overly affected image conscious sick wearing the day-glo shades of self deception sick too much of the time sick, wanting to believe beyond all evidence that this is it sick, the world revolves around two-bit "every-shakespeare-play-in-60-seconds” sick, ethnic bands hawking their ethnicity for a few dollars sick, scottish bag pipers banned - on account of noise - from the royal mile and central festival in scotland sick, the usual critics swirling about the cafe scenes so chic drawing clouds in their coffee sick, mustering every ounce of buddha like patience not to punch the lights out of another hysterical idiot trying to ram flyers for their half-baked performance down your throat sick, sick of lists sick...
but at all that, if you scratch the surface - sick - there's gotta be something you tell yourself, and you'd be right, it's there all right, and it's not all sick.

*

hesq.,