My ears perked up when my coffee date mentioned a book called “How to get things done.” My painting projects remain as they were. Unfinished. I did buy some fresh rollers. And I do have somewhat of a system that helps me manage multiple projects. I call it a project journal and I will share more about it later. To really sell the idea, I imagine I should finish a few things first. Proof of concept… though it has already been proved as you will see…
ahem…
Brian and I will be volunteering this week at the Minnesota Fringe Festival. After having produced a podcast about it last year (The Minnesota FringeCast), he wanted to see it from a volunteer angle. So we’re going to play store for a few nights. I’m weirdly nervous about it. When technology fails – the thing you use to swipe a credit card, for example – a cuss word might fly out of my mouth. But the thing is, you’re not supposed to say @#!8(! when you’re wearing the official volunteer shirt. These are my challenges. We went to a show last night where someone at the box office was having this very problem. He didn’t cuss once. He was a real inspiration.
Next year I would like to try hosting artists, but so far Brian is not sold on it. I think he’s afraid that it will be the beginning of my fantasy to run a Zimmer Frei where travelers hear about a cheap bed by word-of-mouth and they do things like weed the garden in exchange for lunch. After a day of sightseeing, our guests will come home and play the piano and pound on the drums. Some will become friends. After a while, postcards documenting their travels will outnumber the bills and random junk in our mailbox.
At first, we seemed to strike out where it came to finding a good Fringe show. At one show, I saw an audience member slip out rather early. She knew. So did I. The signs were there. Then there were the Fringe shows that really pissed us off – one because it was bad and one because it was very good.
As for the bad show, it is tempting to fire off a reply to the five-star reviews that must have been left by sympathetic friends. After all, shouldn’t people be warned? Brian suggested a title: The joke’s on you! But we let it go. It was an insulting waste of time and I would have been horrified had I used this show to introduce a friend to the Fringe. Was it an experiment in which the producers were trying to see what a Minnesota Nice audience would tolerate? Brian said that it was Yes Men (Try “Reburger” on YouTube). It’s the best you can say about this utterly non-theatrical piece. I wondered whether the whole thing was being streamed for the pleasure of the real audience somewhere else. But after thinking about it, I do not regret having stayed when we should have bolted after the first twelve minutes. As “adventurous audience members”, we walked in with an open mind, though I admit that in protest I eventually resorted to staring at the floor and writing the next part of my short story in my head. But still, we stayed with the idea of giving the artist a chance to complete a thought. This took trust. Our trust was betrayed.
The show we saw last night, You Are Cordially Invited to the Life and Death of Edward Lear also made Brian mad, but in a different way. You see that show and you wonder where the heck our priorities are. What would be possible if more people saw shows like this? On a regular basis? Where the price of tickets did not exclude anyone and where artists could make a decent living? It would be a kinder, gentler place, for one thing. Funner too. The show was so beautiful. So packed with talent and curiosity and infectious passion for stories and history and just being a person on the planet. You can read more extensive reviews on the website. The show sold out last night and will again, I’m sure. Maybe at some point I can get Brian to write more extensively about his frustration with our priorities. I hear about it whenever we see inspiring art, be it at the Fringe, the State Fair or a museum or whenever we encounter anyone who just has deep knowledge about anything, like the guy who sold us a rug.
We haven’t seen too many shows yet, but there are a couple of others that I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Quiet Riot – by Broken Box Mime Theater out of New York
The Zoo Story – By Jackdonkey Productions
What great work!
As for some of the shows that didn’t quite work, I imagine they are much like my painting projects in that they are still unfinished. The script might need work. The actors have yet to master their craft… if they ever do. For it can be easy to rest in mediocrity, kind of like the way I dink around with the piano, which is why I want house guests who can play for real. You can tell the difference. At the same time, I do like the idea of the unpolished being invited to participate in a show. Within certain guided parameters, I’d like to think that anyone can play a part. Of course, I’d rather only see great shows than anything else. But it’s also okay to see a range of things and some would argue that seeing the truly bad is actually part of the Fringe experience. But bad can mean a lot of things. It can mean lazy. That’s a little hard to take. It can mean cynical. No thanks. It can also mean beginner, taking risks, trying something new or being ambitious beyond one’s talents. Not bad things at all.
Keep trying. Get better. Finish something.