Saturday morning, 7.35am. This hasty phone-photo doesn’t quite capture the sight of London’s iconic buildings awakening out of the mist. There is something quite serene about the damp chill you get on these misty mornings. It is part of that time of day when you can walk alone through places that will be thronging with people in just a few hours. Joggers and postmen know just what I mean.
It is a source of great worry to me that I am not really a “morning person,” and rarely see this time of day. I should do it more often.
Opie Zeitgeist
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Several Edinburgh Fringe Festival shows this year have marketed themselves with Julian Opie style images. I’m not quite sure why Opie’s aesthetic, made famous by the Best of Blur album cover design in 2000, has suddenly caught the zeitgeist. Perhaps the producers see how the stylistic forms, which are simplistic yet idiosyncratic, remind us how we build up our ideas of the human and its nature from a few bold strokes. More or less the same lines, but a million different possibilities. The same, they reason, could be said of their play.
Or perhaps its just easy, lazy design, tapping into an already recognisable ‘cool’. Maybe its a coincidence.
Elsewhere, I see Jabr-wocky has suggested that the Best of Blur album may have been derivative in itself.
Edinburgh Minge
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Midnight, and a busker on Edinburgh’s Cowgate cannot believe his luck. Two drunk young ladies with belts for skirts decide to whip up some loose change from the punters, by performing an erotic dance for passers-by. While the guitarist strums rock classics, badly, they rub their arses on each others breasts, and (with practiced ease) bite each others buttocks. The crowd is three deep. The minge of the fringe.
We walk on to the Smirnoff Underbelly, and into the popular late night comedy review ‘Spank’. They have a popular feature called ‘The Naked Promo’ where one plucky Fringe performer can promote their show, on stage… but only if they are naked. An actor from the much trailed Bloggers takes the challenge, and we get to hear all about the show, while looking at his cock.
I think I’ve seen enough pubic hair for one night.
Faces in the crowd
Watching the Spanish Harlem Orchestra at the Open Air Stage, WOMAD 2006.
Rainbow
Edinburgh Castle, 9pm.