Every morning we have a 1-2 kilometer walk to the venue in central Edinburgh. Usually I get up in the morning and have a cup of tea with the free breakfast that comes with the room while Eli sleeps in. Teens need more sleep than adults. I also use that time to call friends and write these entries.
Once out of the hotel room on our late morning trek to our first show (I am writing this before out morning show on Friday entitled, Dad Wears a Dress, more on this in a following post … i assume) any way on this trek we usually stop at a small family owned coffeeshop called The Dean, the Dean is the village you would see if you descended in to this strange wild nature area below the street of the village. Oh dear, we are digressing today—maybe the don’t make the edits. Anyway, we go to The Dean and they have come to know us and we discuss the Fringe Festival, the owner seems to be a very intelligent left wing sort that we naturally get along with. So we now usually have a nice chat with him.
Thursday morning’s session began with a performance of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. In which a small troupe of actors act out the key actors in the animal farm, which are of course mostly animals. It was entertaining virtuoso acting. However, the best that could be said for it is you don’t need to read Orwell’s masterpiece to understand it—it was like a cliff’s notes version of the work adding no deeper understanding but rather a highlights version of the work—who is more timely now more than ever.
Our next show we almost missed because of a recurring problem I heretofore did not mention with Google and Apple maps which only seems to be getting worse. Namely Apple Maps will sometimes lead us to the completely wrong location. While Google Maps, which tilts about as if my phone were drunk, will incorrectly say we are traveling in the wrong direction and sometimes lead us to a place that is in the middle of a small body of water, or street or other impossible location. In this particular instance it took 25 minutes for Google maps to get its bearings correctly to guide us to the venue and not down non existent streets and alleyways.
When we did arrive, we were generously allowed to be seated after it started and the performer, a self-described Drag King, Brake Down, greeted us in front of the audience. He added, after my eyes adjusted and i could find two unoccupied streets that, sorry to embarrass you but that’s what you get for arriving late. He sang a short set of Tom Waits songs, but included off color jokes about being transgender and also about his favorite performer, Tom Waits. Other queer Tom Waits groupies were there. Brake Down passed out toy musical instruments to everyone and he asked us to more or less randomly accompany the songs—which was surprisingly effective. I thought I was doing pretty well until Eli insisted we switch instruments, and he took the castanet’s and i had the egg shaped things that barely emitted a rumbling noise. He sang the songs Eli was completely enchanted with Mr. Down and they had a great talk afterwards about Transgender processes and Brake shared his twitter handle with Eli so he could ask any questions about transitioning that he might have.
The last show for the day was a full length play, Making History, based on the science fiction novel by Stephen Fry. It was probably the best acted play we saw so far and that’s a high praise for the high quality we have scene. The actors here were completely focused, believable, Broadway or West End quality. The story was a little weak about someone who tries to time travel to eliminate Adolf Hitler, only to find out that who replaced him was much worse and much more successful. So he had to time travel to undo the mess. The play was overall extremely enjoyable if less edifying than Animal Farm was that morning.
Meanwhile Google Maps struck again on the way home and instead of leading us via a road back to the hotel it had us descend in the pitch dark along a half-broken stairwell down along the path of a river far below the road. It was a thrilling walk home including a huge monster scutlling ahead of us, that Eli insisted was a mouse.
The total darkness along the rushing river and not knowing precisely where we were made it very exciting and mysterious. We had a great time together and are eager to take the same path again, though preferably in daytime to enjoy the scenery. I wasn’t afraid, it was scary and serious since there was no barriers into the water, but the water did not look deep and with the lights on from our iPhones we easily navigated back home. My nerves were rattled enough that I asked for a double shot of Dahlmmore scotch with a little water. The barmaid served it in a special glass for single malt whisky. Eli said, “Aren’t you suppose to serve it in a shot glass and just down it?” I replied, “There is liquor that is meant for its effect and other liquor that is meant for it’s taste.” And tha young barmaid added, “And this is intended for it’s taste. But liquor like Vodka or anything else that you’re meant to try not to taste is for it’s effect.”
I enjoyed my sipping of my whisky while Eli enjoyed a Dr. Pepper, we were both sipping for taste.
