Even his mole was gorgeous

It's been 8 years since I've been to this festival. hard to believe. Last time was just before I was due to leave town, go travelling, go changing and all that. Just as I'd settled in. My friend Brig said it will all still be here... but Jen disputes that.

So this time round, I did have a moment of absolute antsiness towards the crowds. It was suggested that 30,000 attend, more than all the people that lived in my home town. All gathered together in the size of football grounds. The angst was partly at my own foolishness for abandoning the writers tent for a quest for coffee, that caused me to push past people to gain any momentum and almost lose all grasp of what the day was about: community, neighbourhood, helping less advantaged people. Listening to the music, enjoying the crowds, discovering something unexpected. As a visitor, there was the sense of envy for the people actively involved in creating it: I didn't just want to be a purveyor, I wanted to produce.

Whilst Splatty danced to one of the bands (a song about a potato, a guy that looked like he was once in Degrassi High), I eyed off the bingo game being held in the arts tent. Indi befriended everyone in the vincinity, happily pretended to fetch a stick, flopped fondly next to a stranger, even kept up the facade of belonging to me when I needed her to. Such an awesome dog, just Daisy, intelligent and companionable.

There were quite a few good bands, enjoyable, fun, creating a nice amusing energy: I like seeing bands in the daytime, being able to dance or sit or see, without having to keep fuelled up for the evening. Then in our travels, when we were in a bottleneck of a walkway, we overhead the following:

Guy 1: I used to not drink all week and then go hard on the weekend. But now I drink every day (skulls his can). It's so hard not to!
Guy 2: Yeah, I know. Especially when you live with an alcoholic! (sips one of his beer cans whilst holding on to his reserve can in the other hand) And then you've got the work situation where everyone is drinking ALL THE TIME.

Two self aware alcoholics. Nat had also met someone the previous day who confessed to drinking large daily quantitities of bourbon. What are we? A country of fatties and alcoholics that don't exercise enough and drink too much sitting on the couch? We all need a bit of Castro cuban state of emergency health care.... (actually I think costa rica is the central american country with the best health ecological footprint).

Then I headed off to the lennox street studios. Walking along Australia Street and Lennox street, I remembered how much I love the streets around the Camperdown cemetery. The artists studios were good, as expected, the were 2 printmakers doing their thing, both passed on tips about types of paint, rollers and pressing techniques (yep, elbow grease), carving, sources of supplies, types of paper and so forth. One of them, Rebecca, had created 5 lino prints, telling her story of a man escaping the city, falling away, swimming away, driving away, eventually fleeing through the outback. The other, Ro Cook, had lino prints onto fabric, some plain, some tinted in desert hues, all abstract story depictions of outback landscapes, immediately recognisable and just complex enough.

It gave me ideas that I want to sit down with. Oh, when is my next day off? Stayed awake too long last night. I always like staying with friends for that reason, lying on the couch under blankets or whatever, talking away about things by the lamplight. My sister and I spent hours with the spirograph kit she had, drawing circles and spirals across graph paper and reject computer sheets from my fathers work. I remembered the 70s bleeding into the 80s and reading comics.  Nat read comics at her grandmothers, all the cousins being allowed to buy one comic each before you could swap it. Love comic swapping. She'd also watch cartoons on tv, I said I never cared for the cartoons but instead spent hours watching The Waltons.

"I even had a little crush on John Boy" I confessed.
"Oh, but he was gorgeous" she agreed, "Even his mole was gorgeous".