Fringe, newbie style

I walked out of the theater. Barely able to remember why I'd gone. "Oh, yea," I thought duly, I owed the guy a favor. It was one of those storylines that I really can't stand. Apocalyptic propaganda. Between the over acting on behalf of the leads, and the rambling script, I could think of another exciting way to spend my evening...namely, in bed watching the paint from my ceiling curl forward.

I wish I'd discovered this blog in advance, http://newbienyc.blogspot.com. It actually gives a really comprehensive run down of the fringe festival, and actually, everything high culture. Alas, I was left to my own discoveries, and really, I was doing a favor for my friend. He was actually stellar, and I really wished he had more dialogue. The endless rambling of the monologue-driven piece was mind numbing.

I ambled about like a blinded deer. Seeing other dazed and confused theatre goers crowding around a plume of smoke, I walked over to see if anyone was willing to share their cancer with me. In typical smoker's camaraderie, numerous packed were extended to me. Variety is, after all, the spice of life. I chose a peppermint patty flavored smoke, and found a bench to sit on and wonder if it was worse to kill myself SLOWLY with a cigarette, or put a gun to my pounding temples.

"That bad, huh?" said a fellow smoker. I smiled, weakly, and looked at him and said, "I guess I've seen worse. When I was high." We both laughed. "At least we have the huddle of misery to gravitate to after, I suppose," I added. "It would be nice to have a peace pipe, I guess. Or peyote," he said.

It was the magic word. I heard myself tell him that he should try out a sweat lodge then. "Sweat lodge?" he asked, bewildered by that phrase. "Oh! I didn't make up the word. It's a real thing. A Native American ritual that takes place every Fall." Before I knew it, I spent the next 10 minutes talking to him about sweat lodge. The leather tee-pee on the side of the hill in the Catskills, surrounded by wildlife and white-tailed deer, the smudging ceremony before entering, the intention given to the head honcho, the four directions, the camaraderie. He looked at me as if I had suddenly shown him a magic doorway to an emerald city. It is possible to find a silver lining in everything. Magic doors and ‘what can I learn and give today’ thinking. I walked away from the smoky theater, having bid adieu to the fascinated stranger, and off I went, like some type of satirical highlander, to spread knowledge of parallel realities. Gosh I’m full of it.

Labels: festivals, fringe, Rumi, Sweatlodge