Hello Sternal Journalists!
Here are some out-of-context pics from the Edinburgh Fringe. I am a full week behind on this SternJourn, so here we are. You’ll just be able to scroll through it like Instagram. Some of you will find that much better than having to pretend to read a newsletter.
This is the outside of my venue. It is a karaoke bar on a street called Cowgate, which has that name because in the 1400s, it is literally how they got the cows through the city. How thoughtful of them. A dedicated lane for the cows.
Now, Cowgate is a big drunk people street at night, and I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there.
This is the inside of my venue:
As you can see, it is tiny and I still don’t know how to smile. In this picture, there are 15. Today, we packed 27 into it. Yesterday, 8. All over the place, baby.
This is the construction site that wakes me up every day at 7am:
It is annoying and beautiful.
This is a herd of Red Bull mobiles driving down Cowgate.
I wonder if they knew the epic history-spanning visual wordplay they were engaged in.
This is me wearing a bike helmet with a toy siren attached to it. I went to a silent clown show about a Polish hooligan, and he assigned roles to everyone in the audience. I had to chase him around the stage while blaring the police siren and then get into a pantomimed shoot out with him.
It was very Fringe and very good, and you should see it. It’s called Furiozo, and I believe it came out before Furiosa.
This is me and a new friend who was visiting Edinburgh and always starting his day when I was flyering for my show. You see a lot of the same people when you stand in the same place every day at the same time, and it’s always nice chatting with him. I won’t tell you his name so as not to dox him or whatever, but we had a lot of nice chats and on the last day, he said, “You were such a staple of my trip! Can we take a picture together?”
And I love that.
Okay, I think that’s all for now. State of Lateness Emergency dictates this will not be formatted like a normal SternJourn. If you’re dying for recs, this New Yorker article about a shipwreck with a lotta gold is very interesting and this song opens with my favorite lyric I’ve heard in a while and I like this Ezra Klein interview with Tim Walz.
Much love!
Julian