Est. Read Time: 2 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections + Housing.
New to the SternJourn? Check out the best of 2021, 2020, or whichever random classic this is.
Hello Sternal Journalists,
Still chugging away in Edinburgh with just one week left. This is the favorite street performance mentioned in the subject:
That’s right. A bottle of gin with a half-eaten banana stuffed into it. Look, it’s not as talented as Moon Cabaret, whom I stumbled upon on a walk in a park and plays what I can best describe as Latin Clown Jazz; and it’s not as dangerous as the multiple casual fire-jugglers I’ve seen; nor is it nearly as sentient as either one.
But it is equal parts simple and insane, which is a very tough needle to thread. And, just like all great art, it leaves more questions than answers. Did the gin and banana come from the same person, or did someone leave their empty liquor bottle and another person stuffed their banana into it? Was the banana bad or did the anonymous artist abandon a good banana for the sake of the scene?
I personally love the urgency it evokes. I imagine our hero walking down the street guzzling a bottle of gin, happily chomping on a banana, when some emergency erupted into their life. Perhaps they had a choice between the last slug of gin and the final bites of banana before they had to make away post-haste.
But normally, urgency just results in litter. Banana and gin more than a foot apart? Trash. Even if the banana was leant up against bottle, it would have been slightly unique but unnoticeable. No, the urgency is nothing without the RADICAL DAINTINESS of one’s need to plant the banana in the gin socket.
Whoever our protagonist is said “Ah! Egads! I need to lose these accoutrements which are holding me back, but I must do it in the politest way possible for whoever comes to clean up my mess.” That’s some Jackie Chan-James Bond gentleman bandit shit.
But why, Julian, why if you’re at the best arts festival in the world have you dedicated an hour of your life to waxing about this Classic Sternal Journal-style forced piece of shit?
Well, for one: where other than a city that transforms into a magical arts festival for a month should one strain themselves to find art where art isn’t? And for another: it’s ending soon!
There are six days left, which is in some ways a lot. But it is essentially second semester senior year of the Fringe. While there is plenty of fun yet to be had, and arguable better fun because we have more experience and perspective, we all know that it’s followed by going back into that big cold world.
Literally everyone I’ve talked to in the past forty-eight hours is feeling some sort of pressure about squeezing the most out of the last week of this thing, whether it’s about professional advancement or number of shows still to be seen. And I’m absolutely one of them.
As much as I want to take the whole mentality and life I’m enjoying right now back into the Non-Fringe Time (NFT), I know it’s not possible to transpose this life—starting every day with a sausage roll and a walk by a castle and ending it with a big fun set and a night of beer garden cabarets—directly onto the one I live in LA.
And one part of me knows I shouldn’t even worry about that while I’m still here, but another part of me thinks that absorbing as much of this as possible in order to take it home with me will take some planning.
So I am feeling, one might say, a sense of urgency as well as a need to be mindful and dainty with myself about all of this.
I am feeling like a half-eaten banana placed in an empty bottle of gin.
Recommendations
Tom Crosbie. Performer. I saw his show, Nerd’s Eye View, yesterday and it blew me away. He promises at the top that he is not a comedian or a magician, but simply a nerd. And he delivers. The shit this man can do with a Rubik’s Cube and a deck of cards is insane, made only more insane by the fact that there’s no slight of hand or illusion of any sort. The trick he does by memorizing a deck of cards is just as thrilling to see as his explanation of how he undergoes the memorization. He’s on Twitch if you’re into that sort of thing! I don’t know if he tours in the US!
Malcolm Gladwell on Joe Rogan. Podcast Episode. Okay, listen, listen. I know. This is a pretty egregious rec. But I was doing laundry and needed to unwind somehow. I love listening to Malcolm Gladwell in interviews and I’m always a little fascinated by Rogan for somebody who has only listened to I think two episodes before. This listen really underlined for me how Rogan is a fascinating but kind of bad interviewer. He had only *listened to* two chapters of the book he was purportedly interviewing Gladwell about and kept just veering away from the science that Gladwell certainly pop-ifies but tries to stick to and towards conspiracy and conjecture. He’s basically a human YouTube algorithm. That is also why I get that he’s in some ways a good listen. He pushes for the sensational, he has no qualms about being unprepared which gives him the confidence needed for a compelling conversation. I guess I don’t know if this is a recommendation so much as an illumination.
Max Bakes. Sausage Rolls. Every morning or afternoon, I go for a walk on The Meadows, a beautiful park in Edinburgh. And every morning or afternoon, I stop at this sausage roll truck to get a sausage roll. They are delicious, kind, and they have vegan options. One time, I saw Max preparing the rolls to be bakes in one long tube and I said “Wow! It’s so cool to see the process!” And he kindly explained the baking process as he would to a child, which is how I was acting when I said “WOW! It’s so cool to see the process!” If you’re ever in Edinburgh, go visit.
Well, that’s all folks! Off to squeeze as much gin out of this last banana as I can!
Love,
Julian
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.