One of the problems of having visitors at Festival time is that even the gaps between events tend to get swallowed up being sociable.  That's my excuse for not having written anything about what I've been to in the last several days and now I can't be bothered to write very much.  But I want to have a record so here are some brief notes.

Another Kronos Quartet concert in which one piece by a former Beiruti featured recordings of bombs and gunfire made during the Lebanese civil war. At this time of WWI commemoration it was a powerful reminder that the war to end all wars didn't.

Ever since I encountered Vita Sackville-West in Harold Nicolson's diaries in the 60s I've been mildly fascinated by the Sackville-West family.  I thought her goings on were on the odd side but there are other interesting skeletons in the family cupboard and Robert Sackville-West has taken some out and given them an airing in The Disinherited. It is a sad but fascinating tale of illegitimate children and family squabbles with which he entertained a packed Book Festival tent.  It's on my Christmas list.

Another author, not so well known and whose tent was not quite so tightly packed was Phil Adams who read us his entry to the City of Literature Story Shop competition.  The engaging little tale of a salmon and a bear had to fight hard to be heard above the torrential rain beating down on the spiegel tent but we all enjoyed it as we did the Prosecco downed by friends and family in celebration afterwards.

The Royal Overseas League runs an annual music competition.  This year's gold medal winner was a saxophonist and I went to hear him in a programme called Sax before Midnight.  It was a mightily varied programme that finished with the always appealing and melodic tangos of Piazzola.  He started however with a piece by Stockhausen, renowned in my mind for his Helicopter Quartet and for his general oddness.  If I heard Im Freundschaft correctly though he had a sense of humour, as did the person who dressed in a bear suit to play it on bassoon.

When it was suggested that we go to see MacAulay and Co. being recorded for BBC Radio Scotland I reflected that I could just as well have stayed in my bed to listen to it but I went along and rather enjoyed it.
 
The Pure, the Dead and the Brilliant by Alan Bissett explores the issue of Scottish independence from the point of view of  some mythical creatures of folklore, a selkie, a banshee, a bogle and a demon. It's very funny and doesn't take itself too seriously though its conclusion that independence is the way to go comes as no surprise.  The audience are caught up in the general hilarity and from where I sat I could see only one NO vote amidst a sea of YESs as we waved our programmes, folded to show the appropriate page, at the end.

One wet evening we set off to find some folk music.  The Royal Oak was our first port of call.  We couldn't find a gap in the crowd listening to free music in the main bar so dived downstairs and parted with a very modest sum to be entertained for an hour or so by a trio of young and accomplished players.  I've forgotten their name but I'd go again.  We spent an unsatisfactory time in Sandy Bell's afterwards where I doubt if even the musicians could hear themselves then went through various musicless pubs and ended up at the tailend of a free, funny and filthy comedy gig.
 
Crammed onto the tiny stage in the Jazz Bar were eight musicians who gave us a terrific version of The Rite of Spring.  If it sounds discordant said the leader Dave Patrick talking about their work on the piece just think what it sounds like when it's not played properly.  Of course in this case it's the dissonance that gives it character and according to this piece in The Telegraph was probably a major cause of the riot at its premier.

The first play I went to at The Fringe this year was by Marivaux and I was delighted to find that another of his plays was being performed.  I was even more delighted when I saw Games of Love and Chance.  This 18th century romantic comedy in which mistress swaps place with her maid to observe the man destined to be her husband and he does likewise with his valet had been transported to the 1920s and its comedy stretched to farce.  It was terrifically well acted and I look forward to seeing another TwoSquared Productions show next year.

In a bare basement corner of Summerhall an audience of a dozen or so stood for an hour around a long low narrow table.  At one end a nurse, at the other a soldier, each only inches away from us. The play consisted of periods of action simulating men rushing forward under fire followed by periods in which letters full of love, hope and longing were exchanged.  The horror of the war was simply but powerfully shown.  At a whistle blast from the nurse the soldier began an attack.  He rocked back and forward with ever increasing urgency, willing himself to get to the wire and focussing his mind on the future he hoped for while she created the noise of war. The attack culminated in the actor throwing pieces of liver at the wall.  The attack over, the nurse collected the pieces of liver and sorted them into "dead", "blighty" and "fixed, back you go".  Eventually after one attack a letter comes from the War Office, "killed in action".  When The Flood was over there was rightly no curtain call and no applause. 

Fortunately liver wasn't on the menu of the excellent meal we had afterwards in The Royal Dick.

The last play of my Fringe going (one EIF play to go) was definitely the oddest and rivalled the cosmonaut play in its ability to fail to communicate anything to me.  Lippy started with a very nicely observed and humorous after show discussion about a play we are supposed to have just seen.  Then we see a play in which four women variously ferret about in bin bags full of shredded paper, hang over tables, squat on buckets and ultimately I believe die from starvation.  They don't say very much in the course of the action.  It seemed to me the sort of play Salvador Dali might have written.  Proper theatre critics have made some sense of it and I much appreciate Lyn Gardner's review in The Guardian for articulating much of what I felt about the show.  

A late night session at the Jazz Bar featuring the Russian trumpeter Valery Ponomarev backed by a galaxy of local jazzmen was excellent entertainment although I found Mr Ponomarev's insistence that we all applaud and clap along a degree less amusing than he did.

Eager to get the lowdown on collateral debt obligations and the like I went to hear John Lanchester on his book Money Talk: Nonsense Versus Bullshit.  It was very amusing but a serious and cautionary tale nonetheless.  What a balls-up it's all been since the smart money men started selling mortgages to people with no hope of being able to keep up the payments.