The Illustrated Woodford 3: Off to the Circus!

When I say that I'm a horizontal recruit to the Woodford Folk Festival, I mean it, in the sense that I would never have ever gone if it wasn't for the fact that the man I love has been every year since it started. He's not a folkie, he's a circus and juggling junkie. A lot of our Woodford time is spent hanging around the circus tents and stages, appreciating how many clubs someone can toss, or how slick their act is, or how amusing their patter. I've always loved circuses, but it's a whole new world hanging out with someone who can watch one critically and come away telling me what was wrong with it. Consequently I'm getting quite fussy about live acts.

One big regret about this year is that I was just too buggered to stay up late and so I missed some really good stuff. I missed Terry the Great and Family's latest show, the All Star Fish. I have seen them a few times, so I can live with that. What I do regret is missing an act called 61 Acts in 60 Minutes with Circa. All reports are that it was spectacular. And Rumple wasn't there this year! Bummer.

I saw half of Bulldust and Spangles with Top Chick, an all-women show. Actually, I saw probably a quarter of it then fell asleep thanks to a completely tedious S&M roleplaying acrobatic act and BB woke me a few acts later and we walked out. Nice try, but no banana from me. I did take a nice photo (to add to my circus shadows collection) of the shadows during one overly-long hanging-from-twirly-material act, so at least something nice came from the experience.


There was a fair bit of circusy stuff to see around the streets, including the marvellous Whacko and Blotto, who only come out way after dark, sitting in their caravan and doing whatever the hell they feel like, with all manner of props including a giant chicken head puppet and sundry bottles of alcohol.



The circus highlight for me was Bewland's Bluegrass Circus. The people who put this together did a great job. It had energy, humour, damn good stunts, and enough narrative to maintain a good pace. A good, tight show. The premise was a family of hillbillies, but Aussie ones, not attempting to put on any grating southern accents. Bewland was the main dude, able to play banjo at at least 145 rpm whilst standing on his head. Also an awesome juggler.

Apparently "Bew" means bad, and "land" means land, so Bewland means the bit of land outside the village that nobody wants, aka "Shitland"

Chicken was his wife, a trapeze artist in a chicken suit. She was mute, just doing a bit of eyebrow action, and she could work that swing. Then there was Grandpa, who sat on stage through the whole show behind a drum kit, playing drums, assorted instruments and interjecting occasionally with tasteful ditties such as

Chicken, Chicken,
She's the one!
I like lickin'
Her brown bum…

Most of the children in my family now chant that gleefully whenever they see a chicken.

Bewland balancing, while Turkey & Chicken look on. Grandpa's at the back, banging his drum.

Another member of the family was Turkey, Bewland's brother, an ace fiddler who talked with an outrageous speech impediment when the lights were up and a suave hollywood voice-over voice when the tent was dark. He used the impediment when performing 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia', rendering it almost indecipherable but highly enjoyable. he also played some kick-ass Stravinsky (if my memory serves me correctly) whilst spinning around the room on a cable.

Turkey in action


Then there was Daisy, Bewland's daughter, played by a gorgeous hunk of a man with the sweetest face, dressed in a blue gingham dress and blonde plaited wig. The storyline included her father buying her a husband on the internet, but when the hubby-to-be jumped out of his packaging it turned out to be her cousin from the next town (argh! can't remember his name!). They fell in love and spent most of the show doing terrific acrobatic and strongman feats whilst pretending to chase each other around and have sex. I adore skilful clowning, and there was plenty of it.

Daisy in love...

There were also a couple of juggling fellows who teamed up with Bewland (as a little digression) as Team Bewlando. Excellent juggling with clubs and they all got to whack whomever dropped the clubs and broke the rhythm. Again, great clowning mixed with high levels of skill.

I have the feeling that this was created exclusively for the Woodford Folk Festival, but I think it would be very successful at other venues. The creative energy behind the show is a team called Strut and Fret, who seem to represent a lot of good alternate acts like the sadly now-defunct Happy Sideshow and Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, so I'm feeling optimistic about future fun things from this arena.

Next time: I'll show you what my visual arts workshops got up to at the Festival! Then I'll shut up about it all and get on with the rest of my life. Mind you, not much else has happened so far (except a brief interaction with some For Battlers yesterday – hooray!)

Five weird things about Duckie

Another intermission, cause I can't resist anymore. It's been so much fun reading about other people's perceived weirdnesses.

1. Whenever I mentally recall an embarrassing moment, I start audibly humming muzak. Usually showtunes or bits of jazz. I don't realise I'm doing it at first, and it's one of those 'how loud have I been doing this?' moments when I do catch myself. I suppose I'm trying to change the subject in my head! I've caught myself doing it in the middle of conversations with people and during sex.

2. I have quite strong dislikes to certain food-stuffs, based on smell. I can't remember having been a fussy child, but I must have been, because I made it through to adulthood with a fair few dislikes. Any that were based on sight or texture I've managed to overcome, but if I don't like the smell, I won't eat or drink it. These include: cucumber (can't even use a facepack smelling of it), beer, coffee, and oranges. If someone peels an orange in close proximity, I'm gagging.

3. I do, however, like eating frozen peas while still frozen. Big cups of them. And so does my son.

4. I am married to a very weird man (well, he's about me a lot!). He's quite shy, and thanks to bad acne, didn't fare well in the ways of love, so he spent a lot of his teen years and 20s perfecting a lot of silly faces, noises and juggling tricks, all executed in a droll, dry manner. Most people think he is a very straight, very square man. Until they get to know him. Kids find out a lot quicker -- he's like the Pied Piper in a group of them.

5. I have a heart-shaped box. In medical terms this is called a bicornuate uterus. Too much information? Thought so. Means I have a higher risk of miscarriages and premmies. Bummer.

Five weird pictures by Duckie:


Practicing Leunig squiggles with pubic hair


My recently dead grandfather's ear


My still alive grandfather's ear


Birdie puddle


Mad cat (Pooter)

The Illustrated Woodford Files 2: amusements

I find that the acts offered at Woodford are totally secondary to the people-watching opportunities, and I also found, this year, that it wasn't as fun a line-up as the other years I've been. Maybe that is because I was busy in other ways, but I spent a lot of time wandering around catching little bits of things rather than chasing down particular acts.

The one exception is the 'Snack, Popple and Crap' breakfast show by Martin Pearson and John Thompson which is the best way to begin your Woodford (and National) Folk Festival day. Held at the Troubadour Wine Bar, it is an age-old institution, and the audience-member-in-the-know arrives a long time before the 9am start time, to get the best a seat.

The Troubadour Wine tent, at breakfast time

We have a habit of sending one of us along (usually BB, as he wakes up at dawn's crack anyway) to save seats. up until this year, it's a long tedious wait with a coffee and the papers, but this year John and Martin organised a couple of slots before the show to showcase up and coming singers. It looked (to the cynical eye) like J&M were meeting nice young girlie singer/songwriters around the performers' showerblock and offering to make them a star, because there were very few male up and coming singers featured. nevertheless, it made the waiting time a lot more fun, and it did introduce me to some great voices, one of whom I mentioned earlier, Emma Dean (Hello, Emma, in case your mum googled you again! The cheque is in the mail for a CD!).

Anyhoo, breakfast with Martin and John is a series of jolly japes with good jokes, fun songs and interesting guests (George Negus was there the first day, and Sandy McCutcheon made appearances through the week). Martin sources a lot of stuff from the internet to read out, although I do suffer a bit from the fact that he reads the same jokes at Woodford as he reads at the National Folk Festival (at Easter in Canberra). But that's my fault for going to too many bloody festivals (I'm not a devoted folkie, just married to someone who likes to think he is, but isn't!).


This is the new Troubadour 'annex', affectionately dubbed Daisy Hill, which allows a much bigger crowd to listen to what is happening on stage. No problems with overcrowding this year! Until now, if you turned up late, there was no chance in hell of seeing or hearing anything. Now, you sit on the hill. A much better arrangement.


John, on the left, was a lawyer until a few years ago when he threw it all in for love and music. He is now one half of the gorgeous Cloudstreet. He has a beautiful tenor voice, and a keen appreciation of the absurd.

Breakfast Martin (on the right) is one half of himself, and I mean that in the sense that there is comedian Martin, who splits his face in half with a huge grin and has a razor-sharp wit, and then there is musician Martin, who sings beautiful folk ballads with his eyes closed (always! never opens his eyes when singing 'real' music) and performs spoken word acts like reading the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf to Celtic music (one of the highlights of this year's festival for me). I get the feeling he would like this latter half appreciated more.

Martin reciting Beowulf, to the accompaniment of Nancy Kerr and James Fagan.
His best work so far (I think) is his comic musical interpretation of The Lord of the Rings, The Unfinished Spelling Errors of Bolkien. And I'm cackling away in the audience on the CD! heh.


Liz Frencham performing her cover of a Fozzie Bear song while Martin and John do Muppetty things with arms (unfortunately sitting at the side of the stage, but perhaps capturing the best view!)

The other marvellous regular amusement at WFF is the variety of street theatre. Again, I failed to photograph some of the best things, and I'm extremely sorry to miss the chance to shoot the kangaroos. They were brilliant. Three huge big red roo costumes, constructed a-la Tank Girl style (complete with flying goggles) from fake fur and using spring stilts to bounce around, with one female (carrying a toy joey) and two males. The males had huge bobbling testicles under their tails, which squeaked if anyone squeezed them (there's always someone in a crowd who wants to squeeze testicles). They would bounce around through the crowd, joking and teasing (they didn't have kangaroo faces, just left their own faces exposed under the ears). If one of the minibuses came near, or anyone with a torch, they would shriek out warnings about THE HEADLIGHTS!!! and pretend to be transfixed. They would also find grassy patches and lie around scratching themselves and chatting to passers-by. They were the bomb.

Other entertainers included Huge seagulls, who walked around being naughty, The Woodford Marching Girls, sundry floaty faery-type chicks, Big Rory (an enormous scotsman on stilts), plus

The Woodford Cricketers, who would find odd areas to play, just in case anyone was missing the cricket...


'Squirt', an installation of perspex frogs in jewel-like colours that had variously-toned frog sounds activated by pressure-sensors so that people could squirt them with water and make their own music.


Will-o-the-Wisp Fire Circus...


and lots of huge lantern puppets, including a dragon that you can see in the crowd scene in an earlier post.

Other good things seen:

Eric Bibb. Shite photo, awesome man. Charismatic uplifting blues, if such a thing can exist. I will never miss an opportunity to see him again as long as I live.



Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen. A bit strange to travel to Qld to see them when they are quite often close to home, but they never disappoint. They had a scheduled session entitled 'From the Desk of the Black Sea Gents' which was meant to be a panel discussion of their roots and influences, but ended up being an opportunity for them to be naughty and taunt the audience, with Mikel stripping down to his jocks at one point.

Stay tuned for the next time I can find a moment. I hope you're enjoying this. Let me know if you're sick of the whole subject. (Then I could start telling you stories of drinking an awesome marguerita last night while Zoe skinnydipped in her new paddling pool.)

BTW

I take a break from my scheduled holiday reminiscences to indulge Zoe with a meme. This meme has been brought to you today by the letter I and the number 4.

Four jobs you've had in your life:
Life Model.
Fabulous for meeting people, but they only talk to you when your clothes are off. Weirdly, as soon as you put your clothes back on, everyone clams up and can't make eye-contact.

Taxi Driver.
Inspired in my uni daze by my male friends who would sit in the uni bar and swap stories about their shifts. All my female friends were waitresses and shop assistants, and I thought 'f*ck that for a joke' and managed with great difficulty to find someone to train me. Problem is, all the Canberra owner/drivers were men, and their wives didn't approve of women trainees sitting jockey in the car all day. Loved this job, left it when I didn't feel safe anymore. Note to self: do a post on this one day.

Desktop Publisher.
Pays the bills

Letterpress Printer.
Keeps the soul alive. I promise I will blog more about this in 2006.

Four movies you could watch over and over:
This is REALLY hard for a Libran. The list changes daily. Today it goes thus:
The Philadelphia Story
Muriel's Wedding
Kal Ho Na Ho
Amelie

Four places you've lived:
In a weatherboard house on Bend 4 of Mt Nelson Road in Hobart.
In the sandstone house next to the Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head in Sydney.
In a terrace house in Shrivenham, Wiltshire, England.
In the top floor of B section, Toad Hall, Australian National University (before they threw all the hippies and druggies out and made it nice).

Four TV shows you love to watch:
This is hard because (1) see above re. the movies, and (2) I don't watch a lot of live tv. Maybe I'll choose four of my all-time favourites.
Black Books.
The Goodies.
Pride and Prejudice.
The Royle Family.

Four places you've been on holiday:
Kalgoorlie, WA
Cadbury's Chocolate Factory, Hobart
A camping road trip in a Saab around Sweden, Norway and Denmark
Houston, Texas, US, staying with fundamentalist Christians. Say no more.

Four websites you visit daily:
bloglines
wikipedia
abebooks
ebay Australia

Four of your favorite foods:
Chocolate.
Is red wine a food? let's say yes.
Chickpeas. In anything.
Spaghetti Bolognese. But only if I cook it.

Four places you'd rather be:
In bed. Reading. (I know that's specific, but I can't help it. It's the best place to read.)
In a bath. Reading. (but only something that can be freely exposed to steam, like old paperbacks and crappy magazines.)
At Depot Beach (far away in time). Reading.
Playing with type. (Reading upside down, back to front.)

Four Play:
but only if you want to...
Sorrow's Laura
Comicstrip Hero
Kate
Deanto keep you going until we can get board-gaming.

The Illustrated Woodford Files (1): an introduction

As promised, here is a collection of photos taken over the week that was the Woodford Folk Festival (26 Dec - 2 Jan). Click on the title if you want to look at the official website, but it hasn't mounted anything recent yet (everyone involved is probably still lying prone, gasping). It's still a good way to see what I'm talking about. However, it's not really right to call Woodford a folk festival, methinks. There's very little trad folk. It's just a motley collection of performers who don't quite fit into conventional genres. And a lot of weird and alternate people wandering around feeling smug that they managed to get tickets through the website this year. All the ferals have been shunted out by their inability to get online. Seriously. There was a distinct lack of smelly colour this year.

I'll cobble just a bit of the website here, for those who want directions:
Where is Woodford?
Woodford is a small town about 27 km from the Caboolture turnoff on the Bruce Highway, about an hour north of Brisbane. To get to the festival, simply follow the road all the way through Caboolture, Wamuran, D'Aguilar through the town of Woodford. About 2 kms out of Woodford, turn right at the Beerwah – Kilcoy Road. Turn left into Woodrow Road and follow the signs to the festival.

When we arrived, at about 6.15am on Boxing Day, there was a queue of cars, buses, minibuses, caravans, combis and other assorted vans stretched out for a couple of kilometres. Even when the gates were meant to open the line stayed still, as the ticketing process had been changed and no-one was familiar with the new workings. So it was a long hot wait for entry. Once in, there are a lot of cars to park, tents to go up, and tarpaulins to be raised before the music can start.

I have to admit, I didn't take my camera around a lot. It was just too hot to carry lots of stuff around, and I never think about taking photos when I'm busy. So what I'm posting here is a motley assortment of shots taken over the week, many of them during a brilliant concert at the hilltop stage, called the Indian Summer Sunset Concert. I've never gone to the hilltop before, mainly because it's always too hot to climb the hill. I won't make that mistake again. It's superb.


This is a view of the festival site from the path as I was walking up the hill. It's only a weeny bit of the area. The tent in the foreground is The Palace, which holds all the circus acts; the one at the very back is the second-biggest venue, the Big Top. Everything in between is a food or clothing stall, or a bar or smaller venue.


A bit further along the trail, and this shows more of the festival site nestled in the little valley. The tents up on the hill are in the newest camping area, affectionately nicknamed 'Cloud 9'. I didn't get up there, but it looks like a very hot place to camp, with no trees yet. It's a Performers and Volunteers camping area. The plebs camp to the left of this photo, spreading out a long way.


Jumping around for a minute, this is the largest Woodford venue: the Ampitheatre. I am sitting very close to the front -- the grassy slope goes a looooonnngggg way back behind me, and can hold thousands of people. What you see in this photo is the preparations for the final night's Fire Ceremony, with the choir (traditionally dressed in white) amassing on the right.

Anyway, back to this Indian sunset concert. Bliss! Jenny Thomas, Khalil Gudaz and Dya Singh playing many varieties of Indian music as the sun went down. I just lay on the grass reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones while they played until it got too dark, and then I counted the stars. We started like this:

and ended like this:


And the view on the way back down the hill (pretty much the same as the first view up the hill) was like this:

And as you walk down the path you can feel the heat of the masses rising from the valley. Night time is when Woodford really comes alive, as the heat of the day hopefully passes and the street theatre revs up. Here's a couple of pretty average street scenes, both taken from my brother-in-law's stall:



The problem is that I can never stay up really late, because the frigging sun wakes you in the tent at about 5am, and it's impossible to go back to sleep because of the heat. So by 11pm I'm dead on my feet, and all the good cabaret and circus stuff was happening around midnight. But more on that later.

Woodford organisers have fun making the site, which makes for a fun atmosphere. All those buildings and tents are completely removed every year so that the site can regenerate. As they build it again, they make up fun names for the roads through the camping sites and for their volunteer teams. I never think to take photos of the signs, because they're EVERYWHERE. Our tent was on SheWearsMyRing Road. I did manage to capture this sign, up in the Performer's Green Room tent:


Speaking of animals, pets aren't allowed at the festival, otherwise we would have brought the cats. They're such rockin' little dudes, they would have loved a bit of Raag up there on the hill. So how come this woman was allowed to bring her bird in? It sat with her quite happily through the loudest concerts and crowds.

Not fair. Next year I take the cats. They'll hide in my luggage on the way in...

Stay tuned. Must do some work. next time I'll show you some of the acts.

POSTSCRIPT: After chatting to Zoe this morning (at the farmer's market, eating sticky black rice pudding and choosing the most gorgeous colours of gladioli), I realise that I posted crowd scenes which aren't average at all -- those two photos were taken on New Year's Eve, when Woodford fills to capacity with Brisbane and Sunshine Coast day-ticketers. Hardly room to breathe, and we're all a lot happier the next day after they go home. The streets feel relatively deserted on New Year's Day, even though there are still thousands of us there, waiting for the New-Year's-Night Fire Ceremony.

Lame Duck

Home! Home alone, in fact, as Best Beloved has kept travelling to the Far South Coast to pick up Bumblebee, and I won't see them until Saturday. I would like to be there too, but I have what is known in polite circles as a shitload of work to tackle.

Soon (next break from catalogue-setting) I will give an illustrated account of the 05/06 Woodford Folk Festival. First, however, I'm going to have a whinge. I'm walking like a 90-year who has just had the shag of her life, but without so nice an excuse. And here is the culprit:


Actually, Best Beloved is the culprit, as I asked him to take me on a nice steady walk in the Blue Mountains, nothing too taxing, just a pleasant day's stroll. Sure, he said, and took me down the Giant Steps on the way to the nice 'flat' stroll. Here he is, disappearing down the steps, wearing a red hat:


I didn't realise that there were about 900 steps with no respite until I was a third down, and I asked my girlfriend (who was also going a bit slower) if we were there yet. She'd been down them before, and had given me an odd look when I quite happily blindly followed BB downwards. When I realised what I was facing, I tried to save my right knee from collapsing (as it is wont to do) by taking the weight mostly on my left leg. Since then (three days later) I have been staggering with my left leg throwing forward as if it is wooden.

If you've ever been on this climb, you'll know what I'm talking about. For those that don't, it is 900 steps, quite narrow, some carved from the sandstone cliff, and others built from slippery (it had been raining the week before) steel grating. there are no flat bits, just steps, almost vertical, with the occasional gap and a bench to rest. It starts just next to the Three Sisters, and ends a reasonable way below, at the path that leads to the scenic railway.

I finally got to the bottom, swearing that when I next clapped eyes on BB it would be to serve him with a divorce paper. By the time anyone gets to the bottom of these stairs, their legs are wobbling uncontrollably. I got to the last little section and fell down them because they had no handrail! I started laughing because I couldn't believe how out of control my legs were. A shortish rest and some water helped, and the rest of the walk was a breeze, because the 'down' muscles in my legs were reacting in opposition, throwing me forward all the way.

I didn't divorce BB (I try to think of our marriage in the Patrician Roman sense of marriage-for-life), but I'm not a happy girl. I told him quite openly when we married that I'm not a fit, outdoorsy sort of lass. I'm a bike-riding, big-bottomed, book-wormy sort of lass. I do like walks, but I don't like hills. He didn't listen, and now I'm walking like one of the flowerpot men. He thinks I'm trying to guilt him out when I stumble and lurch, but Zoe can testify that I do it even when he is in another town! I can't wait to get back to normal. I rode my bike today, and I think that helped, as did the numerous Radox baths, but sitting at the computer is very bad, and unfortunately I can't escape that at the moment.

OK, that's my whinge. Time to get happy.

BTW: The cats are ever-so-happy to see us. I think they've been spoiled rotten by their house-sitter, a lovely nurse who worked all the holiday shifts and bought them little treats constantly. Mr Padge purred in my ear all night.

Wending out way homewards

Argh, wrote a beautiful post and destroyed it all with a single keystroke. Well out of practice, me.

Let's try again. I have been missing my regular posts so much it HURTS! I'm still on holiday, and won't be home until Wednesday, but my salvation today comes in the form of Super-Naomi, sister-in-law and LP/wsacaucas Queen. She understands the need to blog. Bless her. I haven't seen my son or my cats for over 3 weeks, so to be staying somewhere with a small boy, a cat and an internet-connected Mac is sheer heaven. Not to mention great food and lashings of chai.

So until I can get home and scratch my itches, I'll content myself with another list. Since I wrote last, I have:

-- played LOTS of board games. A very close QLD friend has a new partner who used to own a games shop, and he seems to have paid himself in stock. He dragged a huge pile of games into the room and we worked our way through them with lots of alcohol. Highlights were Zombies, Art Auction, Scene It?, and Balderdash. Having good bullshit skills helped with the latter.

-- visited Byrd and family in their new digs in Brisbane. Watch out Brisvegas grafitti scene!

-- stayed in a very cool old weatherboard beach shack on the Gold Coast with another girlfriend. What it lacked in style it more than made up for in location -- you walked out of her back door straight onto Palm Beach. Unfortunately she's being kicked out at the end of the month, so we were really happy to share the experience, even briefly.

-- experienced a thunderstorm in every place we've stayed at. Told you I was a rain goddess.

-- travelled to the Blue Mountains, staying at a couple of different locations, one of which I'm at now. The best thing is that the weather is cool, foggy and rainy. I'm wearing jeans for the first time in weeks. It is heaven. The only sweat I raised was after a nice long bush walk, which is how things should be. I hate QLD heat. I told Best Beloved that if he really loved me, he'd take me South every summer, not North. I don't think he was listening at the time.

-- had a lovely disjointed virtual argument with my ex-boss, trying to negotiate a stress-free passage through the next few months of disembowelling my work space. Not very optimistic about the stress-free bit, but I'll do my best. After all, she's the one who is leaving, not me.

-- missed out on Summernats. Hooray! But I didn't need to go, because Zoe did it for me. Onya, crazy chick.

I can't wait to get home so that I can read everyone else's posts and catch up on every level, but I guess you've worked that out by now. Dinner's ready, so I wish you adieu.