Friday, September 30, 2011

All the Sours in the Day





The culmination of the TBA festival was what was billed as 24 hour performance by notorious Mike Daisey. There was a lot of build up for the event- even a drink named for it available at the well-attended bar outside. I admit, it was my kind of drink. Pick your booze (whiskey, gin or vodka) and then they squirted random amounts of 3 gourmet, home-made sours into it and stirred it around. A very tasty version of Gin and Juice, basically... Anyway, there are no pictures of the drink, because after a week of drinking to stay entertained I was completely out of cash dollars.

I attended "All the Hours in the Day" & was grateful for the Voodoo Donuts (yep, some had Tang on them, there were quite a few cock & ball donuts, and bacon maple bars, but no Nyquil to be had) & also for the frequent breaks. Because it wasn't just a performance piece. It was also an improv piece. I don't know how many people are capable of improv-ing on no sleep, but I don't think Mike Daisey should be counted as one of them. His voice was pure monotony and his tangents driveling. He was a lot like Garrison Keiler without charm or purpose, lost in Lake Wobegon. I respect him for trying to mix it up (We are outside while a fire alarm goes off in the picture). Every once in awhile he would trudge into clearly more rehearsed material, and then my ears would prick with interest. But most of the time he was clearly forgetting where he was in the unsuccessful narrative.

But the performances during the breaks? Awesome. Especially Holcombe Waller. But for 10 minutes over every hour there were real experiments going on, the first I'd seen all week. Some dance troups got up and choreographed onsite. There were short videos that were actually really interesting in my sleep deprived state.

Just goes to show, when you least expect it great work can sneak up on you.

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