Saturday, April 21, 2007

Horse etc


THis is a wooden horse. It has no mane: the mane was made of hairy garden string (like the tail) and it got so dusty I had to take it off and throw it away. I made the horse for an Edinburgh Fringe show called Dr Calamari's Music Hall of the Macabre. About thirty of us went up to the fringe- a man who sawed people in half, a duo sketch about Marine Biologists, a seven-piece band called the Flavel Bambi Septet who later mutated into Transglobal Underground, the Twins Nick and Simon Smith in their massive paper crinolines and cartwheel hats (one had a beautiful glass swan on it and the other had glass lilies), about 8 different acts in all, with Lester Square as MC and a smoke machine that I had to crawl round behind the stage to operate. ( the list of people we didn't take was even better- a woman who sang Whipcrackaway with real pistols, a man who made omelettes on stage, and Eddie Tenpole, who I think wanted just to come along for the craic)
My act was a song called 'She's a Girl who likes to have a Horse Between her Legs'. I had gone to Putney to re-learn how to tap-dance, and Lester cut this horse shape out of plywood at the school he worked at. The front bit tied on to my front, the bum tied on to my back, and I could make the little legs move by pulling the red ribbons. I clopped around Edinburgh being photographed by Italians, and we did the show each night to an audience who we massively outnumbered, but boy was it a laugh. The twins slept in an old red post-ofice van and lots of the rest of us slept at McMum and McDad's, even in the garden shed.
Just wanted to ramble on about that for you.
Today? Oh yes: down to Rough Trade to re-stock their Helen and the Horns CDs, stamp on a few grapes and cabbage leaves, check out the clothes, and bump into a few people perhaps.

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