Naked City: Fear of Festivals

Naked City: Fear of Festivals

As far as we know, there is no actual word to describe a fear or phobia associated with festivals. Maybe there should be, particularly when we look at a city like Sydney which is inundated with festivals such as arts festivals, film festivals, food festivals, community festivals and festivals without any definable theme – like the forthcoming Vivid.

The question does arise – are there just too many festivals on the Sydney and suburban calendar? We put this proposition to a random selection of avid festival goers throughout Sydney and came up with some surprising results. For starters, we discovered an alarming number of festival ‘junkies’ – a group of individuals who simply don’t want to miss out on anything, be it the latest rock music fest, a plate of Mongolian meatballs or a week of Mexican or Japanese cinema. They openly admit to being cultural obsessives with an addiction that can often get completely out of hand, both financially and physically.

Already a Statewide festival aversion group has been started, whereby festival tragics are encouraged to order a pizza, rent a DVD and spend the night at home rather than dressing as the obese Elvis and catching a train to Parkes. If you are the sort of compulsive that sits through every film at the Sydney Film Festival, there is hope for you too if you agree to be blindfolded with gaffa tape for an entire week.

Furthermore, we discovered a mutant breed of festival freaks for whom too many festivals is simply not enough. Not only do they participate as volunteers, merchandisers, occasional drug dealers and even performers, but they nearly all aspire to become actual festival  directors in their own right. Whether it’s a community bash in Marrickville, or the Saudi Arabian film festival, they all revere the top position and the chance of total artistic domination.

Fortunately, we have yet to see the emergence of celebrations like Spain’s highly disturbing “baby jumping festival”. Dating back to the early 17th century as a celebration of the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi, it involves men dressed as the Devil leaping over very young babies placed on mattresses in the street – as their terrified parents watch on. Nevertheless as even more festivals clog the already saturated Sydney calendar, we can certainly expect the bizarre as each new carnival attempts to outdo the others.

We have already heard rumours of a clothing optional ‘free’ jazz festival scheduled for Cockatoo Island and a Council sponsored ‘underwater’ film fest, seating at least two hundred scuba divers in the Boy Charlton Pool. The popcorn is bound to be a bit soggy, but the idea of ushers dressed as mermaids is certainly appealing.

Look out Sydney, we might even see our very own ‘baby jumping’ festival – not helpless tiny tots like in Spain, but something a bit more challenging. Think Sumo wrestlers and some of the tallest and chubbiest imported especially from Japan, resplendent in giant Huggie style nappies rather than their traditional mashawis. Now there’s an attraction to put some real zing into Vivid. Bring on those festivals!

THE HIT LIST: Mitch Grainger is an Australian singer, guitarist and harmonica virtuoso who has been honing his skills in the US for the past five or more years. He’s now briefly back home to present a special showcase of his new album The Blues at the Petersham Bowling Club this coming Sunday 22 March from 7pm along with an all star band.

 

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