Tonight's adventure, and some links

Tonight I schlepped up to Marrickville for the media launch of this year's Sydney Fringe Festival, in which my play, The Death of Albatross, is being premiered. (Buy tickets here, and find out more about the show here and here.) I was expecting something stodgy: either a plain ol' media conference or something like a book launch, which sometimes can be intensely entertaining and interesting, and sometimes...not.

I was pleasantly — very pleasantly — surprised: there was very nice food to snack on, free grog (including a very unnerving-looking thick green punch, which turned out to have absinthe in it and was extraordinarily nice; good thing absinthe is kind of hard to get and a little on the impossibly-expensive side, or we'd all be slaves to the green fairy). There was also some very, very fine music by, amongst others, my new fave band, Doc Jones's Lechery Orchestra. (I will DEFINITELY be going to their gig at the Fringe; hope to see you there!) And there was a fire-twirling act, which is always fun, but this one had the added attraction of a guy who soaked a bullwhip in kerosene, lit it, and cracked the flaming whip in a dragon's roar of fire and fury. Fabulous!

The Fringe Director, Richard Hull, gave a tactfully brief speech, a few of the Fringe artists did teasers of their acts, and I can confidently say that a good time was had by all. If the Fringe is even partially as much fun as its launch, we are all in for a pretty rocking month, is all I can say. Don't forget to kick it off by going to see The Death of Albatross — it's in a convenient location (the Seymour Centre) at a convenient time (6:30), and it opens the night BEFORE the official Fringe opening (in other words, we open on Thursday, September 8), so you can feel all smug that you got the jump on everybody else in your Fringe festivities.

In other news, I draw your attention to the artwork of Mike Burleigh, who is studying to be a natural-history illustrator. I urge you to go to his site and have a look; here are some enticements for you. I have importuned him to turn his hand to fantasy/science fiction illustration as well — I reckon he'd be bloody good at it.