SlowLearner: BURNING THE SOUR GRAPES BRIDGE

July 11, 2004

BURNING THE SOUR GRAPES BRIDGE

Look, fair is fair. I'm a three-time Fringe Festival loser. Can't I take a few bitter swipes? I mean, what do they have to fear from me?

So the info is out on the Fringe 2004 shows, and not one of them, you'll notice, is The Lucretia Jones Mysteries by Mac Rogers. However, there are a great many other shows, and as usual with the Fringe, before the actual festival kicks off it's all about the titles. Below, I've included my lists of titles most and least likely to attract me to attend the shows, based on the criteria of

- How much the producers are trying to attract attention with an annoyingly long title
- How much it sounds like the show plays cheap shots to an easy downtown NYC crowd
- How much a show sounds like the show is coasting on the goodwill toward its subject matter
- How much the show sounds annoying and pretentious and stupid

as well as

- How much the title makes me laugh, making me think there are more laughs like that in the show
- How much the title seems to indicate an appreciation for utterly absurd humor similar to mine
- How much the title seems mysterious and intruiging

and

- Whether or not the title mentions zombies

So, without further ado - the SlowLearner Fringe Festival Title Awards!

MOST LIKELY TO MAKE SLOWLEARNER ATTEND

Believe in Me... A Bigfoot Musical
bitches funny presents COWS GONE WILD!
Bootleg Islam
An Evening of Semiautobiographical, Highly Self-Indulgent Theater
GO ROBOT GO
Gork! The retard always wins
Irish Authors Held Hostage
Sleeping With Management
Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act
THEY ALL WANTED IN THE ACT
We Are Burning
Young Zombies in Love
You've Never Done Anything Unforgivable

LEAST LIKELY TO MAKE SLOWLEARNER ATTEND

Chekhov on the Wing
THE COSMIC CALAMITIES OF HENRY NOODLE: a sci-fi musical comedy adventure
Decadance Vs. The Firebird--A Hip-Hop Ballet
Harvey Finklestein’s Sock Puppet Showgirls
The Knowledge & Conversation of My Guardian Angel or An Old Fashioned Love Story
Laughing All the Way from the Sperm Bank
Lesbian Triptych
Odysseus Died from AIDS
OOOPS! I Killed My Mother
The Passion of George W. Bush
PEST i SIDE STORY (a Kafka-esque Musical Fable)
Queer Theory
Reminiscence of the Ghetto & Other Things That Raized Me
The Tragedy (spelled with an IE on the end) of Othello, the Moor of Venice; attributed to William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon; A summary on cassette tape; A students' guide
A Transylvanian in Silicon Valley

BONUS AWARD: MOST OFF-PUTTING SHOW-DESCRIPTION BLURBS

Dementia Presidentia
The President has gone crazy. He has targeted American cities for nuclear destruction, ordered the FBI to investigate dissenters, and dances with Jesus. The Vice-President has a plan but the President's new Chief of Staff, Jesus, has a better idea.

No Such Roses: Sonnets that are Nothing Like the Sun
In this age of 'Self Help' propaganda, Shakespeare's sonnets prove to be the original book of love. "No Such Roses" is a fearless exploration of modern urban relationships. These are love sonnets for a battle-scarred Prozac Nation.

[UPDATE: I've just been alerted that No Such Roses is actually being created and produced by a friend of mine, Michelle O'Connor. I saw the last show she created and it was actually really cool, so this one probably will be as well. You can read about it here. Man. This is quite a day I'm having. One of the problems with being an asshole is that you're always apologizing for all the farts coming out of yourself.]

Hot Pineapples Fermenting in the Sun --or-- Maybe Pavlov's Dead Cuz He Cain't Find His Bell
////////////////////////////////|||||||||||||||||||||\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////))))))))))))))>>>>>>>>>>>>>>^^^^^^^^^^^^^ AAAAAAAAAAAAAa&96@gcccccccc(((((((((((((((( <<<<<<<<<===========------------................... eeek!!!

(I swear that last one is real - copied and pasted directly from the website.)

Now, any of these shows may turn out to be brilliant or decent or terrible, regardless of what their titles seem to promise or warn. If your show's on my good-list, congratulations! If your show's on my bad list, write a comment explaining why I'm an idiot and should attend your show. I won't listen, of course, but perhaps one of my forty-odd readers will.

--SlowLearner

July 11, 2004 | Permalink

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December 2009