[lug] The old Pot Picking days

[Gordon Golding]

In August I spent a week to go to the Boulder Fringe
Festival.  You can go look that up if
you want – it started in Edinburgh, Scotland. 
Twice I have been to Edinburgh, just before and just after this crazy
fest.  So I got to see all the posters
and setups and stuff, but you need reservations a year in advance.



 



So when it came to Boulder, I had to go hog wild.  What it is: 
some 30 or 40 performances are done over a week and a half.  So there are several venues and you run from
one to the other, catching as many shows as you can.  I bought 2 10-pack tickets – an extravagance, but it really was
like going somewhere for a vacation. 
Each evening, I’d be out at places that I normally don’t go, and running
around, seeing these great shows.



 



AND – There is a great little British-style Pub right in the
middle of where all the action is.  So I
could go to a show and then pop by for a pint at the bar while waiting for the
next show so it was really very much like getting out of town for a vacation
without paying for the ticket.  



 



One show was particularly poignant.  It was the Epic of Gilgamesh.  In it, the protagonist searches for “the
holy grail” but keeps doing something dumb, and losing it.  The last time, it is the snake who comes and
steals it, leaving his skin in its place. 
So the snake i
s forever young, because he just sheds the old skin.



 



This story was very much a basis of the beliefs of the old
civilizations where we were.  The
priests would place a snake coiled up in a bowl at the corners of a fortress to
guarantee it lasted forever.  And we
were always going out in the desert, searching for traces of those old
buildings and cultures.



 



Geoffrey Bibby, the famous Middle Eastern archaeologist went
with us out to Gerrha.  And I followed
him around while he traced the various levels of the walls.  He found the corner of the old wall.  And I helped him dig.  And there was the bowl.



 



So I was totally enthralled and getting breathless as this
story came to its climax.  Holding my
breath, holding onto my chair, immersed as much in my own space of so many
years ago as in the scene before me.  



 



And the woman behind me suddenly collapsed off her chair.



 



It was all very dramatic and brought me back to the days
when we would go out and search and talk of all the old civilizations, long
swallowed by the ever moving sands.




 


Gordon Golding
Center for Innovation and Creativity
aka Golding the Younger DH70
TASIS 73
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