It starts off quite innocuously. A few zits on the chin. The tiniest of tics in the left eye. But by July 4 there’s no mistaking the symptoms of full-blown festivalitis. Aching joints, stomach-churning dreams of cultural sushi – stuff to die for, or from, depending on fitness levels – plus a tendency to repeat the phrase “truly fully shoo-wow” at strange intervals.
Is it any wonder, then, that the first thing one wants to do on getting into festival mode is get out? Why the only ailments more common to culturemongers, other than bronchitis, food poisoning, cirrhosis of the liver and acute romanticism, are nervous breakdowns.
But seasoned G’towners are obviously immune to the more lethal aspects of the Festival. The Rams (respected angry men) come to dine, Yams (young angry men) to whine and the Spats (single progressive androgynous types) to do a bit of both. The stockbrokers-turned-Apaches have also become an annual fixture, erecting tepees alongside Rastas with technicolour dream tents, never-ending supplies of spiritual smoke and new-age blondes called Sky, Cloud and Dances with Kugels.
After a while everyone looks and feels the same, dashing about like road-runners on speed, if not asking to be led into temptation then kinda hinting for general directions. They hog the highways, clog the cafes and snog each other into a stupor, mainly to prevent the onset of rigor mortis. And they don thermal underwear for the obligatory daily trek to the Festival fulcrum – a stone-cold mausoleum called the Settlers Monument, which is really the Voortrekker Monument in drag.
And year after year, it becomes increasingly evident how much has changed. And how little. Some of the Festival has been recycled; most of the critics have been recycled. And the curry has definitely been resurrected. The university town still relies on 10 days of cultural overload to see it through for the rest of the 355 days of the year.
The adjacent township – where 80% unemployment is the order of the day – has retained the nickname “ghost town” because it might as well be invisible for the duration of the festival. G’town’s traditional watering holes haven’t dried up yet. The Vic, the Cosmic Cafe, PJs and (ideal-for-snugglers) Smugglers still provide opportunities for fore-and post-performance-play. G’town’s more endearing moments always take place when you’re slouched over a bar counter, mumbling veritases in vino, truisms in tequila and pondering over the metaphysical relationship between life and Electrolux (both suck, and not very well at that).
And Grahamstown’s most enduring memories derive from the beach days. Well, that’s what it sounded like, courtesy of a hippie in search of prophets and profits, who had invented a sun machine to counter those “beach” days. It was only when I had removed the icicles hanging like stalactites from my ears that I realised he was referring to the weather – with its chill factor of minus 20 degrees, without the wind. Bitchier than Robert Kirby, more bitter than Bantu Holomisa. I guess that’s what they mean by cultural refrigeration, in the most literal sense of the term.