But, again, is it art?

        We went back to the Stockton Riverside Festival on the Friday night.
After all, we were only really after a programme the first time, to find out
what was going on and to see if there was anything worth our while going to.
The answer was to be found in our local library, which had full details of
everything that was going on; rather than the functional but accurate
description of what we had seen as being "five poxy boats pumping noise
pollution up and down the river" it called the event we had seen - entitled
"The Street Of The Moon" for no discernible reason - "an unforgettable
spectacle of fire, water, light and sound".
        Here's what we had been seeing, according to the official blurb:
          "The Street Of The Moon is the adventure of a man with a mission.
  Setting sail in his little boat, he encounters a flaming volcano, pack ice
  and other dangers, as well as an earthly paradise. Finally he reaches his
  goal - a glimpse of the White Goddess who bewitched him. (...)
          We guarantee you will never have seen anything like it - huge
  floating stages, Japanese drummers, an Indonesian Gamelan orchestra, other
  musicians and some fabulous effects will leave you delighted.
  The source of the longest river       The voice of the hidden waterfall
  The White goddess                     The first and last freedom
  The beginning and end of the pilgrimage..."
        Erm, yes. It was rather wasted on me. Anyway, the reason we went back
was because they promised some added pyrotechnic events at the grand finale, 
and Mum's a big fan of fireworks. Can't say I'm that big a fan of the massive
ones myself. Back-garden-size ones are nice, but sound-weapon types leave me
rather cold. Anyway, she hadn't seen good ones for rather a long time, the
ones at Skinningrove last Bonfire Night being a washout. So off to Stockton
we went again. I had had the cunning idea that the best vantage point to see
the event again would be the top of the multi-storey car park where we had
parked the first time, and was gratified to see that we could still get there
free of charge and there had been only a couple of other people who had had
the same thought. It gave us about fifty feet elevation and was only thirty
yards or so from the Riverside, so it worked as well as I hoped.
        The blare started up again, the family groaned and decided to go and
look at the view from the other side of the car park. This other side had a
view overlooking a square adjacent to Stockton's wide High Street, down
which Compagnie Malabar were performing "Voyage Des Aquareves", which makes
even less sense in translation as "The Water Dream Travel". It featured "a
huge white sailing ship, beautiful stilt creatures, dare devil circus skills
and an evil Red'n'Black cgaracter on a giant motorbike. All that plus tons
of foam!". Sounded like fun for all the family - especially the foam bit -
so we had a look from atop the car park, for their noise was less doleful
than that of the river, saw a big crowd watching the stilt things, and went
down for a look. We parked our car near the entrance on the lowest level and
walked up the High Street. Of course, the event had moved on while we were
going down, so we decided to try and catch it up.
        We walked maybe 500m or so up the street (which is good going for our
family, for reasons I could explain but won't) and had caught up with the
crowds, if not the action. It had got to 10:30 by then, and we couldn't really
see what was going on, so we decided to turn back; no time had been given for
the fireworks but I guessed the boats would be all done by about 10:45, so we
rushed back. Well, relatively rushed back for us, which isn't so quick any
more, alas, as poor Mum just isn't used to walking distances even like that
any more; annoyingly, we started to hear fireworks with about 100 yards to go
and Mum was starting to despair. We made it back to the car and zoomed up all
eight flights back to the top, so Mum got to see at least the second five
minutes or so of what there was to see, which was fairly spectacular. So it
didn't turn out too badly after all in the end.
        It all got me thinking, though, about how much I hate performance
artists, probably because they're so pretentious. No, probably because they're
so pretentious and can get away with it. Well, I can be a pretentious artist
too - words are my artform, articles are my artworks, OMR is like a gallery
and every issue of GIT is a new exhibition, a new performance. Just as they
get to show off in front of the masses, I have my chance every issue to shock,
to entertain and impress. You, reader (no, _dear_ reader, that should read),
are my audience, and I do GIT to express my creativity and suffer for my art.
        Art. Bollocks, more like.