Is Not Art, Is Good

The National Young Writers' Festival turns 10! Now embraced by big mama, the This Is Not Art (TINA) festival enjoys five days of debate, inspiration, writing, drawing and pretty much anything else you can do with a writing implement (except that).

SATURDAY
9:05am: I'm waiting for Kid H, my partner on this adventure, at Central Station. I'm on the inside of the barriers because I've just changed trains, having bought a one-way ticket to Newcastle from my home station.

The guards at the gates keep looking at me, half-expecting that I will leave one of my many packages unattended, ready to presume I am a terrorist. I don't usually travel this heavily but it's my first time selling merchandise at the Sunday Fair and I have a box of Palimpsest books to flog while I'm north. Kid H arrives and we walk right up the platform armed with my knowledge that the exit at Newcastle is at the front of the train.

12:29pm: After three hours of chatting and poring over the TINA program, Kid H and I arrive in Newcastle and check into the YHA, my home away from home. I give her a short tour of the hostel and we head off in search of something to eat and a panel to catch.

After a feed at Juicy Beans we find ourselves sitting crosslegged like kindergarteners at the front of a packed house in the Festival Club for the 'You are all going to die' panel, which is more or less about generation-ism. The gist is that the whole generation thing is a bit of a crock cooked up by marketers and that there are more likely to be other things that people have to identify with others - race, gender, religion etc - than age.

2:36pm: A brief respite from the Festival Club sees us hanging around outside in everyone's way. Kid H recognises a couple of familiar faces despite never having been to a TINA festival before, some friends from Adelaide. I'm introduced and they chat briefly. Kid H and I head back in for the next panel, 'Untold Stories', which is okay, if a little wayward. A lot of the speakers didn't really address the notion of the ethics behind writing (or illustrating in the case of Shaun Tan) the unspeakable.

After the session we head out to Civic Park where three wedding parties are having their respective photos taken. I play with a ladybug, trying to get a photograph while Kid H haunts the fountain looking for a good photo op beyond the white satin and taffeta. It gets cold so we head back to the Festival Club and grab a meal from the Hare Krishna stall out front. The back area is free so we hike up to the stage and plonk down on the cushions, oddly scattered with straw, and chow down.

6:11pm: The 'Mega Mega Launch' begins. It is presented as an awards night where each highly specific award (e.g. Category: "Most graphic version of a novel by F Scott Fitzgerald" Winner: The Great Gatsby: a Graphic Adaptation by Nicki Greenberg) gives writers and artists a chance to say a little about their publication.

The best part is that there is a lucky door raffle and I win a packet of books and zines (including The Great Gatsby and an interesting publication called 'Nerds Gone Wild' which includes the cover line "Complete Guide to LAN Parties: Dos and Don'ts").

7:00pm: Regretfully we leave the 'Mega Mega Launch' and scoot across the road to the TPI building where Marcus Westbury debuts his doco 'Not Quite Art'. He's a bit nervous and makes a lot of self-deprecating remarks to the point where the audience interrupts his introduction by yelling "just play it!"

The doco is an engaging look at places where art has come from the ashes of a downbeat town. Westbury looks at Glasgow (UK) and ponders whether the same could happen in Newcastle (Aus) given a good run of bureacratic licence. He also heads to Melbourne where the laneways, full of cafes, wine bars and/or graffiti are better known for their artistic and cultural value than the $500 million Federation Square. He also touches on arts funding, which he tackles in the (as yet unseen) third episode of the three part series.

The Q&A at the end is quite interesting, turning into a discussion about why such a large proportion of funding goes to 'high' arts like opera and theatre and orchestras while the rest of us (writers, artists and musicians) have to scrabble for the rest. Westbury says he doesn't know what to do about it but hopes that the doco reaches the kind of people who can bring that question to prominence so something can be done about it.

8:48pm: We head back to the YHA. Kid H tucks in for the night while I head down to the lounge room to eat gummi creatures and read the paper. Instead I end up watching Rush Hour 2 on TV with a bunch of other hostellers, skimming the paper in the ad breaks.


SUNDAY
I basically spend the whole day in Civic Park manning my stall. I've never had a stall before - in previous year's I'd blow a day's wages on other people's wares. This year I have Palimpsest books to sell (just $10 incl postage if anyone wants a copy).

There's a zombie protest ("zombies are people too", "save a cow, eat a brain" etc) and a DJ mixing it up on stage and a lot of people to talk to. For some reason I've been put in the market section, which means my neighbours are a tshirt seller (Tim from Toilet World) and a jewellery stall (Enak). They attract the people. I tend to repel them.

(Later I find out that zine stalls are FREE and market stalls cost $25 and that no one told me about this so I paid $25 and didn't get a good spot. Boo. I hope it was invested into next year's festival.)

Kid H comes by to mind the stall so I get a toilet break and a drinks break and have a wander around the vicinity. Thanks to winning a bunch of zines the night before, I feel compelled to blow $7.80 on a slim book of poetry (the girl wanted $8 but I only had $7.80 in change from buying a bottle of water for Kid H). My buying spree is thus short-lived so I return to my post at my stall.

I contribute to the Bad Writing Pinata of Cathartic Shame and watch the smashing from a distance, sell a total of five books and meet The Quote Generator aka Danielle Freakley in the flesh. Talking to her is a strange experience, especially after reading about her project. It's almost like talking to a media essay but in a real time context. But she buys a book so she must be cool.

Kid H and I eat dinner in the park (Hare Krishna again!) but the Electrofringe act - bleeps and strange electronic noises - is not our type of sound so we head to the YHA to dump some of our stuff and return to the Festival Club for The Night Air, broadcast on Radio National (I only listen to the cricket on Radio National so a TINA show is quite a step away from their general demographic). The show is really good and quite varied, bringing together different aspects of the festival.

I particularly liked Black Lung, who gatecrashed Bravo Child's alloted set (one of them may have been Bravo Child I don't know - he's a poet and I've never actually seen him) and found Toy Death disturbing and amusing. Toy Death used distorted sounds from various toys to make music, including a Darth Vader mask and a talking Barbie. Unfortunately a bunch of people started talking over Vanessa Berry's spoken word so that was a bit disrespectful.

We left before the closing party because we were both tired and probably too old to play with the young 'uns even though I'm only 26 and Kid H is 31.


MONDAY
Kid H leaves early in the morning as she has things to do at home. I check out of the YHA and leave my stuff in day storage and spend the morning wandering up to Nobbys Head soaking in the sunlight and watching dozens of dogs and their owners play on the beach. I realise I miss my dogs at the same time that I acknowledge that neither of them would have had that much fun on the beach, what with the sand and the water...

I rock up to see Ianto Ware present 'Zinevolution' at the Festival Lounge but a note on the door informs the waiting crowd that he is absent due to a hangover. Most of us dissipate downstairs to catch 'More than just a Label', a Sound Summit panel, which was better than I thought it would be, but I leave it halfway to take front row for PEN's 'Shooting the Messenger' about censorship.

Three of the panellists - an Australian artist, an Iranian writer and an Afghani poet - have experienced censorship directly while Sarah Maddison from the Australia Institute has many insightful things to say about how Australia sits on a freedom level (the prognosis is not good...). It runs half an hour over its 2pm finish (which is good because it solved the mystery of whether or not I should leg it to try and catch the 2:35pm train or dawdle and catch the 3:20pm train). I leave feeling both discouraged and pensive about Australia's future in this regard.

I tackle the SMH's Giant Crossword on the way home and fail miserably.