Heat

It was still hot, though the sun had gone down a while ago. Hiding behind my tent in a metal folding chair had become my habit after the show: every night, sitting in the dark with my bare feet in the grass, listening to the strange soft clicking of eucalyptus leaves in the branches above, trying not to hear the murmuring voices of people leaving my show below those branches.

I almost threw up.

What a strange woman.

Bats in the trees.

As our audiences filed out the front, a comedian buddy playing the festival in the tent next to mine joined me, dragging over his own metal chair. He said nothing. We watched the stars.

Christmas in Sydney is a hot thing. Makes you study hot things around you all over again, because it's freakin' Christmas, so they seem more striking. Hot things like sun on metal and shining glass. My apartment building on Sydney Harbor was distorted by both of these that summer, in that year of two summers. Gold sunlight bent by metal-framed sheets of glass up so very high: a man-made sheen. And it only shone, did not reveal, as glass is supposed to; looked like a black and white photograph. I would stand on the sidewalk outside my building, looking up, counting, trying to find my floor and understand how it is for humans on earth, all crammed together and sweetly lonely, building things. I carry the next song like a new baby everywhere I go, so each of these images relates to my new musical creature -and its future. Will this new song be happy, be healthy? Can it shine without lying? I write it sweetly lonely, building something. But really, it writes itself and it's not lonely, just alive. And its sheen is out of my hands.

I left It's a Wonderful Life playing on the TV in my flat pretty much round the clock; a comforting dream America in strong juxtaposition to my homesickness. The movie framed it so cartoonishly: shone, did not reveal, as homesickness is supposed to. Man-made in black and white. I don't know what Australian television station decided that broadcasting one movie 24/7 was "programming"-seemed more like a glitch-but I was grateful. Like keeping a town in your house that you could visit whenever you felt overwhelmed. It's a Wonderful Life wasn't helping my homesickness, exactly, just adding nostalgia and narrowing its parameters: forty-something Christmases piled up behind my eyes and through the eyes of my children. A crammed together and sweetly lonely thing.

The sidewalk outside my building burned; Aussie kids down near the ground so close to its burning. Happy children, usually with ice cream, but still. Seemed at the mercy of a frightening element: heeeeeeeeat. They were very much like the bats in the trees overhead, with an immediacy and beauty in movement that makes lying impossible. Little truth-homunculi, sweaty Christmas beasts down low by the shop windows.

"Is it nice or sad that they spray fake snow on stuff?" I ask the comedian beside me. "I mean, does the heat make them defensive? Wistful? And what's it made out of?"

I'm actually groping for a sense of our future, which is what we always do when we're together. Reaching, maybe, but I continue to hope. Hope that I live songs as he lives laughter, and that we both will continue to live. I've learned that a true song doesn't belong in the entertainment industry any more than a bat belongs in a skyscraper, but entertainment's the only game in town. And laughter? Seems to bridge that gap, so I rely on my comedian in a feedback loop of hope and hopelessness.

We have established that neither of us wants to be famous; fame is associated with a lack of quality in our experience, and with a truncated career path. If you're "in" you're gonna be "out" next year, by definition. We want to work, work in the corner, work forever, and we define "work" as a substantive endeavor leading the way, rather than the coming on to the crowd that star machines and marketing teams bore us with. That old story: vanity vs. soul. So in this particular poker game, we lay down the Jack of Diamonds-in Tarot, the messenger-and we study it. He carries messages between this plane and others; materialistic yet spiritual. Arts and entertainment, inspiration and work, vision and marketplace, for goddamn ever. My comedian buddy and I like the card we draw and its enthusiasm, but we are fully aware that fear waits in the wings, and in our weakest moments, will incite vanity, which leaves us lost in the pile of cards, of people. Jack of Diamonds. It's in the deck; the deck that seems stacked against us, against substance, against small, against healthy, against giving.

My career trajectory was one of signing on to corporate patronage only to jump ship in horror at the sexist product they demanded. There was no music in that equation, and no humanity, either. Just a kind of sad whoring of commercial jingles. Commercial music is a commercial, and it is hardly ever music. I didn't know corporate was a pimp. It took a goddamn long time to extricate myself from that beast and begin to parse the elements of egoic reward vs. visceral truth-telling. The fashion/status game may be the only game in town, but that doesn't mean we gotta play it is how I view my story.

My comedian calls it how the fuck are we gonna eat?

Anyway, here's where I was goin' with sun sheen, man-made gloss and steaming children so low to the ground: fake snow as a truism, an opportunity to bridge that gap, like the laughter my comedian inspires with his work. Art plus entertainment, substance plus style, and maybe they could get along, of all things. But don't goddamn sell, you know? No selling, no stars, no status, just pass the hat so you can work again. And maybe that's not real snow decorating your hat, but it draws the listener in with its prettiness, and in that, it's an outreach. Be like a child, in other words: close to the ground, observing, forgiving, beautifying, uglifying, adventuring: play.

My friend kicks off his shoes. Too hot for socks, so he also shoves bare feet into the midnight grass. Doesn't wanna talk about fake anything. Why would you? Such a beautiful night; those stars and cool bats calling for the real, for hope and substance and depth. "The show, the show, the show," he singsongs. "Where'd we leave off?"

All month we've been engaged in this shattering, goofy debate, our depth of concern masked: we laugh, then wince. We are very, very worried about our future and the future of our two passions. His for laughter, mine for songs, the monetization of which has been consigned to corporate industries. Not sweet fake snow, but bullying greed. How the hell do you get along with that? We're having trouble figuring out how to bring art and commerce together. So we begin by trying to figure out what it is we do, or try to do, given that we're both on sorta shaky ground at this festival. Shows are hard for shy people.

"Well," I answer, "I had submitted to you that jokes and songs were expressions of the same impulse. Capturing an inspired moment and rolling it into a little clay ball we then roll to others, so that they can enjoy it," I tell him. "We loved our response to the initial inspiration so much that we want to engender it in them."

He raises his index finger at me. "I had submitted to you that this is true only of good songs and good jokes."

"Right. Forgot." I'm kinda bored. So tired of the quality conundrum. "The lousy kind are opportunistic manipulations of that response, right?" He nods, listening vaguely. "A bad song isn't a song. It's sound, like fast food is calories, but it's not sharing, it's selfish . with an eye toward money and attention." The bats are active at this time of night, getting ready to fly; their squeaks and rustling blend with the murmuring of people. I dearly love the bats. I'm sure I love the people, too, but they scare me sometimes. "Attention being the currency, the commodity and the problem."

He turns to me. "Would you like to submit that?"

"I submit to you," I nod, eyebrows high, "that work without inspiration is not work, but merely facsimile."

"Fakers," he grumbles. "But people laugh at bad jokes, you know. And they like bad songs."

I chuckle. For some reason, under the midnight bats, I find this funny, not sad, though it's both. "Yeah, they're starving in a parking lot, trying to live off fast food. But there's an apple tree around back behind a dumpster. The tree doesn't advertise, so, unfamiliar with apples, people don't realize it has food growing on it. Nobody's making money in that equation. Nature and human nature are the same, but it's hard to champion apples when so many people don't know what they are."

"Real songs and real jokes are real food?"

I think. "We call this a culture when...