Who Gets to Be In Society / Festival Wrap / ALL LEVELS OPEN Salon this week

(Picture courtesy of Professor Fraser, who just did a little road trip to the centre of the continent)

So here’s a thing I think. (Originally a thread on my Twitter, but I know you don’t all follow me there, and that is correct)

As a society, we carve out ‘outside’ or ‘safe’ spaces for old people, disabled people and babies (parents with babies). That distorts normal society in truly awful ways.

One of the ways in which it does that is relevant to covid risk calculations. Because we have homes that are separated from the mainstream of life, we don’t see sick people or old people out & about - they’re not integrated into normal daily life. As a result, they become distanced; phased out of our lives.

This is all convenient, and means you don’t have to spend time behind a very old lady at the supermarket. Also, as a side effect; deaths in older people from things like covid become invisible and abstract. They’re already in the liminal ‘out’, so WHEN they die is cushioned.

You see people now who genuinely feel babies aren’t part of society. They’re enraged when they have to make allowances or if their day is inconvenienced by the presence of a disabled person. Who feel entitled to live a frictionless life untouched by others and their grubby needs.

The labour of making space for other people is a hard one, and lots of modern life is fantastic at getting rid of its worst bits - (not the norm to share a bed with all your whole family any more! Woo!), but that hard work of bending to each other is also vital to real connection

It’s not just for other people either! If we don’t feel what it’s like to be human around other people in real and gritty ways, we end up living in an avatar of our selves. Presenting a clean and constricted front self that we’re terrified to sully.

Festival Wrap

This festival has just finished, and it’s been really hard. Satisfying to be back on stage, pleasing to have written a show I’m proud of, but weird and isolated and tricky and not like a festival in many ways.

It’s not just having a 6 month old baby (holy crap! She’s growing up!). Though obviously that is a huge change to the normally relaxed diffuse focus of a festival day. (Previously, it’s always been a sort of pre-show loosely controlled but magnetically guided drift through tasks while you arrange your mental muscles for the lift-off high-intensity-interval that is a show.) Now it’s baby til the last possible minute and then BOLT to the venue.

But the additional factor of a no-real-restrictions covid environment means that even socialising with other comics and seeing other people’s shows (usually the most delightful part of the festival is being able to support other people’s amazing art) is all of a sudden fraught with danger. Of course some people are having a grand time - I felt a bit like the little match girl looking through glass at a fun time I couldn’t afford, because I didn’t want to miss a week of shows with covid/close contact isolation.

Also ticket sales are NO GOOD, for which I can blame many things, but not the goodness of the show (it’s a good show!). It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so precarious in my work. BUT i’m proud we made it through a whole month with baby and show and logistics and all. Now booking tickets for the next step in the chain. U.K. friends, I’ll see you there soon!

But first! This week’s Salon!

Salon Details

Topic: Tea With Alice Salon 57

Time: Apr 27, 2022 07:30 AM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

London Time, Tuesday 26 April 10.30 PM

US eastern time, Tuesday 26 April 05:30 PM

It will be an ALL LEVELS salon. Everyone welcome, I’ll send through the link closer to the time.

Xx

A