Where else in the world can you legally be this weird?
Three girls - wearing fishnet stockings, swimming caps and some sort of bathing-suit-turned-lingerie thing - look like they could be the only naughty synchronized swim team this side of Amsterdam. Of course, I should hope that a swim team doesn't need to wear inflatable swimmie aids.
Two guys stretch out; one wears a black unitard and white face make-up, the other white shorts, and his whole body is dusted in white. They're later replaced by a guy and a girl in similar paint - except both much more scantily clad - and they too limber up and stretch, preparing, I guess, for a fairly acrobatic street act.
A blonde boy - maybe about 10, with dyed-orange lightning bolts shaved into his hair - cracks a whip while a laughing man, sporting a mine of facial steel, cheers him on.
And that's just in the courtyard outside the Fringe Office.
Back on the Mile, you cannot walk far without watching at least one street act; well, I can't, anyway. Many locals admit their jadedness towards the Fringe, and to street performers in particular. Fair enough; it's not as if juggling was introduced to the world yesterday - but then again, a guy in his jockeys who stands on a three-meter stack of wee chairs and juggles sharp objects, I find pretty bloody impressive.
Street performers get little press, which disappoints me. They are as serious about the fun of their work as any other Fringe performer, and probably the main difference between them is that street performers draw larger crowds than most venues have capacity for, whereas venue performers have to charge, mainly to cover venue costs. "We're not being paid to do this," many street performers explain. "But we're not bums; this is our job, this is how we make our living."
I was happy to help support Heidi and Vlad's living. This is the first Festival for the two Californian dancing fire-eaters, but their well-choreographed torch routine was most entertaining.
Then there was Jimi the Piper. On-stage with black bagpipes, long Slash-of-G'n'R black hair and black leather kilt, to me he was a refreshing change from the tartaned-out, crew-cut traditional pipers. Instead of "Flower of Scotland" and "Amazing Grace," Jimi's music was almost like electric guitar and hard rock for the pipes, yet he had plenty of respect for tradition. I couldn't resist buying his CD, Pipedreams; when a tune is described as "what it felt like to ride a motorcycle through the Highlands towards [the Isle of] Skye," how could I?
After Jimi, I swore I was going to catch a bus home; it was evening, and my girlfriend and I had tickets for that night's Pulp concert. I passed St. Giles Cathedral, was almost to the corner - around which was my bus stop - and then I saw the Space Cowboy, the facial-steeled laughing guy from earlier. Instead of laughing, he was now cracking jokes - and whips. Of all the street performers I've seen and all the venued acts I've attended, the Cowboy was one of the best. His wits were as sharp as the knives he juggled, and he undertook just about every challenging routine possible.
"Don't worry, kids, the whips are just like Mummy and Daddy's," he joked, two whips blurring around him simultaneously - reminding me of Bruce Lee and his impossibly fast nunchaku.
Not impressed? Well, sword-swallowing may not be anything new, but it's always gonna make my jaw drop to see someone shove a meter of sharp metal down his gullet - along with a straightened-out coat hanger - "This is an ordinary coat hanger, kids, so you can try this at home" - just to prove that the sword wasn't going to collapse or any shite like that.
And whatever he did, the jokes cracked as brilliantly as the whips. "Don't try to clap with your hands in your pockets, mate," he told one guy in the crowd. "You'll crush your testicles." Then, when trying to get the crowd to move in closer - "Because sword-swallowing and yelling don't really mix" - he started "herding 'em in" by going into the crowd and cracking his whip about the punters.
For the end of his act he put down his whips: pedaling a three-meter-high unicycle, and juggling a machete, a sickle and a torch - blindfolded. A few times I thought he might fall; cobblestones and unicycles don't mix well, but he didn't. At the end of it all, I searched my pockets but only found a ten-pound note - and I almost gave it to him.
Edinburgh is full of the weird and the strange - but also the talented and amazing, and none, either in venue or on the street, should go unnoticed, or unrewarded.
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