Horray for the Stills, this will be my Edinburgh Haven!

Whilst flyering for the show today I find a really cool haunt. Flyering is a weird experience, we all swap flyers and pretend to go to each others shows, and with the free fringe most of us will, and with other comedians that are actually flyering their own shows we'll defiently go. Most of the time, however, one is confronted with a bevvy of bottle-blonde bosum ladies that comedy companies like bound and gagged employ when they are trying to sell you a £9 pound show and they feign interest in yours it's a bit difficult, plus how do you explain, 'I was talking to a bound and gagged lady earlier' without sounding strange. Sorry in bad stand up mode there. Have realised (And it's only about three days in) that if you are a stand up you try and make fun out of things that you see, but the problem with Edinburgh is that if you are just seeing comedy all the time then all you have to make fun of is other comedy, forwith, the current most hackneyed line:....

Comedian (with glasses): "Hello, I know what you're thinking,... Harry Potter's let himself go...'

Comedian (fat with beard): "Hello, I know what you're thinking....Frodo has let himself go..'

Comedian (pretty normal but with blonde hair): "Hello,I know what you're thinking, TinTin has let himself go"...(p.s.he didn't look Tintin)

my version that I have to do sometime:

ME: "Hello, I know what you're thinking...some genereic popular culture character that I think I look vaguely like...has let himself go...

or

Me: "Hello, I know what you're thinking....Richard Kiel who played Jaws in the Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) has let himself go...."

etc...

but this post is not about stand up but about the most amazing place I have found so far in Edinburgh: The Stills

Picture the scene, you've been doing comedy and/or seeing/flyering for comedy for about 2-3 days the realisation that you have to do it for 20 (hey the time's no problem it's just the money) more just hits you after you have been flyering alone and hungry and poor all day and then you wander into an amazing free library and gallery and your brain explodes.

A gallery that has a lovely free reading room of all my favorite subjects...philosophy, feminism, movies, media studies, science fiction, it was like someone had put my brain in a room, but made it nice and inviting..unlike my brain, but like my brain very interesting (also like my brain it's free)

God bless Martha Rosler and the lovely people of the Stills thats all I can say, the staff were very friendly to me but then again they probably didn't realise that I would be henceforth darkening their door almost every day to read Philip K Dick and Frederick Pohl and Poststructual feminism ..yep it's that kinda library..my kind of library...

The American artist Martha Rosler out of the amazing goodness of her heart has put her book collection in the lap of the public for free moire info here:

Stills has undergone a radical transformation. An open reference library with an eclectic array of over 7,700 books from the personal collection of the prolific artist, writer and political agitator, Martha Rosler, now fills the space. Curious readers can delve into volumes on photography, war, economics and political science, flick though comic books or browse maps and newspaper clippings.
Throughout her career, Martha Rosler has sought to establish new spaces for thinking and questioning. Often working with photography, she generates ideas by creating links between what appear to be entirely different worlds. Following an invite from Anton Vidokle to open her library to the public, users can reflect this approach by creating new pathways into the material, forging new connections and associations according to their own particular interests.
A series of informal public conversations, lectures and discussions accompanies the Martha Rosler Library project. Please see www.stills.org for more details. Martha Rosler Library is presented at Stills in association with eflux.