The Edinburgh International Book Festival does not get started until this coming Saturday - the 9th of August -but yesterday an announcement was made which affects its autumn programming (yes, the book festival exists outside its August time slot).
David Malouf, the Australian novelist, short story writer and poet, is to be the second Muriel Spark International Fellow - the award established by the Scottish Arts Council in 2004. The first fellow was Margaret Atwood.
During his four week stay in Scotland from mid-September to mid-October, Malouf will appear in a Meet the Author event at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh as part of the EIBF's autumn programme; deliver a public lecture hosted by the University of Edinburgh; give a masterclass to students of Creative Writing at the University of St Andrew's School of English; and appear at an event at the Scottish Poetry Library.
Will the National Galleries of Scotland's Tracey Emin 20th anniversary retrospective prove the hit last year's Warhol show was? The potential is surely there. My colleague Mary Brennan was as smitten by the personality of Emin as I have been when she toured the show in the company of the artist for a BBC Radio Scotland feature to be broadcast this week.
Mary being a woman with a commercial sensibility to her arts criticism, as well as having a fondness for shopping, she later wondered whether the oeuvre of Emin carried with it as many possibilities as the well-stocked shop that accompanied the Warhol. The t-shirts bearing Tracey's signature will surely adorn many a hip chest at the Fringe, but surely other opportunities have been missed. Where are the Tracey Emin brassieres? (Surely she should have here own range of lingerie by now anyway.) And why stop there? What price an Emin bed? Or, for the ultimate in pop festival glamping, a Tracey tent?
Emin wants to spend more time in Scotland
There was quite a crush of reporters and photographers at the press view of the new 20 retrospective of Tracey Emin's work at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art today. As is usual at these events, there was some period of standing around waiting, but once she was ready, Ms Emin, very tanned, was in interesting and articulate mood. She was particularly adamant that the snappers snapped her in one room, and the reporters asked questions in an other, but was otherwise quite charming. The talk at her question and answer session was even moving, especially when she described her two bouts of destroying her own work: in 1988 and 1990, one prompted by literally having no room to keep her paintings, the other by a botched abortion she had to endure.
Her art often gets ridiculed and a bad press, but if you look at her drawings and - especially - her lovely watercolours, she is clearly a fine artist and is probably one of the best of the now slightly faded Britart movement.
She claimed to love Edinburgh, and told me as her boyfriend is Scottish (also a photographer) she wants to spend more time here.
She is also, like me, from Margate in Kent, so I am not biased when I say her exhibition is definately worth a look this festival period, as long as you are prepared for some of its, shall we say, franker, aspects.
Flirting with Leni Riefenstahl
Among the many interesting things Budd Schulberg, the writer of On the Waterfront, told me yesterday was that, just after the war and while still working for the Air Force, he had to interview the film maker Leni Riefenstahl, who made films for the Nazis such as, most famously, Triumph of the Will. He was working for the Nuremburg Trials, and had to take her into custody so she could identify Nazi leaders for the court.
Schulberg said that throughout the process, the initially hysterical film maker constantly denied being a Nazi and was quite flirtatious with him the whole time.
He also said that the original version of On the Waterfront was meant to see Malloy die at the end of the play (which was conceived separately from the film). He said that would have been more realistic...but has now acqueisced and Malloy survives. "The myth is now bigger than the facts," he said.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, it is great to see that other categories of young critics are being encouraged, following the success of The Herald's Young Critics project with the Edinburgh International Festival and youngsters studying for their Highers.
Instigated by the previous director of the EIF, Sir Brian McMaster, an admirer of the standard of reviewing to be found in the pages of The Herald, The Herald Young Critics publishes the best reviews from four excursions to festival shows by teams from four Edinburgh secondary schools.
This year the best of those will be awarded the first Little Cherub, a companion piece to our Herald Angels for artistic excellence, and sponsored by The Bank of Scotland.
With another newspaper the Bank has also become involved in encouraging primary age children to express their opinions and now The Stage has got in on the act with a scheme for older youngsters. Its team of reviewers will this year be joined by student reviewers, whose work will be published in the theatre profession's trade journal.
This news comes from the newly published issue of The Stage, an Edinburgh Festival special issue, which is full of good reading and well worth the £1.40 cover price. Keith Bruce
Hello, I am Phil Miller, The Herald's arts correspondent, and I will be trying to blog regularly from my time spent at the various festivals in Edinburgh this August.
... but is it art?
You think you have seen everything, and then you are proved wrong: the climax to the Underbelly's revue last night involved one of the "stars" of the Jim Rose Circus covering a canvass in blue paint, using an unusual part of her anatomy. Its fair to to say half the audience was disgusted, the other half shocked and disbelieving. Jim Rose says he has not been back to Edinburgh for 10 years because he was waiting for a show edgy enough to blow everyone's minds. And turn their stomachs, too, I suppose.
Mills looks to the future
I had an interesting chat with Jonathan Mills, the director of the Edinburgh International Festival - more of which you can read in today's news pages. One little detail he added as we parted was that his initial guestimate on how long he would stay in his position at the festival has changed. Initially, when he took over from Sir Brian McMaster (who ruled for 15 years) was around five years. But the lure of the city has obviously got to him - he now says he is looking at eight years.
And what is he working on right now, now that EIF 2008 is only a week away from opening? EIF 2010: he says its programme is all virtually booked. Scary.
A last thought on audiences at the Glasgow International Jazz Festival, which totalled 25,000 music-lovers at the free and ticketed events over ten days. On Saturday night those who came to dance to Nils Petter Molvaer in the Old Fruitmarket were most patient of attention when the Norwegian trumpeter's trio served up a set that was much more experimental and rather less funky than they perhaps had bargained for. Which speaks well of the open-mindedness of the people the festival attracts.
By contrast, on the previous evening at the Tron, however, a more mature audience included a couple of chaps, possibly well-refreshed, who could not agree on the permissible level of volume for chatting to one's partner. Seasoned jazz gig goers will recognise the problem of disputes between chatters and shushers. Fortunately, however, the prospect of a punch-up at a Swingcats gig eventually came to nothing but these particular fans were certainly old enough to know to behave better.
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