a fossil festival!
mammoth teeth, acrobats and more
It’s been a while!
I’ve been up to some exciting things the last few weeks which have kept me busy. But I am BACK and ready to tell you all about ‘em!
Yorkshire Fossil Festival
Last weekend I travelled up to Whitby to attend the Yorkshire Fossil Festival. I’d been invited by festival organisers Steve Cousins and Liam Herringshaw to be the musician in residence.
Whitby is full of hills, and to get to the various places I had to play, I had to walk up and down these hills multiple times. But despite being very sweaty from climbing up and down the steep streets and park pathways (you must understand: VERY SWEATY), I had the best time.
I had a mixture of different performance locations — on the steps outside the museum, down at the docks on a stage in front of Captain Cook's ship, and inside the museum, wedged between a display of mammoth remains and Mexican aerial acrobats, Ana and Josh.
Ana, Josh and I performed together at an evening event on Saturday night, and in preparation, I sent them the songs I'd be recording for the album so they could choose which one they wanted to do their routine to. They picked ‘Cascade’ because it had a lot of pace to it, but it also was really fitting as it's a song about movement. And about the tumbling of sediment! Down to the ocean! Weeeee!
I don't think I've shared Cascade in any of these newsletters yet, but you're going to love the song. It has quickly become a favourite of mine and others over the last couple of weeks. It's going to have a lilting, Americana rock vibe to it.
That performance was one of the highlights of the weekend for me. There's this rush of elation that you get when you're collaborating with other people who are so creative and skilled. Despite only having one run through (about 20 minutes before the actual performance!), we smashed it.
I was also so happy that I got to perform to a room of geologists, paleontologists and enthusiasts! This was the first time I got to play these songs in front of people whose jobs and passions inspired me to write them.
I also got to sell some Gneiss Guy bags to some geoscience nerds (I include myself in this category). Let the merch spread far and wide! If you are still keen to buy one, go go go!
I've got to take my hat off to the main mastermind behind the arts component of the festival: Steve Cousins, who spent most of the weekend wearing a top hat, as his alter-ego The Rock Showman (think The Greatest Showman... but for geology). He invited me to the fossil festival not long after I announced my Geological Society funding. And there were plenty of us performers! I was an artist for the festival along with a troupe of acrobats and circus performers (some hailing from as far away as Japan). It was an educational few days, filled with lectures, hands-on workshops, fossils... and unicycles, time-travellers, storytelling, and handstands (lots of handstands).
I also learned a thing or two, between songs! On Saturday night we had a Night at the Museum event (and yes, I got to be in a museum after hours... ticking that dream off the list) which featured two presentations from Neville and Sally Hollingworth, who have made some amazing paleontological discoveries, including a mammoth graveyard and a wealth of preserved Jurassic echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, etc) whose demise echo the sudden burial of Pompeii.
Some other highlights of the weekend include:
The Tempest Prognosticator
This Victorian contraption involved twelve jars, twelve leeches, and a series of little bells which the leeches would ring when a storm was a-comin... Points for ingenuity, although I'm not sure if it actually worked.
Clarence
Clarence.
Witty Look
My set on Saturday and Sunday always followed Cheeky & Daiki's performance at the circus stage. They come to the UK from Japan regularly and have been unicycling for years! Despite watching their performance four times, they always had me cracking up.
And finally, before signing off, I need some help:
Name This Fossil!
I bought myself a little fossil, too. This fish is from 55 million years ago, and was found in Wyoming, USA. It's from a genus called Knightia, so maybe I can name him some kind of courtly name? What's a good knight name for this fish? Sir Bobbington? Lancelot?
Thanks for reading and another thanks to Yorkshire Fossil Festival and Whitby Museum for hosting me last weekend.
Be good!
Olivia 🪄🪄
