Latest News
The potential new owners of 3 Bristo Place want to turn it into a restaurant. The Forest is asking its friends and supporters to object to the proposed alterations to our home.
If you want to help to stop this application follow this link and submit your objection. Make sure to press the “object to this application” button on the page and use the comments below if you want.
Forest Publications
… is seeking a a Digital Typesetter
Do you have experience with ebooks, Indesign and/or html and want to further add to your experience?
If you’re interested contact Jason at: jmorton97@gmail.com
A festival of art, politics an action
Midday to Midnight on the 2nd of July
at the Forest Café
Levy Arts Presents
Howard Zinn’s MARX IN SOHO: 7.30pm, 7th & 9th July
and Wallace Shawn’s THE FEVER: 7.30pm, 8th & 10th July
upstairs at
THE FOREST CAFÉ
3 Bristo Pl., Edinburgh
entry by donation
proceeds to
SAVE THE FOREST
The Forest is immensely excited to be bringing internationally touring actor, activist and sociologist Jerry Levy to Edinburgh for special benefit performances of his two hit shows, Howard Zinn’s “Marx in Soho” and Wallace Shawn’s “The Fever”.
MARX IN SOHO, by Howard Zinn
directed by Michael Fox Kennedy
performed by Jerry Levy
Howard Zinn’s play, “Marx in Soho” portrays the return of Karl Marx. Embedded in some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix-up, he winds up in SOHO in New York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked about; Marx the man. The play offers an entertaining and thorough introduction to a person who knows little about Marx’s life, while also offering valuable insight to students of his ideas.
Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn (c) Howard Zinn Revocable Trust
THE FEVER, by Wallace Sawn
directed by Thomas Griffin
performed by Jerry Levy
Wallace Shawn’s play, “The Fever” explores what a sensitive, well educated, arts loving and consumption-driven man or woman of any age discovers when his/her life-affirming existence is related to the often brutal suffering of others. In the bathroom of a hotel our “anti-hero” feverishly defends and relentlessly attacks his own way of life. Inner voices and imagined characters fuel his fever as he narrates and often attempts to enact his story.
“The Fever” presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Services Inc.
FOR MORE INFO, REVIEWS AND PRESS SEE www.levyarts.com
Forest DIY Artisan’s Handbook Launched!
£6 + P&P
Proceeds go to the Save the Forest Campaign
Forest Publications is pleased to endorse the new Forest DIY Artisan’s Handbook, now available in the ForPub store. Please support the Forest by picking up a copy today!
This is a Collaborative Do-It-Yourself Handbook of Arts, Crafts and other activities made for and by those that use or support the Forest Cafe.
This book is about sharing the process of doing things. It is about celebrating the diverse range of unique arts, crafts and skills people have and ‘how to’ go about trying these out yourself. It is about disseminating this knowledge and encouraging others to, too. There are 28 different ‘how to’ guides contributed from a wide range of Forest folk and friends that make up the book, ranging from ‘How to Make a Cajon’ to ‘How to setup community growing spaces’.
The title ‘Leabhar Mòr Aos Dána’ means roughly ‘The Great Book of the People of the Arts’ (the bards, the poets, the druids, the musicians, the law-givers) in Gaelic. It is something like the literary collection of the works, arts and crafts of a particular age or generation of creators. We hope this collection acts as something like the great handbook of people of the arts connected with the Forest. We hope it might inspire further ‘How to’ Handbooks and a menu of arts and crafts activities along these lines in the Forest Cafe.
There was no pre-ordained structure or specific focus so whatever was received has been included and was contributed out of the kindness of those who wanted to support the ‘Save the Forest’ fundraising campaign in different ways. It is a handbook to use, to pass on, to delve into on Wednesdays, to cut up, edit and re-paste together, to drink tea with or to add your own and scribble all over.
For now, you can order a hard copy, but we hope to be able to have people download them in future to save on paper and printing which all helps give more money to support the Forest fundraising campaign.
The Forest is asking its friends and supporters to object to the proposed alterations to their current premises in Bristo Place. While the self-sufficient arts centre is looking for a new home, the new owners are seeking permission to alter the internal structure of the listed building. The planning application also includes proposals to open a restaurant at the site.
Braw Trails presents
Two Wings // Arborea // & Long Distance Runner
June 22nd
at The Bristo Hall
Bristo Place, Edinburgh
All-Ages! BYOB! £5!
Overdue: the latest in the ‘Braw Trails’ series, from Braw Gigs and Tracer Trails!
TWO WINGS is the ace new project from Hanna Tuulikki (Nalle, Scatter) and Ben Reynolds (Baby Dee, Trembling Bells), plus Lucy Duncombe and Kenneth Wilson (Trees), Owen Curtis Williams (Benni Hemm Hemm, Rob St John) and Emily Roff (Tracer Trails!). Two Wings were recently described by total legend Daniel Higgs as “for real”. Genre fans, I’m calling this ‘nu wyrd dad rock’… Found yourself listening to Fleetwood Mac much lately? Me too. I think we’re ready for this! Hear tracks from Two Wings’ recently completed album (produced with John Cavanagh of Phosphene / Electroscope) online at http://twowings.bandcamp.com/
Two Wings are visiting Edinburgh as part of a short tour of Scotland with…
ARBOREA, a husband/wife psych-folk duo from Maine who have a new album out on Strange Attractors Audio House. Formed in the summer of 2005 Buck and Shanti Curran create “Low key intimate spellcasting affairs….. the fact that they are a couple might help to explain the seamless organic blending of their music together. Conjuring truly transportational magic out of the simplest ingredients. Their songs might be a hundreds of years old, and there’s little here to lock them into any moment other than forever”. (Dream magazine). Buck plays guitar, slide guitars, bowed strings, flutes, banjo, and vocals. Shanti provides lead vocals, banjo, ukulele, bowed strings, harmonium, and percussion. They are often joined by Helena Espvall on cello. http://arboreamusic.blogspot.com/
Opening this show will be the debut performance of a brand new Edinburgh band with NO NAME! Very little is known about this anonymous quartet, which reportedly comprises members of King Bear, Appendix Out, Giant Tank, The Wee Rogue and Red Death. They’ve been meeting in secret for around two years, and what little recorded evidence has leaked out of those sessions suggests such influences as Codeine, Red House Painters, Galaxie 500, Palace Brothers and Slint. We can’t wait to blow their cover!
Oh hang on, news just in: they’re called Long Distance Runner.
Proceeds from this gig go towards the Save the Forest Campaign.
Save the Forest!
Inky Fingers Open Mic Night
28 June, 8-11pm
featuring JANE MCKIE and ALAN BISSETT
and YOU, on our famous open stage
The Inky Fingers Open Mic takes place in the main room of the Forest Café every fourth Tuesday of the month, from 8-11pm. It’s free to come and free for anyone to perform, regardless of style, experience, or identity. It is big and celebratory and welcoming and fun. We want to hear from everybody. We want your poems, your rants, your ballads, your short stories, your diaries, your experimental texts, your heart, your mind, your body. We want the essay on your summer holidays you wrote when you were four, your adolescent haiku, and extracts from your eventually-to-be-completed epic fantasy quadrilogy. We want to hear your best new work as well. And we want people to care about the way words are performed.
Our feature performers this month are award-winning poet and editor Jane McKie, and novelist, playwright, film-maker and performer Alan Bissett.
Open Mic slots are five minutes long; e-mail inkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com to sign up and be sure of a slot!
Find Inky Fingers online at http://inkyfingersedinburgh.wordpress.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101994993200164, and on Twitter @InkyFingersEdin.
CLICK CLACK CLUB
June 23, 9pm
presenting music and other performing arts of an experimental nature
funky & idiosyncratic
featuring this month:
Steve Kettley’s Odd Times
Zorras
Wrebbles
Mongol Rally Fundraiser
with The Electric Ghosts, Fred Lemon, Broken-Hi-Hats and more
Forest Hall, Sat 18th June, 9pm - 2am (£6, BYOB)
An epic mishmash of country tock, hip-hop, soul and electro going on late into the night. You could come as a cosmonaut. All proceeds going towards the charities supported by Mongol Rally teams the Fast and the Curious and the First Class Travellers. Follow them at http://www.forgetso.com/thefastandthecurious/index.php
GOLDEN HOUR
June 22, 8pm
The Forest’s beautiful golden edged, wine tinted evening of poetry, stories and music.
This months’ Golden Hour presents:
Words:
Tracey Emerson — The Short-Story Doctor is In!
Richie McCaffrey - young poems with a familial lustre.
Gavin bowd — poems from the founding director of the StAnza poetry festival, and his poetry, fiction and translations have been widely published.
Music:
BenOfficial - electro art performance for which you are all woefully unprepared.
Doug Johnstone - playing acoustic and solo and acoustic and alone.
Jade and the Jacks - Pure, relentless, funky fun. You will hot up.
TONIGHT! Swithun Crowe and his wild bunch of Nacho desperados crash the Hard Rock Monday cantina.
