And that Karsloy’s year-round population is... 22?
There are cottages, too, on the island, so weekends see more than 22, but 22 it is. The island was once the administrative centre of the region, but with the increased reliance on roads in the second half of the last century, the island proved a bit too out-of-the-way. So the bureaucrats moved away, and, in the 70s, a few people (‘hippies’) decided to start up a new kind of society here. And they did. And then, most of them left. There are three goat farms (farmed for their milk). In fact, the head of the festival, I’m told, has a sizable goat farm. While I don’t want to use this blog to make any grand claims, I think it’s safe to say that this is the only music festival in the world that is run by a goat farmer. But someone else will have to check that fact. Regardless, it’s a beautiful part of the world, with weather patterns that seem to change minute by minute. When the sun breaks and the fog lifts, this place is something else. But, as a hermit I met in Anhui once said (wow. Did that sound as pretentious as I think it did? Sorry), the fog is beautiful too; he’s right: It hides the midsection of the surrounding mountains, leaving their tips to point up through the mist. It’s cold here, though. Bitter. But it’s a fresh cold.
The one word that people used repeatedly to talk about the Festival here was “special”, which, when uttered after a long pause of “umm”s and “er”s and searching for the right word, gave the impression that it might be like that “interesting” people say is a Chinese curse. So far, interesting is a good word for what I’m seeing here, but not in the Chinese curse way. More like in the wild, weird, cool, awesome, warm and more sense. We are being welcomed into peoples’ homes (we are living, with a large number of other musicians/festival folks, in peoples’ homes) and there are smiles, nods and ‘hi’s as we pass people on the road. I’m not going to try and put it all into words, like I’m going to try and not put, here, photographs that can’t possibly capture the scenery (knowing that I will, though, take loads of photos that won’t capture the scenery).
There are the characters, two of whom I know something about: