Sour Lemon Lemonade

Some local bloggers have their panties in a twist because Tower Place Mall has decided to back away from offering their space as a venue for Cincinnati Fringe Festival. This inevitably gets run up the flagpole as another example of mean old conservative Cincinnati.

The criticism is fair, but it's 'on the nose'. A huge opportunity may be missed in our eagerness to fight the same battles, over and over.

If the purpose of the fringe festival is to challenge the viewers, why not take the Tower Place debacle and run with it, artistically? Why not write, on the fly, a piece of performance art that takes place at the High Temple of Tower Place, and creates characters around the building owners? Why not produce an opera where some pudgy corporate goon sings an aria about appeasing the narrow-minded everyman? Why not design posters that incorporate the Tower Place logo into Stalin-era propaganda graphics?

Have fun with it, and embarrass them. Think outside of the retail box. Stop talking about the creative class and start acting creatively, and with class.