Dear Sir,
At least, I presume you are a sir. Maybe this is sexist of me, but I don't think I've ever seen a female bagpipe player. If you're a woman, I'm sorry, you're probably doing great things for women in a male-dominated field, but I'm still mad and gender is not part of this equation. I just don't know your name and that's the closest I could come to an appropriate addressee for this extremely important, never-to-be-delivered correspondence. Okay, you know what, fine, I'll call you Steve. Basically, Steve, the problem is this: you have chosen as your outdoor concert space the area immediately below my bedroom window. Therefore I have been awoken for the past several days by bagpipes, commencing with militaristic regularity at 9:00 am, and continuing almost nonstop until 2:00 pm.
I have also recently opened the window in my bedroom and now can't figure out how to close it. You see, I am in town for the Fringe, that thing you probably don't like that much but that I bet also involves a lot more browsing of your CD basket than you might otherwise experience of an August. I am renting a rickety old wooden-floored apartment at the top of a dark, musty staircase cleaned weekly by an elderly lady named Marjorie (she came by today to collect the £2.50 she charges everyone for the service), and things are a bit decrepit. But actually this antique, slightly musty brand of decrepitude seems to me quite charmingly Scottish, while your undeniably very Scottish melodies are the reverse. I hate them, Steve. I hate them so much. Did you know that the official word for the sound bagpipes make is a "drone"? A drone. Like the sound Charlie Brown's teachers make. Or the useless males in a bee colony. Did you also know that the majority of today's bagpipes are produced in Pakistan? Or that you've driven a woman to madness wikipedia-ing "bagpipes" at two in the morning on a Wednesday? The madness must end. Also a thing exists called Piping Today. It's a magazine, and you probably subscribe to it.
Look. I will be in Edinburgh for three and a half weeks, performing a free show for one hour per day, every day, flyering for multiple additional hours rain or shine, and then drinking and socializing and trying to network -- while pretending I'm not networking because that is a tacky thing to be doing consciously -- in the nighttime. I am a busy lady and a tired one. You, a musician performing in the street for money, love of the instrument, or both, must be in a similar situation; I imagine it is tiring standing out there blowing into a massive big bag and then squeezing all that air through reeds (that's how a bagpipe works, right? Wikipedia is unhelpful about its practical application) in a sonorous way. I empathize. And yet I must inform you, if you keep it up, I will be forced to kill you.
I have thought about how I would do it, which should disturb you as much as it disturbs me, and if you must know you're going to get it via pillow. The selfsame pillow I have been desperately -- but with an increasing sense of complete futility -- attempting to use as a sound-blocker in the mornings. Poetic, no? Ironic at least. Somewhere, Alanis Morissette is drooling.
Basically, I'm asking you nicely to move somewhere, anywhere, else. Edinburgh is a very walkable city, and a mere ten minutes of pleasant walking would take you out of earshot of my bedroom. Either that or present your face tomorrow morning for smothering. Up to you.
Please let me know which you decide asap. Thank you and all the best in your future endeavours (maybe).
Sincerely,
Monica Heisey
PS This was a lot more lighthearted in my brain. It seems like I'm harbouring some real resentment and I guess I am, so, look out?
PPS That's made it still more ominous. Jeeze. Just, quit it, basically, is what I'm saying.
You can see Monica performing every day of the Fringe, 3:30 at The Counting House, with sketch comedy group Ladies & Gentlemen. She can be found on twitter @monicaheisey or @LGcomedy.
Note: This piece is satirical.