Gone Troppo

trop po |ˈtrɑpoʊ| |ˈtrɒpəʊ|
adjective Austral./NZ informal
mentally disturbed, supposedly as a result of spending too much time in a tropical climate : have you gone troppo ?
ORIGIN 1940s: from TROPIC + -O.

Port Douglas kicked off its first ever Go Troppo Arts Festival this week. Sarabelle was there Friday evening performing with her high school strings ensemble to open the ten-day celebration at the Low Isles Exhibition out on the old Sugar Wharf. It was a beautiful night on the water, the sun setting behind the mountains, classical music and art inside, and a trio performing acoustic sea chanties outside.

Last night we hit the Central Hotel with a couple friends for the Port Shorts Film Festival. Entries were under three minutes and contained a preselected item, this year's being, "BEAM." Sarabelle was requested to be there by her friend, actor and producer of last year's winner, Pig Boy. While his entry last night was not selected for Best Movie, a collaboration with his partners from Pig Boy won the top prize with a very funny short about an alcoholic loser, Joe Beam, and his overworked liver, starring the friend in the role of the much abused organ.

Next up, the busking competition next Saturday, where another friend of the girls, producer of this stop action short, is performing.

We'll close out the festival Sunday with Art In The Park followed by the Footprints Sunset Concert, where Sarabelle will be playing with her school's jazz band, and their friends' band, Kan'd Peaches, winners of the 2008 Mossman Show Battle of the Bands and 2008 Cairns Battle of the Bands, will also be performing.


The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther'.

-- Ludwig van Beethoven