The first few days of the Melbourne Festival have been a time of maximum input, with no time for outputting (aside from Twitter, which exists, as you know, outside time). I've seen five MIAF shows so far, and will be logging my reviews in the next few days. But because the season is so short I wanted to tell you of my highlight so far: Stifter's Dinge, Heiner Goebbel's miraculous automaton, which leaps from the writings of the German Romantic writer Adalbert Stifter. It's on at the Malthouse, and there are several showings before it closes on Tuesday. I'd be running for tickets. No YouTube clip can tell you what it's like to be there: it's not like anything I have seen. And I can't stop thinking about it.