The Boulder Fringe Festival is the spawn of a creative seed that began traveling across the ocean nearly fifty years ago. The original fest began in Edinburgh in 1947 and has since happily inspired imitators all over the world. Boulder's version, launched in 2005, was a marathon of spontaneous art, music, performance, puppetry, film, video and installations. The roving exhibition took root online at www.boulderfringe.org and in corners and coffee shops, theaters and galleries all over town. This year's event, slated for mid-August, will last twelve days and include hundreds of participants, all of whom are selected randomly by lottery. Boulder attracts those on the cultural periphery, and the Fringe Fest is a wildly expressive way to see the best of them at work.