Current mood:	determined
Current music:	ccr, "effigy"
Entry tags:	birmingham, burn, burn culture, burning flipside, burning man, effigy, may you never thirst, survivalism, symbolism, that thing in the desert

survivalist symbolism related to that thing in the desert
obviously, burning effigies are found in ancient ceremonies around the world... many, that still survive to this day:

in japan, in britain, in mexico, in pakistan, in spain, in san franciso, in india, in ohio,& in ecuador, for instance

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there are also a number of modern festivals are popping up to reclaim some sort of liminal celebration of this primordial ritual...

during the Summer Solstice of June 21 1991, the klf hosted The Rites Of Mu on the Isle of Jura... coincidentally enough, later that same year, the Burning Man festival was first scheduled to begin on the playa in the Black Rock Desert (it was was moved from Baker Beach in san francisco, where the authorities had expressed opposition to the celebration)

speaking of the klf, it's nice to know that they're still at it...

bill drummond can be found selling produce... or perhaps making vats of soup... and also something else...
070306 ADDENDUM: as well as The 17 "choir"

meanwhile, check out blacksmoke, and the transit kings and keep looking forward for other projects associated with Jimmy Cauty...
070306 ADDENDUM: Jimmy Cauty's "Untitled - Oil And Crushed Metal On Tarmac" will be on public display at the junction of Station Road and North Street, Portslade, Brighton from Mon 3rd July, selling for £4000 - the same price he originally purchased it for, before he crushed it & cut it in half.

and not that it has anything to do with the klf (except that it is scottish, so it's not crap), now there's even an annual WickerMan festival in Scotland, which is celebrated a few miles from Kircudbright, one of the sites where The Wicker Man was filmed... i guess they just decided to jump on the bandwagon, finally? (although it's nowhere near as big as something like the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts)

back on US soil, there is the Zozobra, or "Old Man Gloom" who has been burned every year since 1924 during Fiestas de Santa Fe, during the weekend following Labor Day. "(the) inspiration for Zozobra came from the Holy Week celebrations of the Yaqui Indians of Mexico; an effigy of Judas, filled with firecrackers, was led around the village on a donkey and later burned."

so, whether we're talking about the burning of a Yule log at Christmas, fire sacrifice in the eleusinian & orphic mysteries, or Caesar & Strabo's accounts of the Celtic wicker man ritual (however accurate or exaggerated they may have been)... these all still show evidence of significant symbolic rituals

of course, there are numerous Pagan traditions that have developed in the last few decades which utilize the symbolism of burning effigies... such as this Beltane celebration at Butser Ancient Farm

for more anthropological info, if you're curious, here is Frazer's lengthy and occasionally spurious analysis of effigy-burning form The Golden Bough (Chapters 62-64, concerning fire-festivals)

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however, as Larry Harvey points out, Burning Man is something altogether different than any of these ancient traditions
Setting the Record Straight on Burning Man Myths (and a few new ideas)

i particularly appreciated The Burning Man Phrase Generator ©, with which i came up with this amusing description of the event:
a meta-communal apocalyptic phantasmagoria

one way to describe it for me, is that burn culture provides an opportunity to combine the survivalist and symbolist sides of my personality through participation in the perpetual re-creation of intentional community based on reciprocal altruism

here are some of my personal contributions to burn culture:
a five-minute speech about Burning Flipside
The Cthulhu Devival @ Pyropolis 2005

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wow, it's really starting to sink in... when i'm feeling particularly sentimental, i begin to cry just thinking about it:

i'm finally going to Burning Man.

then, the reality of radical self-sufficiency sets in... the lists of supplies that i need, the shopping trips to plan... training myself to drink more water...

"may you never thirst"