As usual, the DaFT crew has been @ the Warehouse all weekend long, swearing, sweating & bleeding to finish the Effigy. Thanks to all o' y'all who have showed up to offer us support, in any way! Many of us were there all day & all night... some of us have been rather ill, but we have been there anyway, 'cause we're committed (or perhaps we should be, anyway?)!

During Twilight on Saturday morning, sometime after finishing a stencil of the veve for Ayizan Velekete, a Loa with aspects of healing, commerce, & initiation:

inspiration came to me in my feverish dreams, concerning some of the archetypes that will be present at the Effigy, this year!

Out of these revelations, Eight Flash Mob scenarios have been added to the Effigy Art schedule... one for each of the Trigrams (BaGua) of the I Ching:

*PIRATES & CREATURES OF THE DEEP (BaGua: Open) Hosted by Jesus & The Kraken
*MIMES & MOUSTACHES (Bagua: Receptive/Field) Hosted by Salvador Dali & Mae West
*SHAMANS & FURRIES (Bagua: Radiance) Hosted by Florence Nightengale & The Sasquatch
*SUPERHEROES & CLOWNS (Bagua: Creative/Force) Hosted by Rosie The Riveter & Carmen Miranda
*ZOMBIES & CORPORATE EXECUTIVES (Bagua: Thunder) Hosted by Elvis & Cleopatra
*ALIENS & ROBOTS (BaGua: Wind) Hosted by Santa Claus & Valentine Michael Smith
*NINJAS vs. HIPPIES (BaGua: The Abysmal) Hosted by Guatama Buddha vs. Hassan I. Sabbah
*MARTINIS & LAB COATS (BaGua: Bound) Hosted by Hunter S. Thompson & W.S. Burroughs

If you would like to support any of these Flash Mob Scenarios with audio or video files, please bring your files to the Effigy itself directly during Flipside (If you would like to support any of these Flash Mob Scenarios with audio or video files (any format will work: .avi, .mpg, .mov, .mp3, .wav, .jpg, .gif, cd, dvd, vhs, etc.). It would be an appreciated devotion of your artistic talent, if you brought your files sorted into eight folders: each folder named after the eight Flash Mobs, which are in based on a seperate Trigram (BaGua) of the I Ching. You can bring them on portable flash memory, laptop, ipods, cds & dvds, or whatever! You can even email them to <aethyrflux -at- gmail -dot- com>... keep up The Great Work & we are eagerly looking forward to Playing With You @ the Effigy!


( These are meant as suggestions, not to limit the ways in which people explore interactive art @ the Effigy; but as arbitrary points from which to begin improvising upon familiar themes: )

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"

i thought that i could avert the insanity of quiz posting, but alas... i have been infected ...thank you circusavatar

When I took this test originally on 032903...

I was Hastur! The Unspeakable One is the master of those who seek to unveil the mysteries of death. It is through meditation upon the Yellow Sign that the devotee of Hastur seeks transcendence to the city-realm of dim Carcosa. Through a complex series of visualizations that expand the aspirants void-consciousness, the final age will arise. Ruled by the ominous King in Yellow, a new stage of reality will come to fruition. Of the Olde Ones, Hastur is considered to be one of the most difficult to work with, his teachings being reserved exclusively for the Cthonian Adepts and Lords.

Which Great Old One are you?

and when I just took the test on 030105, I got this result:

I am Nyarlathotep! The 999 forms of Nyarlathotep are a point of meditation for the true initiate. It is through these manifold faces that the secrets of the universe are made known. Called "The Crawling Chaos", Nyarlathotep is the disembodied ego of Azathoth and thus the universal "I" of known reality. Some of the many documented forms are; Father of Knives, Nephren-Ka, the Black Man, the Beast of the Lashing Tongue to name a few.

Which Great Old One are you?

But, as "Private Grendel," one of the Churpacabra Policia, i represent a mother's righteous anger in protecting her child...

I am Shub-Niggurath! Shub-Niggurath is often called the "Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young", and is the force of creation, life, evolution/mutation. She represent the force of the one universal constant (ie change) on the biological. She is often envisioned as a dark, low lying cloud, with goat's hooves with numerous tenticals writhing from within. Her rites are best performed during a New Moon, or on Mid-Summer's Eve.

Which Great Old One are you?

Last night, I went to see Mrs. Warrens's Profession, by George Bernard Shaw.

The players have done justice to the text in this extremely traditional 'high theatre' production of the Shavian classic...

Banned in Connecticut! Censored in London a century ago! Have times changed? Meet Vivie Warren, an emancipated, intelligent and self-sufficient young woman who is spending a tranquil post-university holiday with her mother and her mother's friends. But when Vivie learns just how her mother rose from poverty, all hell breaks loose. See what all the fuss is about.

Shaw challenges his audiences' moral complacency in the face of serious ethical problems and inequities. The play addresses questions about social justice, gender roles, equality in the workplace, sexual relationships, and parent/child conflicts.

It's not listed in the Chronicle, but here is the info:
March 19 - April 13, 2003
Wednesday-Saturday: 8 PM
Sunday: 2:30 PM
Venue: State Theater
Ticket Price: $16 - $20
Vendor: Star Tickets 472-5470

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