Tuesday, August 28th, 2007...
the significance of the man burning early
a play about cross-cultural communication:
burner - played by someone who is part of the burningman community.
non-burner: played by someone who is not.
- - -
burner: OMG! the man burnt early!
non-burner: what?
burner: have you ever heard of burningman?
non-burner: hmm… looks like some crazy festival in the desert?
B: yeah. they also burn a statue of a man. that’s why they call it burningman.
NB: well, i don’t really get the point of that but…ok….
B: so someone set it on fire last night. and now everyone’s all upset.
NB: i thought you said they’re supposed to burn it.
B: no… this was arson!
NB: what’s the difference?
B: well, first of all, it’s not supposed to get burnt until saturday night.
NB: what do you do with it before then?
B: nothing, really, you look at it, and ride by it and stuff.
NB: can you climb on it?
B: not recently.
NB: so it’s just a decoration basically?
B: well, i mean, it’s someoen’s ART.
NB: oh damn! who’s the artist?
B: the burningman organization.
NB: so it’s kinda like… corporate art? dude, i don’t know… there’s some tacky shit up in the lobby i wouldn’t mind…
B: hey! just because it’s produced by the burningman organization doesn’t mean it’s not someone’s creation.
NB: you’re right… that’s true. it is pretty crummy that someone burnt it.
B: yeah at least they caught the guy… you wanna see a mugshot?
NB: oh my god! that guy looks CRAZY!
B: well….
NB: what?
B: well, he kind of… a lot of people wear crazy outfits and makeup and stuff there.
NB: so this guy, he… fits in there?
B: well…i mean… yeah….
NB: i dunno…. if there’s a bunch of crazy tattooed people all running around in war paint and stuff–
B: hey! this whole thing is ABOUT “radical self expression!” that’s the whole idea…
NB: but… doesn’t what he did then… doesn’t that kinda count as pretty radical expression?
B: what? NO! look, radically self expressing means like… like… i spend the whole time there wearing a tutu and a cowboy hat simultaneously. ok? i don’t take away something from everybody who comes to the event just to see the man burn. that waits for this all year long.
NB: but they destroy the thing anyway!
B: you can’t destroy it until they say so!
NB: you know… all these rules sound really complicated and confusing.
B: it’s really not. it’s really all just about art. you know, people spend so much time and energy creating amazing art to bring out there and share with everyone, and this guy just–
NB: wait…you think maybe this was his art?
B: what?
NB: well, i bet this took a good deal of planning beforehand, and it’s certainly a statement–
B: what the hell kind of statement does it have?
NB: i don’t know… maybe something like, about culture jamming or somethig? it seems like there’s a message it’s trying to get across maybe, and it–
B: that is ridiculous. that isn’t art with a message! THIS is art with a message:
NB: oh. hm…. how much fuel you think it took to trasnport and construct atll tha?
B: ok. you know what…. i have to go finish packing now.
NB: ok. see ya. have fun!
B: thanks!
8 comments
August 29th, 2007 at
Hm. Very interesting dialogue. Who would be an objective third party?
I am an NB. But I think I would side with the B here. One could say that violent terrorist acts are a form of radical expression, and they may be, but once they get into the realm of injuring others, then they become messages about power. Even if someone is trying to start a revolution, the revolution would ultimately be horizontal rather than vertical because it would be one group usurping power from another group. And the concept of power would persist nonetheless. Whereas a vertical revolution would transcend the concept of power entirely, which we as a human race have yet to imagine with our minds - minds which are brilliant but inherently limited because they are just minds, and not The Mind.
Anyway, I don’t know if that made any sense. I tried.
August 29th, 2007 at
allison - while there are certainly a whole slew of topics that this action brings up, including politics, terrorism, irony, social organization, art, and also blah blah blah…..
that dialogue wasn’t actually really intended for anyone to take a side. no one is really trying to convince anyone of anything, in fact, both characters, are basically just trying to understand the other, and get themselves accross.
ultimately, this is a marketing blog. and one of the fundamental imperatives for effective marketing now is to be able to effectively approach an audience/community on their terms. when i read about the arson @ burningman the first thing that came to mind is “i wonder what someone who doesn’t really know about the social norms of burningman would make of this whole story?”
like what is “arson” exactly in a context where somehting is SUPPOSED to be burnt anyway? and what is “radical self expression” in a context where there are, for sure, unspoken rules about it? but i’m not really that interested in what the community that understands the context makes of these contradictions, but rather how do you communicate a message (or a brand, or a product?) accross different community contexts, where this whole thing becomes a lot more confusing?
it seemed like a great example of just how incredibly complicated and tricky it IS to “approach people on their own terms,” because sometimes that means not even taking their own terms at their “objective” face value, but at what that particular demographic has determined that they mean for them.
(which is not to say i don’t have a whole lot else i COULD say about the arson. but this isn’t the right forum for it.)
August 29th, 2007 at
I see. Marketing is not my first instinct. I blog about spirituality, so of course I missed the whole context. Oops.
I suppose what is a sacred animal to one group may always just be a cow to another group.
The only way I see possible to bridge this gap is via what Steven Pinker called his “two superheroes” of linguistics - metaphor and combinatorics.
When I read that, I immediately thought of poetry.
Show-and-telling the cow group that the sacred animal is like their Jesus. Telling the sacred animal group that the while the cow group eats their personal version of Jesus, they are very reverent to their own version of the sacred cow. And hoping they do not kill each other.
To me marketing would mean putting the prettiest face on both groups to reach a mutual understanding that would hopefully end up in mutual profit. (I don’t know if that is your definition of marketing?)
So I guess what I’m getting at is, the best marketing is, in a way, poetry.
PS - Stream-of-consciousness is amazing. I never anticipated comparing marketing to poetry. Weird.
PPS - I hope you don’t mind my blog-stalking you. I just happen to like your blog a lot.
August 29th, 2007 at
hehe. i don’t mind! thanks for the props.
September 4th, 2007 at
BM is not a very spiritual event for me so what I have to say is more factual than anything else.
>B: so someone set it on fire last night. and now everyone’s all upset.
Actually, I didn’t meet anyone who cared that the man burned on Monday night… It happened; it’s going to happen; everybody was already up looking at the eclipse and this just added to the already over active Monday night.
Two jokes arose out of the early burn:
1) We were getting a 2 for 1 deal!
2) We were now attending Burnt man.
Had “I” arrived after the early burn AND they didn’t rebuild for a burn on Saturday, I might have been disappointed. (However, the Oil Rig burn was so spectacular that the Saturday night Man burn paled in comparison.)
>NB: i thought you said they’re supposed to burn it.
>B: no… this was arson!
>NB: what’s the difference?
When The Man burns, almost a 100 firemen organize a safe burn. This guy started a fire while spectators were under the effigy. He put innocent people in mortal danger. Thus, he committed arson and should be prosecuted for his actions.
>NB: well, i bet this took a good deal of planning beforehand,
Yes, he made a big effort as he used napalm and started the fire at the moment of full eclipse.
>and it’s certainly a statement–
I don’t care what his statement is… Just like a terrorist action, I don’t care to hear the cause nor the name of the person performing the action.
RS
September 4th, 2007 at
>Show-and-telling the cow group that the sacred
>animal is like their Jesus. Telling the sacred
>animal group that the while the cow group eats
>their personal version of Jesus, they are very
>reverent to their own version of the sacred cow.
>And hoping they do not kill each other.
Your metaphor of animal to Jesus is beautiful. However, I do want to make clear… BM is not a religious event. I come from a strict Baptist upbringing and my family would hold bonfires for friends and family every year when we had the land to do it on. Just because it is an effigy of a man doesn’t mean anything. If I was part of the LLC, I would choose the same symbol every year because I am too lazy to try and figure out what different thing to build; I suspect their reasoning is something similar or just tradition.
If there is one common interest between all Burners, it’s that we “like to watch things burn.” I’ll strike a match when I bored and just watch the flame. It’s hypnotic.
RS
September 6th, 2007 at
Geez… start talking about terrorism and then you loose me.
RS - You don’t represent or speak for all burners.
You know actually, it would have taken some amount of planning to do such thing (burn the man early). I don’t think he acted alone either.
December 11th, 2007 at
I found that dialogue absolutely hilarious! Very well done playing both sides!
And such a truism when dealing with so many complex issues in society today.
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