On Burning Man

I was forging an article in my mind a few days ago, something to do with arguing - in a very much tongue in cheek manner - that Burning Man is actually the ultimate feminist experience. Not only are half the art pieces so obviously a statement of the metaphorically castrated male of the twenty-first century (for example, the SWARM project that I know of because of a friend's loose involvement, is a bunch of guys essentially saying, 'Yes, I have enormous balls of steel, and they will pester the hell out of you as you innocently walk by') but the concluding saga of burning the figure of a quite literally de-membered man who stands on top of a spire as proudly phallic as the Washington Monument is the defining gesture of male defeat.

Generally speaking, I actually feel sorry for guys in this day and age: their purpose of centuries has been removed, and they are now only important as a fashion accessory. The more glitzy and glamorous your guy, the better. I am not arguing that endless years of the oppression of women was acceptable either, but this fervent endeavour to prove women are just like men is utterly fruitless and futile. It is a fact which defines this planet of ours: we have men, we have women, and they are fundamentally different - celebrate those differences, rather than try to deny them.

I did my best to keep an open mind about this Burning Man event; I approached google with a vengeance, found videos and blog entries, read from both sides of the story. It certainly means different things to different people - whereas to some it is the opportunity to 'radically self express' themselves, for others it is the chance to have a dangerous cocktail of sex and drugs and loss of inhibitions; I am sure that a few go for the art pieces themselves, enormous structures that in some cases must have cost millions of dollars to produce. I would say it is pretty accurate to say, though, that the vast majority of Burners (as I believe they are known) are desperately unhappy people, searching for some modicum of meaning in their tedious existences. If the purpose of BM is to demonstrate the effects of consumerism and capitalism on individuals, then it does that spectacularly - although not necessarily in the way in which organisers originally intended, I suspect. People are so constrained by their own lives that when they have an opportunity to break free, ridiculous extremes are sought. I suggest that nobody genuinely wants to spend their whole time wandering around half naked, their body speckled liberally with glitter in a suggestive manner, sporting perhaps a dog collar and a bowler hat for good measure. When the consequences of your actions are so limited, people will inevitably push boundaries: it seems everyone is vying to be the most dramatic, the most intense, the most noticed.

The 'energy' people keep speaking of in their videos is the energy of an angry, frustrated people. There was one place where you could go and, to the encouraging shouts of black-clad aggressive-sounding women, beat the living daylights out of your friend. I was supposed to go paintballing a few months ago and the event was called off due to torrential rain: I was inwardly rather glad, because I severely doubted my ability to shoot at someone, even with a paint capsule. Does nobody else see how this brutal stage could get so terribly out of hand? Many years ago, my brother was approached by a total stranger and hit squarely in the face a few times. For those who don't know him: Robin is a tall, broad, and exceptionally powerful individual. He is a mountaineer who is toughened by his experiences; if anybody could look after themselves in a fight, he could. His response? To stand there dumbfounded and watch the other guy laugh before walking away. Aggression is something we don't understand, I guess because we don't have to.

We've been brought up to follow the adage, 'know thyself, accept thyself, be thyself'. It seems that people attending BM are all searching for something, some meaning in their meaningless lives. I suggest that if the event went on for much longer than a week, trouble would break out. Human nature would eventually seep to the surface and the barely disguised anger, self-loathing and confusion would rise brutally to the surface. The effect would be catastrophic. (Try reading either Jose Saramago's 'Blindness' or J G Ballard's 'Super-Cannes' for a look below that violent surface.)

In everything I do, I am myself. I am consistently honest and true to the person I am - by what I wear, the places I go, how I speak with others and moreover what I say to others. I am not suggesting that the world would be a better place populated by Jane-Clones (my word, it would be horrifying), but I do know it woud certainly be happier if everyone figured out who they were and got on with being that person. Everyone has negative experiences and internalises them, becoming affected by others who interrupt their peace: the trick is to move away from such people and separate yourself. I know how difficult this is, and sometimes I fail temporarily, but I refuse to let some weak individual who has sought to destroy me have a lasting effect on my life.

With all my flaws and failings, at least I know that I can stand up and say that yes, I am I. I seriously doubt that something such as BM will help anyone achieve this peaceful status.

Are you who you want to be?

“When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere”. ( François de la Rochefoucauld)

Three borrowed snippets

The following are three snippets that have struck a chord somewhere over the past week. I'll open with a D H Lawrence poem:

Sick

I am sick, because I have given myself away.
I have given myself to the people when they came
so cultured, even bringing little gifts,
so they pecked a shred of my life, and flew off with a croak
of sneaking exultance.
So now I have lost too much, and am sick.

I am trying now to learn never
to give of my life to the dead
never, not the tiniest shred.


From John Keats', 'The Eve of St Agnes':

'As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again'

Thomas Hardy's, 'Far From the Madding Crowd' is a worthy classic, a veritable work of inspired art. I love this section, where the dashing Sergeant Troy proposes to the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene that her charms are in fact injurous to society at large. Excellent concept:

'Ah, well, Miss Everdene, you are - pardon my blunt way - you are rather an injury to our race than otherwise.'

`How - indeed?' she said, opening her eyes.

`O, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of much account, but it will do for a rough soldier), and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and without hoping or intending to get your pardon. Why, Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that your good looks may do more harm than good in the world.' The sergeant looked down the mead in critical abstraction. `Probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman. She can marry him: he is content, and leads a useful life. Such women as you a hundred men always covet - your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unavailing fancy for you - you can only marry one of that many. Out of these say twenty will endeavour to drown the bitterness of despised love in drink; twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in the world, because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you; twenty more - the susceptible person myself possibly among them - will be always draggling after you, getting where they may just sec you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant fools! The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all these men will be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have married are saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to her race.'

On poppies and pausing for thought

I passed a spare hour a few days ago floating on the sea - somewhere I'm to be found with increasing frequency of late - thinking of significant events in my life. I tried to recall something from every year, excluding the first few which I think I can be forgiven for not quite recalling with perfect clarity... As too many memories starting vying for attention I endeavoured to order them into different categories: academic achievements, friends, countries visited, dreams created or shattered or realised.

And at some point, I started thinking of world events from the past twenty-six years. Why is it that those which are so memorable are also those which are so terrible? I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that Princess Diana had been killed; I know every moment of the afternoon where I sat and watched, transfixed, as planes crashed into New York's World Trade Centre. The year of the tsunami, I passed a sombre Christmas in Buenos Aires; a few months previously in Argentina, I know exactly how I lay as I saw the news of the Russian school siege. I remember thinking how lucky my brother was, hidden away somewhere in the mountains of Kazakhstan, no contact with the outside world and one of the few who was fortunate enough not to know of the horrors unfolding.

This evening, I watched the final episodes of the 'Celebrity Apprentice'. In my defence, I'd like to say that the DVDs were bought for me by a friend in China who acquired them at barely existent prices for my occasional amusement as a source of mockery. Piers Morgan was trying - and succeeding impressively well - to earn money for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund , money going to wounded American servicemen and women to assist with their rehabilitation. I was reminded of the time when I sat up into the early hours of the morning to watch George Bush officially declare war on Iraq, and I was reminded of all the times I've made slick comments and ribald remarks about the politicians who allowed this war to take place. And I have to say, I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself this evening. I sat in Houston Airport a few years ago, watching wives saying goodbye to their husbands who they may never have the chance to see again, guys who might never see their children grow up, may never have the opportunity to be a father. I've never really had a father, not in the traditional sense of the word anyway, and it isn't something I could wish on any child.

I guess the concept of, 'Support Our Troops' finally hit home. If someone is out there being shot at from all angles in the name of Freedom - however tenuous that definition may be - then one of the last things they need is people voicing pious opinions about their presence in the occupied country.

On 11th November this year, I will be in Hong Kong. And at 11am on that day, regardless of what those about me are doing, I will pause in my tracks and think for two minutes of the millions of people who have given their lives in the last century. They make you do this in schools in England, standing upright with a paper poppy fastened loosely with a safety pin onto your uniform, no particular explanations offered as to why this requirement exists.

No, I don't agree with the principles the war in Iraq is being fought on - not now. I did to some extent when they first invaded, the concept of liberating the Iraqi people. But since then I've changed those ideas and disagree with the person I was six years ago. As long as somebody is out there, putting their life on the line because it is their job, risking themselves so that I can exist in a world with a slightly less skewed version of Freedom operating, I think I'll support them. And I suppose that, after all, teaching upper class brats isn't so very terrible a task.

'If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.' ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War.

Recalling Hong Kong

Whenever I eat chanterelle mushrooms, I'm reminded of wandering around a forest in Sweden, searching for the curled orange umbrellas perched on their delicate stalks. There's a certain combination of paint and methylated spirits that casts me back to the river on which I learned to row up in Lancaster; at six in the morning in the middle of a dark winter, we always knew when we were nearing the end of our stretch by the pungent aromas forcing themselves to the back of our throats as we passed by the factory. Considering most of my diet in Cuba consisted of salted plantano chips, my mind wanders back there whenever these appear in my world; tequila sees me on a beach in Mexico, and a particular piece of music whisks me to a club in Buenos Aires drunkenly whirling the night away with a delectable porteno.

I was wondering the other day what would remind me of Hong Kong when I left, or indeed what memories I'll take with me - how I'll remember the city. I guess whenever I see one of those movies that starts off with the camera zooming around city skyscrapers heading towards people beetling off to work in all directions I'll be reminded of walking through the IFC mall early in the morning: the music that plays in each circumstance is one and the same. People walk through the IFC with a jaunty step as if on their way to a movie-set, and indeed in some ways I guess they are.

There are the shops that I daily pass without having a clue what the products are. Neither have I any intention of finding out as the smells emitting from these establishments are toe-curling in their hideousness; strips of dried meat and fish hang stiffly above plastic buckets of alien fruits, dehydrated out of all recognition.

The slightly surreal evenings when I floated calmly on the surface of a luke-warm sea, counting the stars that dotted the sky above a gently glowing power-station - paying particular attention, of course, to the manner in which the staircase wends it way around the building in a curve particularly interesting to those of us who are mathematically minded... And I'll remember walking home up a dark path, leaping three feet in the air every time a leaf rustles beside me as I anticipate a python the size of a tree trunk whipping out to swallow me whole. And I haven't forgotten the evening I plunged headlong into the water, such niceties as bikinis forgone.

Many of my memories are related to the sea. My first sea-rowing experiences, my first outrigging attempts - being tipped unceremoniously into the water as I leaned out too far... Dragonboating while wearing a tshirt so pink it dyed my body for days after. Hundreds of hours spent sitting on ferries followed by the mad stampede to get off them, a stampede that is imitated on all forms of public transport here but unfortunately not emulated on the pavements: people here have developed the art of walking slowly and taking up an entire pavement, however diminutive they may be.

I guess I'll just remember Hong Kong as being the city I never intended on visiting, let alone living in, and how my Lamma retreat helped me survive the unmitigated, frenetic chaos of Central. I came here looking for stability and security and instead found my freedom curtailed, my character restrained, my mind stultified at times. I leave here at the end of November and I can honestly say that I'll have few regrets about abandoning the city that will have been my home for a year. There is too wide a world out there with too many permutations and variations for me to restrict myself to being in one place for such a duration.

'Any existence deprived of freedom is a kind of death'. Oh, how true. I'll have a plethora of memories to be fondly recalled by the time I leave Hong Kong, a moment that will reaffirm my presence on this idly spinning planet of ours. I'm looking forward to feeling alive once more.