A wild idea...

This is a post about ABANDONMENT.

You may recall, if you are a longtime reader of this blog, that one of my Lichtenbergian Proposed Efforts for this year was something I entitled “Project 20-2-2.” I gave no details at that time, but I suppose there’s no harm in talking about it now.

The idea was simple enough: Play off the 2-2 in the year and encourage burners (at Alchemy) to bring tutus to wear. There would be a musical number that everyone would download, and then individuals would spontaneously burst into a little dance number as they went around the burn (with their portable speakers). Eventually all the 2-2’ers would gather at the Effigy and do a big movie musical number.

But forget about that one. I’ve ABANDONED it because I’ve had a better idea.

Seven years ago I chanced upon Charles Fréger’s Wilder Mann: the image of the savage. It immediately fascinated me in the same way that this image…

image from The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego by Martin Gusinde; more here.

… an image of Tierra del Fuegan men I saw decades ago, eventually inspired the body paint of 3 Old Men.

Likewise, Fréger’s book…

… and the images in it…

…have stayed with me, and so I have applied for the Alchemy Art Fundraiser to ask the hippies for help creating the Wilder Mann March.

The idea is simple: Entice enough hippies to build their own Wilder Mann costumes, then on burn night meet at a spot somewhere in the burn, and — accompanied by drums, bells, shofars, vuvuzuelas, etc — march to the Effigy, which at that point will be surrounded by the entire burn community.

The idea is simple. We’ll see how the execution goes.