SF Camerawork and the Other

Point and click back. I just attended the media opening of a local photo gallery that specializes in presenting visually stunning photography about historical events involving the "other." Entitled "Ghosts in the Machine," the photos dug back into the collective subconscious in several different parts of the globe. The pastiche format blended together an investigation of the current state of a frozen historical memory by placing this slice of time into the context of the present. The curious mix of historical truth and its concurrent possibilities forms a range of aesthetic options that become the postmodern photographer's menu from which to assemble a coherent artistic vision. Renditions of such hybrid reality between past and present reveal one's ability to transport oneself temporally into the landscape of a past epoch for the sake of re-inserting historical subjects into that window of extraordinary historical relevance.

The reason why the SF Camerawork exhibition struck my fancy relates to my penchant for sifting through collective memories in order to spit out frozen chunks of the past. These both delectable and horrific pieces of universal memory serve to re-engage our historical palates by facilitating the insertion of deceased souls into two-dimensional frames, by merging technical observations with an accurate depiction of the historical record, and by weaving together the ghosts of the past with the deliberations of the present era.

Perhaps one can never exhaust the possibilities of such play with historical snapshots and the human representations that can be attributed to a specific context during war, in the wilderness, or on the edge of civilized existence. The most notable parts of Ghosts in the Machine were depections of grave injustice that continue to afflict the survivors of bygone dimensions. The essence of constructing historical memory on the foundations of assorted archival footage and substantive subjective interplay is a nexus between peoples and between periods of time.


One set of photographically wise images of northern Scandinavia reminds us about the ancestors of the Lapplander (Sami) people who inhabit the vast expanses of snowy wilderness in the northern regions of Scandinavia. Frozen literally to the bark of placid birch trees, the faces of these Sami spirits remind us of the sovereignty once enjoyed by these folks over the land. Now there are competing claims to dominion over this land, and the nostalgic belief that these ghosts peacefully planted their life-seeds in these hallowed forests gives us hope. Perhaps we can be encouraged to dig through the images of our collective history to eke out an irreversible sense of rehabilitation of the old arrangement.

Another creative investigation into the events of the past was conducted by a Lebanese artist who sought to piece together the fragments of car bombs during the Lebanese Civil War that ravaged his country from 1975 to 1991. By documenting the cars that were nefariously commissioned to carry the hundreds of kilos of explosive matter into close contact with the tens of civilians whose lives were senselessly ended seconds later, the artist lends credibility and universality to the murderous act. The statement is elicited: thou might employ any motor vehicle to strap down TNT sufficient enough to send scores of unaware and undeserving human beings to their final resting place.


Syphilitic symbols comprise one of the other demonstrative sets of visual memory. One clever American photographer trekked down to actual Southern hospitals (infamously lacking in Southern hospitality but endowing with Southern death eventuality) where doctors infected black men with syphilis under the auspices of the Tuskeegee Experiment. This photo concept involves digitally inserting the cutouts of poor black farmers from the dirty dirty Deep South into scenes of medical shamefulness. As white nurses and doctors snatched up black male bodies with which to run sinister venereal disease tests, the syphilitic patients scream forth their sacrificial innocence - mere lambs set aside for gradual yet tormented slaughter. These images allow the viewer to share solidarity with sharecroppers whose fates the medical establishment threw into the vacuum of venereal vilification. The photo above is of a wooden cast of vertical, standing cut-outs of a WW1 vet who returned from the frontlines to a life of institutionalization.


The last of the photo sets on display that appealed to my historical interest was Dinh Q Le's highly technical presentation of Vietnam's ghosts, from Hollywood to the jungle. Weaving together the strands of interlocking photos with a process typically used for grass mat weaving, Le creates a quintessentially postmodern photo collage. The photos that link together Sergeant Pyle with the folk experiences of Vietnamese people during the sanguine conflict create a feeling of historical unity that bridges the American appreciation of the events in Southeast Asia with the visceral experiences of civilians caught up in the atrocious quagmire.

Zijamaicakilla

zijamaicakilla
Originally uploaded by whodisan215.

Hamsa Lila Nikila balances the light of the universe on her dome piece.

The House of Tikkun and Spiritual Progressivism

For about 13 months, my spritual and religious development has been profoundly influenced by the musings and movements of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, as embodied by Tikkun magazine and as expressed during High Holiday services at Beyt Tikkun. This celebration of the New Year has been the culmination of my attempts to reconcile organized religion with my renegade philosophies. I've found that my views are compatible with a certain format of religious discourse and interconnectedness. As the esteemed Rabbi Lerner interjected, "This ain't your Grandma's shul!" Sure isn't. This hippie religion is way too experimental and irreverent for the old guard of the Hebrew faith. But, that's how we do out here in the Bay Area. The I-Thou challenge is deconstructed into a systematically alternative concept of how to believe. Belief becomes the acceptance of all disbelief as an integral part of its all-encompassing framework. How can this be? The emphasis on social wellbeing, ecological sanity, and pantheistic philosophy coheres into a rather holistic way to form the principles of the Tikkun movement.

So, how exactly do belief systems expand to include those who are fundamentally nonbelievers? How do you bring nonbelievers in from the coldness of nihilism, persuading them that their nonbelief is inherently some sort of belief - one that has not yet been defined or articulated? This is apparently the undertaking that the Tikkun movement has embraced, by opening the floodgates primarily to the masses of skeptical atheists, young urban professionals, and progressive-minded activists who formerly could not properly fit into a traditional faith niche.

This movement is attractive for people who seek to inject a sense of purpose into political and social realms where there is a dearth of teleological justification. The intangible wealth that comes with the open embrace of spiritual oneness cannot be ignored. This society's enthusiasm for logical systems that lack spiritual grounding can only contribute so much to the health of humankind. We must continually seek to enrich our lives from a different sort of metaphysical perspective, thereby providing ourselves with a balance between the aggressively expansionist mentality of capitalist life and the sanctity of inner calm. Righteous folks may attain such a state through a reconciliation of their own psychological and spiritual proclivities with a broader understanding of the implications of political and social relations. Tikkun works towards accomplishing these two simultaneous objectives: honing one's own spiritual growth and sharing one's productive sense of purpose with the polity in the interests of building a more fulfilling civic and communal arrangement.

Progressive political power is on the rise. The spiritual progressives are avant-gardistes who are rightfully taking the godhead back from the religious right and instilling humanity, rather than a mere handful of chosen people, with the energy to launch the Progressive Revolution.

A Cultural Geography of Burning Man 2006

What exactly is Burning Man? This challenge to define the essence of Burning Man will evoke a plethora of different reactions to the psychedelic, ephemeral, and brutal qualities of the unique phenom. To start, it is necessary to label Burning Man as an event. As such, it takes place during a set time period every year (around Labor Day weekend), in a specific location (Black Rock City, Nevada, 40^45'32.70N, 119^14'14.03W). This year's festival was in fact the 20th Annual Burning Man, which actually began as a smalltime neo-hippie gathering at Baker Beach in San Francisco. The distinctive style of Burning Man brings together glitz-glam scenesters and kinky progressives as pinko temptresses apocalyptically burn off a year's worth of pent-up deviance.

To give thee a sense of what Burning Man represents and what it encompasses, you must realize that Burning Man connotes a style, an ethos, an attitude, musical aesthetic, etc. SpaceAge references to Mad Max and Thunderdome are often cited as quintessential to the vibe at BM. Mix in neo-hippie spiritualism, neo-pagan pyromania, neo-tribal community relations, psych-trance tempo, and desert survivalist (radical self-reliance cum radical self-expression) chic. At the weeklong festival, a particular form of social interaction reigns supreme. The isloated venue certainly determines how the social dynamic plays out, and the unique desert clime has a grand influence on the nuances of Burning Man existence.


I should state that this was indeed my first trip to Burning Man. I embarked on the trek to Burning Man (what essentially morphs into a desert caravan once you realize that all of the people on the Nevada highways at that late hour are indeed headed for the same desert festival) after securing this ride through Craigslist Rideshare. Burning Man no doubt has emerged from the San Francisco Bay Area's uniquely West Coast communal sprirt of belonging, so my soliciation of a ride from that internet community was indicative of the culture of things to come. My musical appetite was also whetted, as we bumped Gypsy brass tunes, Afrobeat, heavy Swedish folk, and Gnawa chants.

Preparation for the craziness of BM is never sufficient. Though I consider myself lucky for having scrounged together the necessary supplies hastily, it would have been easy to forget packing any of the absolutely crucial elements (food, water, shade structure, illicit substances of all sorts, goods to barter, dust mask, warm vestments, googles, bike). In addition to the elements of style that enable one to fit into the BM cult aesthetically, these necessities ensure survival through a grueling week of debased debauchery, eccentric experimentation, silly spontaneity, artistic allegory, neutered naturalism, and materialistic machismo.


These descriptions must indeed be qualified in order to reveal the extent of BM's outrageous dimensions. The antics that transpire within the confines of Black Rock City are certainly enabled by the state laws of Nevada (which tolerate a high level of lawlessness, even if they remain intolerant of drug use) and by the experimental, proto-Hippie Bay Area scene. Often, BM participants (as all festival goers are called, since the event is all about performance art, and conceptual behavior) revel in what they deem "craziness." Throughout the course of my life, I have been amused at how frequently this term is nonchalantly thrown around. What does it really mean to describe a person, place, or event as "crazy?"

If stupid is as stupid does, then crazy is as Burning Man does. I don't necessarily understand what most people intend to reveal when they depict something with this modifier. Yet, I do know that BM is as crazy as anything possibly could be. The range of stimuli presented by the ambience on the playa (the name for the perfectly flat, dried-up lakebed composed of alkali dust upon which no living thing can survive) is so extensive that one is forever presented with a glut of choices. Venus fly trap mobile party or Puff the Magic Dragon fire-breathing monstrosity? Earthvibe world music with tripped-out tweakers bouncing around on a themed art installation of lit-up bubbles and computer-generated light shifters or neo-Hindu meditational session punctuated by primal sonic outbursts from the ethereal Pacific Dome in which revellers writhe and chant at the request of an organically-fed serial preacher? Whoops, turn around, you're about to be run down by a herd of naked red-lathered folks who are en route to a lecture on psychedelic permaculture in the modern world. But, I don't think you should follow them, since the seance at the Temple of Hope beckons your presence...

BM is highly organized (and absolutely beautiful) chaos. While it sometimes seems that there is absolutely no logic to the progression of sensory inputs in BRC, truth be told that the community is thoroughly enmeshed in a series of rituals and pronouncements that create a sense of law and order throughout the festival. Your meandering throughout the Black Rock Cityscape can take on the utmost randomness, but in truth, the events there unfold with a fair degree of certainty and predictability - these definites being necessary for bands to plan their performances, for art cars not to run over faded desert nomads, for port-a-potties to be emptied of their excretions in time for the next day of dumping.



That being said, BM is so-called crazy (see Stickpeople video above) because of its spontaneity, novelty, and sheer psychedelia. Much of the fantastic transpires at BM when an individual whimsically decides to create his/her piece of the blossoming desert oasis of heat, light, and magic. For me, since it was my first Burn, much of what occurred unraveled chaotically before my virgin burner eyes. First-time burners are indubitably shocked and enthralled by the tremendous variety of netherworldly musical options, sunrise dance marathons, and fire-spewing eclecticism. The newness of all the hotness (on spiritual, musical, stylistic, climatic, economic, and social levels) was beyond anything I could have conceived of previously. My uber-rational side prohibits me from wholly endorsing the notion of some sort of multidimensional enterprise or electro-magnetic other-worldly (be it paranormal or supernatural) facet, but this Burning Man culture was as close as anything I've seen could come to such an existentially alternative position. Such a universe materializes at Burning Man if you can muster up the irrational courage to lay down your credence in Western Enlightenment principles and revert to neo-pagan civilization (which was nonetheless civilized, even if burning witches, lepers, and perverts was a common occurrence). Regardless, the combination of omnipresent neon lights, 70's-psychedelically-charged tunes, and psychoactively-revved up brains produces the proper environs for departing from what you had previously regarded as your "self" as it had existed in reality, instead forsaking your comfortable bourgeois value system for a temporary masochistic psychedelic vacation in a novel civilization removed from the broader confines of Western, capitalist society (which still includes many of the most pernicious elements of that broader social order from which the Burning Man ethos is born).

An Epoch of Burning

Every phenom that lasts more than a few instants could be said to bear a zeitgeist. Burning Man is an entire year squeezed into one week. Characteristic of Burning Man are a number of material and spiritual qualities that differentiate this temporal and spatial ground from the Other that does not partake in the great burning ritual. The fashions found there speak to various cultural affinities harbored by the participants that are tied to the sheer necessities of playa life. Due to the intense daytime heat, frigid night air, white-outs (dust storms), and lack of public lighting, BRC inhabitants must wear a few things to protect optimally from these significant environmental perils. Most importantly, unless you want nature to tax your life-blood on the playa, you best carry dust mask, goggles, and neon lights with you at all times. The alkali dust gets swept up when the art cars and public works trucks are on the prowl and also when the cloud cover rolls in. Neon lights galore produce a spectacularly vivid array of costumes and car embellishments and are so necessary due to the amount of pedestrian, bike, and vehicle traffic during the night. Also, thou shalt watch out for misplaced static electricity from Tesla coils (see Dr. Mega Volt video below).




Geography of Black Rock City

To clarify, Burning Man is the event, and Black Rock City is the isolated location whereabouts 40,000 mad hatters gather to frolic and play. It's one gigantic tea party on a well-structured urban grid. Rather than employing a rectangular urban layout with right angles, this urban unit is designed based upon the idea of the 360 degree clock, with a circular streets running from 2:00 to 10:00 and 8 perpendicular avenues: Anxious, Brave, Chance, Destiny, Eager, Fate, Guess, and Hope. The sculpture of THE man is precisely in the middle of the clock on the 12-3-6-9 o'clock axis, due "north" of Center Camp and due "south" of the Temple of Hope. Only problem is that north is pretty much towards 10:35, which throws off the whole system. They ought to rotate the town for next year so that 12:00 is oriented towards the north and so that the sun rises at 3:00 and so on. Even so, the urban organization of Black Rock City is finessed by a crew of Department of Public Works members who arrive on the playa many weeks prior to the Burn in order to lay out the roads, markers, boundaries, etc. This is one of the many aspects of city life that are enabled due to the fairly steep ticket price. Medical, fire, and sewage are also covered by the entrance fee (which is tyically somewhere between 2 and 3 benjamins, depending on how late the ticket is purchased).

Party Madness

Burning Man offers so many different avenues for both pure pleasure and purposeful perusing. It presents partygoers with a nonstop run of hedonistic opportunities, but it also offers up art for art's sake. The aesthetically advanced roots of the festival ought not be overshadowed by the tendency on the part of some raging ravers to turn Burning Man into an endless paroxysm of orgiastic proportions. That being said, Burning Man is the most banging party west of the Mississippi, and IT DON'T STOP. The parties last until well into the morning light, revellers twisting and moseying about on the last fumes of MDMA dust and LSD tablets. While alcohol and marijuana are ubiquitous at the festival, pyschedelics, stimulants, pharmies, and barbituates are also incredibly abundant. Even if the over-stimulation is such that participants don't NEED such substances to enter into dimensions of altered perception and consciousness, these natural and synthetic chemical agents undoubtedly add to the mix. Burning Man is a perfect place to experiment with psychedelic drugs that increase one's awareness of the unparalleled array of sonic, visual, olfactory, and tactile stimuli.

City of Sin

Like its sister city in the southeastern corner of Nevada, this city of sin in the northwestern corner of the state features over-indulgence in many domains. The unapologetic exhibitionism of nude neon wanderers, the incessant flame-spitting of souped-up school buses, and the predominance of tripping neo-hippies creates a uniquely deviant desert garden of earthly delights. Though the Federal Bureau of Land Management Rangers, Nevada State Police, and local sheriffs will be more than happy to confiscate drug paraphrenalia and also arrest, ticket, and fine Burners for conspiring with the enemy in the War on Drugs, the atmosphere is relatively tolerant. The density of humans tripping on any number of psychoactive substances at any given point during the week approaches the density of junkies in the Tenderloin district- though ostensibly these Burners are able to conduct quasi-normal lives during the 51 other weeks of the Gregorian year.

Buffet of Buffoonery

Burning Man tests the limits of free love and confounds participants with the novel ramifications of a moral holiday. To my virgin burner eyes, it seemed at first that the Burning Man culture presented a social and sexaul free-for-all. To the contrary, social controls regulate the levels of deviance that occur, and facades are not always indicative of the true nature of things. To experience the upper echelons of sexual freedom at Burning Man, one must be conversant in the uniquely Burner language of spiritual intimacy. Mere virgins of this festival must learn the ropes before hopping onto the gravy train.

Musical Marathons

At first, it appeared that the Burning Man scene relied too heavily upon inorgnanic and repetitive forms of house and trance music. I initially had a lot of trouble adjusting to the quick bass thump of psy-trance, drum 'n' bass, and other electronically exoteric sonic forms. However, there is much music at Burning Man that delves into the canons of jazz, world music, hip-hop, reggae, and funk. It just takes a while to discover the times and places of the superior brand of aural entertainment. Big ups to Hamsa Lila for playing the playa til sunrise with Gnawa-influenced spiritual vibes that evoke musical images of the original funkmasters of Africa. Either way, psychedelic trance just requires thee to indulge in the substance bartering economy in order to sync up with the esoteric vibe.

Gift Economy in the Internet Age

I sometimes wish the internet would facilitate the exchange of goods for other goods. It truly is possible to establish barter networks of exchange over the internets, but perhaps we just aren't there yet. Thus, one must trek to Black Rock City to unearth the secrets of the tribal-oriented gift economy, in which paper currency just isn't worth the paper on which it's printed. I managed to forgo use of the telephone, internet, and cash money for the entire week of BM (with the exception of a $3 purchase of electrolyte replacement powder at Center Camp - the one place at Burning Man where the organizers oversee cash flow into their coffers, mostly in exchange for coffee and chai). So, the novelty of this economic and technological holiday was more than welcome in my cash-strapped universe. Having brought to the fore a substantial supply of Disarm Bush paraphrenalia, I was sufficiently prepared to barter for all manner of goods and services. This pleased the gods of Burning Man. In fact, the Burning Man himself communicated his approval of my clever appelation of Bush as the Burning Man, i.e. the Burning Bush. The barter system welcomed my contributions and dropped a significant quantity of useful desert goods into my pockets: 3-D glasses, shea butter, mint chapstick, LSD, incense, spiruline, and many other organic and inorganic objects that intensified my sensory smorgesborg. All hail the reversion to a barter economy. The dollar ain't no fiat currency anyhow. It's backed by black gold. I prefer green gold, since I be on it / I be on it / I be on that kryptonite.


Energy Levels

One of the most important lessons I derived from tripping involved the increased awareness of energy. While engaging in radical self-reliance on the playa, it is necessary to avoid drastic changes in the amount of one's energy. Due to the extreme temperatures in the Black Rock desert and the importation of massive quantities of fossil fuels, one must grapple with the intense fluctuation in available heat energy from the atmosphere. Acid accentuates knowledge of this perpetual energy exchange between human bodies and the harsh yet beautiful natural environment, thumping soundsystems, flaming art monster-vehicles, and fellow citizens of the nation of altered consciousness. Open flame makes the basic process of energy exchange that much more accessible to semi-nomadic Black Rock dwellers. Additionally, the presence of psychoactive dinosaurs, providential robots, broiling jumpropes, star wars insects, shapeshifting reptiles, and miscellaneous other futuristic machines affords day or night trippers the opportunity to commune with a cast of psychedelically calibrated characters.




Cult Worship (Watch that Man Burn)

To communicate with other dimensions, one must first be in touch with the present, plainly visible, and basic dimension. I'm still trying to get a grasp of this dimension I was born into, but I've made some progress interpreting the passage of other folks into those other dimensions of psychospiritual awareness. Observing the behavior of wailers at the spiritual nexus of Burning Man, I was floored by the raw religiosity that ruled that sanctuary. Burning Man truly becomes a creed for many folks who make use of the annual holiday to remember deceased loved ones, repent for transgressions, and carry on the eternal process of rejuvenation and rebirth. While, in my opinion, Burning Man emphasizes some of the destructive aspects of life too strongly, there is no doubt that this authentic religion possesses all of the necessary traits to qualify as a broad-based faith. I observed and celebrated a beautiful marriage at the same temple where mourners cast off the curses and untruths that plagued their consciences. Though Burning Man is an exaltation of the power of human destruction and the harnessing of tremendous quanities of energy to modify our natural surroundings, there is a tremendous respect for the sanctity of life and the infinite curiosities of our postmodern social order. This means that the Burning Man religion consists of a neo-tribal set of rituals that cover the gamut of creation, continuation, and cessation. And this all takes place under the aegis of a different sort of deity than is commonly embraced by the Western tradition.

The Earth Goddess Is Back

Burning Man - burning phallus, torched virility, halted domination = triumph of the feminine will. Even so, the cult of Burning Man does not worship on the altar of just one deity. The festival encompasses the celebration of a uniquely feminine respect for Mother Nature and her loving embrace, but it also hinges upon the cathartic and quintessentially male obsession with fire's power and awe. The clique of fire intermediaries (Promethean interlocutors) at Burning Man includes flame-breathers, propane shooters, pyrotechnic prodigies, and kerosene killjoys. To that end, it is clear that men regulate the most potent of destructive capabilities at Burning Man. The second sex no doubt gets to revel in man's self-immolation, but perhaps man is merely burning down a phony doppelganger-effigy-icon of himself so that he lets off a whole year's worth of hatred and rage - which quells the urge to light up real (Iraqi?) people and permanent habitats when he re-assumes his existence outisde of Black Rock City.

Tribe of the Westerly Winds

Burning Man has never received the endorsement of the United Nations. Burning Man does not represent too many nations. Burning Man's participants are overwhelmingly the same color of the alkali dust that covers the playa. A blanket of cultural and aesthetic whiteness enshrouds the festival, ensuring the domination of affluent Americans of European origin in Black Rock City. As was previously stated, large contingents of mid-Atlantic and Western European participants add to the massive core of West Coast heads. The lack of cultural and ethnic diversity at Burning Man thus speaks to the geographic and racial specificity of this event. The apex/nadir of Burning Man realizes unity of the neo-tribal attendees under the flag of the psych trance nation. Celtic bagpipes, Viking garb, and Germanic fire rites solidify the proto-European pagan nature of the gathering. The dearth of the American ethnic Other says something about 1) how crazy white people are to voluntarily spend a grueling week in the desert; 2)how the festival requires possession of sufficient material wealth to subsist successfully; and 3)how this Burning Man religion is intended for a particularly narrow sociocultural segment of the population. These assertions must be qualified by a few important statements. While there are indubitably a number of participants dressed according to the Arabian-Semitic or neo-Hindu traditions, the dominant cultural type on the playa ascribes to the fur-goggle-glitter-neon-boots prototype. A tribal mentality pervades, especially at the Saturday and Sunday night burning sessions, which ultimately seemed a bit excessive for reasons that will be described later on in this account. Are swarthy brothers and sisters outcast from this festival? Why is there not more funk and soul infused with the oft-chafing machinations of house music. Well, there is substantial allegiance to the healing, meditational, and visual arts of the Indian subcontinent, and perhaps this is indicative of a common Indo-European tribal heritage. But, for the most part, the folks engaging in Burning Man's unique cultural and aesthetic experimentation are of a homogeneous background.

Burning Man Enforced

Though some critics correctly assail the West Coast art-car vibe of Burning Man as a sort of thuggish and frattish enterprise, this perspective does not account for the full diversity of activities and sights that abound at Burning Man. It also ignores the bedazzling level of community that is achieved by the inhabitants of the Black Rock hamlet. Those tens of thousands of critters who crawl out from geodesic domes to get their collective barter-dance-flame ON til the break of dawn create an immaculate sense of communal wellbeing. The manner in which all individuals monitor the enforcement of basic Burning Man rules and regulations regarding the sharing of sustenance, transportation efficiency, and the disposal of waste is rather impressive. Burning Man is a relatively self-sustaining community of people who simultaneously value economic egalitarianism, radical aesthetic individualism, and spiritual oneness.

Leave No Trace

This fundamental Burning Man precept is observed by the vast majority of burners. Thus, the organizers attempt to ensure that the impact upon the Black Rock Desert is minimal. A core of Department of Public Works employees and volunteers ensure that this mandate is carried out both before and after the hordes of pilgrims arrive at Black Rock City. However, the festival could be characterized as wasteful for a few different reasons. First, the amount of fuel consumed by burners is astronomical. There is a reasonable amount of gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, methane, and propane that must be used to provide electricity, climate control, and transportation at Burning Man. Yet, there is an absurd amount of fuel that is burned off for aesthetic, spiritual, and intentionally destructive/wasteful purposes. Many of the vehicles strutting around on the playa at night blast off flames in order to provide visual stimulation for the dancers, performers, and trippers who mingle on the playa. There is a lower level of fuel consumption that could still satisfy the visually needy trippers and the pyromaniacal set. Perhaps my appreciation for fire is not at the acceptable burner threshold, but in my opinion, the fire-burning tends to the extreme. Undoubtedly, much of the art for art's sake requires the appearance of flame. Fire also provides a medium for spiritual connection and focus. Moreover, there is the heat element which is absolutely necessary to insulate dance parties in the middle of the otherwise-bare playa. So, Burning Man relies on mobile flame-shooters to provide energy in the artistic, spiritual, and transportational realms. But, a moderation of the consistently over-the-top flame indulgence would provide for a more environmentally sound interaction between burners and their perfect-man/perfect-god of Fire.

Living in a Material World

Pyromania and fuel-gluttony aside, Burning Man culture is intensely materialistic in a paradoxical way. Commodities are highly fetishized in Black Rock City, even if participants attempt to undergo decommodification. Though the barter economy is able to transcend the limitations of a cash&credit world, burners ascribe high status to those who merely possess. Well, this form of possessing is not one of simple acquisition for the sake of redeeming monetary wealth for an increase in one's prestige. However, it is about indulging in a creative system of finding and modifying clothing, props, accessories, structures, and vehicles for the sake of surrounding oneself with more aesthetically pleasing (and much more unique) material possessions. While these are nontheless material goods that stem from an initial level of material wealth, the goals do indeed revolve around cashing in material objects for a higher level of aesthetic and spiritual infrastructure. It is proper at Burning Man to use one's material advantage to devise novel methods of transport and habitation, entertainment and worship. Therefore, although this Burning Man system certainly requires substantial material inputs, the teleological result is enrichment of artistic uranium in a Nevadan nuclear-tribal setting. The meeting of inspired creation and thorough destruction produces a cyclically holistic sense of order over the material universe that trumps the linear tendency of Western-Abrahamic civilization.

Appreciation of Techno-Innovation

The advanced technology that is on display at Burning Man shows how this phenom emerges from a highly sophisticated subculture (indeed a veritable counterculture) within American society. The Western world's emphasis on linear progress gets flipped at Burning Man, where creators build and subsequently destroy their psychedelilia within a few days. The impermanence of the Burning Man culture provides a healthy framework for a cycle of being that carries burners from cradle to grave. Given this simultaneously avant-gardist and neo-tribal framework, there are countless benefits to recognizing ephemerality, the insignificance of material civilization, and the primal act of burning.

Burning Man 2007 Possibilities

Overall, my criticisms of Burning Man stem from the socio-economic exclusivity of the event and from the hedonistically destructive attitude of much of the burning ritual. However, I tremendously value my weeklong adventure in Black Rock City, and I'm infinitely appreciative of the love and kindness that I experienced there. I definitely hope that I will be able to partake in the festivities again next year. In the meantime, I do have a few suggestions about how to enrich the Burning Man experience. In addition to the cultural, aesthetic, and social critiques delineated already, here are a couple more. 1)The Burning Man axis ought to use North as 12:00 so that the sun rises and sets at 3:00 and 9:00. It would not be terribly difficult to re-align the city in this manner, given that each year the DPW moves the city a few hundred meters or more anyway. Self-orientation would be much easier if the city relied upon the four cardinal directions. I also think that the event would benefit from using a central clock tower to indicate streets, especially at night. There are a lot of extra ways that the city's layout would benefit from directing color-coded lasers down the time streets to aid in night-time navigation. Also, all-day and all-night festivities could be coordinated based on place-time convergence (i.e. a party that moves around the clock grid according to actual times that correspond to places on the map). This is not to say that Burning Man should become bogged down with the notion of time, but accentuating awareness of the time-space continuum would invigorate Black Rock City. 2)Since Burning Man 2007 has already been called The Green Man, it is time to discard our urge to waste, if even for this one week. Perhaps a period of moral, energy, and sexual deviance allows for all of us to be ultra-cognizant of these things throughout the rest of the year. Regardless, the use of biodiesel, solar panels, and increased fuel efficiency would make for an ecologically richer Burning Man. Cooling Man has explored the relationship between Burning Man and the Greenhouse Effect and is working towards counterbalancing the substantial release of carbon into the atmosphere during the festival. Focusing more on the environmental, political, and social implications of Black Rock City will enable burners in 2007 to decide who the real man is that they wish to burn. Burning Pharaonic Bush is the greenery that the desert nomads will torch triumphantly from August 27 to September 3, 2007.


Visions of the Future of Space-Time

Art cars provide for a majestically uber-modern form of transport, precisely because they mock the purely functional inclinations of most motor vehicles. Also, a bicycle-reliant society is not as dependent on more wasteful modes of getting around. Costume culture and aggressive accessorizing activates certain potentialities that are beyond the mundane, profane, and subnormal existences that modern Western civilization sponsors. The genesis of a new level of symbiotic psychedelic energy, which draws on the successes of 70's counterculture, elevates Burning Man to mythic status. The philosophy of art for art's sake synthesizes with an emphasis on raw desert survivalism and functionality to create a flowing oasis of brilliance in an unforgiving yet miraculous natural clime. If we manage to use just a few of the useful Burning Man innovations in our daily struggles, our cities, psyches, and ecosystems will be all the more revolutionary. This is the pinnacle of disco inferno: burn, baby, burn!

Burning Man 2006

Decompression from the pscyh phenom is in full effect, but I will be attempting to chronicle the events foretold by several stars but not quite understood prior to their unfolding. The hallucinogenic extent of the weeklong festivities, worship, and frollicking will be self-evident in perusing the range of photo and video coverage that i've pieced together during the last few days. My observations are many, and time is plentiful at this point to explore the depths of my transformative experience at Burning Man 2006.

! photo +
To enjoy an optimal viewing experience, click on the link below and then the Burning Man 2006 icon at the top right. Then, on the Burning Man 2006 album page, click at the top right to view as slideshow in a NEW WINDOW with the speed set for about 2-3 seconds per picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/piven/

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* video #
Also, while I craft my poetic, prosaic, and spiritual accounts of the craziness, you should indulge in some of my video footage from Burning Man:

Here are a few of the most psychedelic-

Burning Man Stickpeople Wil' Out
Burning Man Stickwoman Wiggles Herself Pink
Mega Volt Fries His Brains
Mega Volt Does Tesla Dirty
Up in Flames Goes the Man
Burning Man Blasts Off
The man gets sunned.

Get Dumb, Go Stupid, Yeh Hyphy!

uh huh

Hipsters Galore

There's been a lot of talk regarding this semispecific species of early twenty-first century urban dweller who forms a large percentage of the fashionista, trendster, and scenester groups. The reason why it's so hard to pinpoint what's going on with hipsters is that there are so many of them who either explicitly deride the idea of being a hipster or are generally just pretending to be one. As with people who self-identify with hiphop culture or greaser culture, the hipster movement has its trailblazers, followers, and wannabes. The people at the forefront of the movement don't need to claim the hipster label because they are too busy creating and coming up with the future of the movement. Yet, there's so many people who mimic the manner of dress, hairstyle, speech affectation to give them a sense of social belonging.

Since this category is so broad, it's fairly ridiculous to declare a hatred for all hipsters. I personally am not that adept at subsuming myself to some large social movement, so I could never find ultimate solace in harboring hipster hankerings. Yet, I definitely do identify with hipsters much more so than lots of other people I know who really do despise them and avoid talking to them at all costs. The thing is, it's so fun to blame hipsters for being too elitist and fashion-conscious in the process of being egalitarian or tolerant. But, at the end of the day, cultural relativism only goes so far if you aim to discover superior cultural goods.

Devandra Banhardt isn't quite my favorite musician, but I can get down with that stuff. I like to think I have a diverse range of musical tastes. Well, another thing about hipsterdom is that it really includes so much different musical history (punk, glam rock, electro, folk) that it's impossible to narrow the broad social grouping to one genre. And, honestly, much of the time, hipster should be used as a label for a professional class of people who are involved concretely in doing and selling hipster thangs. However, the label describes the fashion sense, the social preferences, the vocabulary, etc. Though these types do often make solid use of their parents' economic status, there seem to be plenty of grimy, blue-collar hipsters that live in seedier settings than their hipster comrades who are bourgeois-boheme but in denial of this heritage. Maybe hipsters are just latter-day hippies in that, ultimately, all of their counterculture just gets subsumed into the massive corporate-driven spectacle that we operate.

On a Mission

What's up blogreaders worldwide? As I sit here in this neighborhood coffeeshop equipped with the finest hi-fi around, I'm reminded that this city probably has more mocha-sipping, iBook-rocking spaces than any other. I attempt to ingratiate myself into this cafe culture, but as of yet, I lack the accoutrements. First, I currently don't possess a machine with which to compute. I used to be a diehard desktop abuser, but it looks like I might go mobile and stop being a laptop virgin. Second, I'm pressed to find some black-rimmed spectacles that fit the part. Having only occasionally sported the glasses I procured 6 years ago upon my initial acquisition of vision enhancement devices (this pair has been known to bestow misfortune upon thee, and by thee, I mean, me), I sense the impulse to snatch up a fresh pair that replaces the merely "studious" type that I currently bear.

I'm perched at this borrowed laptop fiending for the words that could shed light on my current mindset. Fellow cafe-dwellers browse through philosophical treatises by French pointyheads and await a bluegrass mandolin recital. I quickly slurp down what is apparently known as a Mexican mocha. Though I'm not yet a regular consumer of such beverages, I could become more and more habituated to such things since every third establishment in my cultivated hood serves up coffee in an ambiance of sumptuous Argentine neo-folk and post-rhythmic singer-songwriter cacophonies.

Today is a grey day. Not the sort of day I could take pictures of my new abode. When the light strikes it right, I'll snap some shots of my pad in all its glory. In addition to being the oldest neigborhood in San Francisco, the Mission is also one of the sunniest, due to the hilly peaks to the south and west that block cloud movement into the the area. Unfortunately, the sunshine didn't roll in today.

I'm not feeling particularly garrulous at the moment. Perhaps the weather is cramping my blogsteez. The players toting mandolins begin to enter, and the show promises more amusement than the Oscar drama this evening. "Ya'll ni$%as be scramblin, gamblin/ up in restaurants with mandolins and violins..."

Sinister Sublet Dialogue

My search for a sublet in the Bay Area has been going well, save for one bitter, older "mselinger@rcn.com," who launched a vitriolic and ageist tirade in response to my generic mailer giving a paragraph of info about myself and my needs...(this is not indicative of my interactions with other potential roomates)...here's the text of our exchange:

"hello, my name is ben, and i'm a 23yr old outgoing and personable college grad. i arrived recently from the east coast in search of greener pastures and a more open cultural, artistic, and political environment. though i'm currently staying in berkeley, i am looking for a sublet in the mission for a few months so that i can be closer to my non-profit job in downtown frisco. i'm looking to sublet from friendly and creative people who like music, film, and all types of tasty food. i could live with students or fulltime working folk. i'm flexible about my requirements, but i would like to rent a room that is furnished with a full bed and sufficient windows. ideally, i would like to be able to use kitchen and living room space for cooking and relaxing. lookin for people who enjoy hanging out but are also clean and organized. my cellphone is XXX-XXX-XXXX, and i'm interested in checking out your place whenever you're around, preferably sometime sunday or tuesday evening. talk to you soon!

ben

--------------------------

hi Ben-

Thanks for your interest but I am not looking to sublet. This is a mature
household, not a one step removed from a dormroom, tempory housing shelter.
I am looking for a roomate who and is mature, stable, and who is also looking
for a stability in a home. I've been living in this flat for approaching 4 yrs and I
have never had a roomate live here for less than 18 months. That works well for
me. I have some very strong candidates already, and who aren't requiring "fully
furninshed room with a bed."

Good luck kid,

M.

-----------------------------

thanks for your witty condescension, i am of the belief that this is precisely how we as intelligent mammals can make this world a better and more livable place. my goal each and every day is to wake up and reinforce the notion that i am vastly superior to all those who are of fewer years than myself. without a doubt, nomads are sinful types, and they ought to return to the land from which they came. age is a precious commodity these days, and it appears that you are fully appreciative of your hard-earned years. good luck recruiting a mature and rotting vegetable for your nursing home, you bitter septuagenarian creep.
-->

zestily and zealously,

ben

------------------------------

"Good luck recruiting a mature and rotting vegetable for your nursing home.""you bitter septuagenarian creep." Ben, I just love that. I mean it, that's really
good stuff. That's exactly the kind of fighting spirit that I like to see. In the
past 10 days, I have probably met upwards of about 20 people. Nobody, not
even the "mature rotting vegitables" nor the young guns like yourself who will
inherit the Earth and will cut a path of swashbuckling glory, has demonstrated
more heart, fighting spirit, or were more true than you. You're still not going to
get a chance to see the room, simply because you are not the guy I need or
want, but you have earned quite a measure of respect from me. My only advise
for you is continue to be strong and true, and don't take no shit from nobody.
( That's a double negative, but you know what I mean. )

Continued good luck kid. Best regards,

Michael"

Berkeley Freaks

If y'all didn't know, y'all better know. Berkeley is host to all types of freaks, eccentrics, lunatics, shapeshifters, and assclowns. Between 1600h and 1700h Pacific Time today, I had ridiculous encounters with 3 characters of the sort that are unique to this crosssection of Cali life. For lack of government names, I will label these three Agatha, Mr. Fab, and Fascista.

The twenty-five minute session with freakshow Agatha began when I approached her table on Telegraph, which is the main commerical artery south of the Berkeley campus. She vends a number of knitted goods, including hats and dolls. The first outrageous claim mentioned by Agatha was that she is in the Guiness Book of World Records for her number of hat creations, which was a dubious assertion. Though rather portly and unhealthy in appearance, she claims to have been a martial arts champion and one-time runway model. Her ashy arms and messy dreds reveal that she has been subsiding in squalor for quite a while, pushing her cart of knitted goods, books, language-learning tapes, and political propaganda from East Oakland to Berkeley daily, since she claims that the "Black Negro" busdrivers refuse to pick her up anymore. One of the most persistent aspects of her undeniable psychosis is a profound racial consciousness that results in a horrible sense of self-loathing. Claiming to prefer the company of cowboys, rednecks, cops, and militiamen, Agatha professes a lot of hatred for those of her self-identified "darkie" skin tone.

Here's an example of one of her monologues, uttered as she manically paces back and forth in front of her table, helmet perched on her dreds and Israeli flag curiously draped over her shoulders: "I used to be a gdamn student here, I'm almost a genius I would say. Shit, I studied language and culture, and I have almost 400 languages. I've lived in 5 countries and married almost as many men. Berkeley is a fake liberal town, and those black Negroes robbed me over New Year's but thankfully two Asian guys ran after them to get my goods back. Oh, I like Asian guys. Had an Asian husband once, have a Finnish husband now. But, Finnish is one of the only languages that's been hard for me to master. I have 400 languages. Here, look at this writing in Macedonian, Hebrew, and Russian. I got Bulgarian, Arab, Persian, Chinese music, but these black girls always come by saying 'Why you gotta be frontin' with that whitey music.' They don't even understand that black music is not the only music. I love Johnny Cash, do you know Johnny Cash? You aren't some Arab or white liberal are you? I hope you're not one of those types with tight jeans and cellphone walking around dating Asian girls but don't even know she happens to be Korean and not Chinese. Yea, these people didn't mess with me when I had my tall Finnish husband here, but I know if I had a darkie husband here, then they would all give me shit. The cops are always messing with me, they don't even know that I lived at Bob Marley's house for 6 months and that I am marketable. You know about marketing? The reason why I'm marketable is that I could go down to Southern California..."

So she never hesitated to read off everyone else's ethnicities. The Tibetans across the street who were oppressed by the Chinese, the white t-shirt guys who didn't get messed with by the cops because they had the right skin tone. This woman was racially obsessed to the extreme, bipolar, and at least moderately schizophrenic. Agatha insisted many times that she was borderline genius, had lived in 5 countries, and hated governments. She was a quintessential Berkeley freak, but she really lamented the liberal elite, so maybe she didn't fit into the local mold so well.

The next character I came across at a sneaker boutique down the block called So Fresh Kicks that vends high end footwear to fashion-conscious NorCal ballers. Mr. Fab is a rising Oaktown rap-star, with five-figure gold fronts and ultra color-syncronized hat-t-shirt-jeans-sneaks combo. Not only was he pulling out several different wads of Benjamins from his Evisu pockets, but his 5'5" sidekick with a 4X long black tee was consulting him about what color laces he would need to appear in Houston in order to sync up with the Astros colors. Damn I love sneaks, but some of these dudes are buying up really played out styles that makes your eyes sore just gazing at them.

The next freak I met I will call Fascista, for she harangued me for stepping 6 inches off the curb and into the street while the crosswalk light was still red. Our dialogue occurred as follows:
"You know what you're doing is illegal, right?" she said.
I responded, "Oh, yea, I'm from back east, so we cross the street when we feel like it."
Then she screamed ,"Did your dad teach you that? I bet he doesn't cross the street when it's red. Your generation is the most uncivilized yet."
"Well, actually, my dad happens to cross wherever and whenever, but there's nothing criminal about that on the East Coast," I replied.
She contemptuously responded, "And, murder of a pedestrian is illegal."

So apparently, she had some kind of a guily conscience about - maybe hitting someone who had been crossing the street? These Californians can be very strict in their application of anti-libertarian government regulation. It's a very highly regulated state of things around here.

Dis-abled Lives

Last night, I was awakened to the reality that lots of people in the world have physical handicaps that make it impossible to function in a so-called normal way that most of us are accustomed to. I had forgotten how fortunate I am not to have a physically disabling condition that would render my interactions with the world far more difficult.

So, last evening, I had the privilege of meeting a fellow named Victor, who enjoys the use of very few muscles due to a seriously incapacitating form of muscular distrophy. In order to get around town, he needs friends to chaperone his hooked up van with an electro lift, and in order to get upstairs to chill with us, we had to guide Victor through the building's back entrance to the elevators since his highly versatile and mobile electric wheelchair cannot scale stairs.

In addition to transportation difficulties, Victor faces enormous challenges in breathing, dressing, eating, and most every other imaginable ordinary human pursuit. This leads me to respect him ad infinitum. I cannot conceive of how serious physical handicaps allow for "normal" lives, but I suppose people generally attempt to make the best of what's on their life's plate.

Berkeley, the alternative, colorful, and iconoclastic hamlet where I reside currently, has historically been a mecca for both physically and mentally handicapped people, who have access to community services and sensitive legal structures that ease their lives. For those of us who don't have friends or family in the position of requiring such extensive social aid, I think it's rather difficult to fathom the handicapped lifestyle. At what point does one come to terms with a debilitating condition? Is it something that one gradually is uplifted by or does the passing of the years wear one down to a greater extent? Of course, there are the FDRs and Larry Flynts of the world who manage to get by in wheelchairs; there are Cambodian and Bosnian landmine victims who overcome interminal adversity to lead satisfactory lives.

Do handicapped people have recurring dreams of being "normal" again? Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump certainly never acclimated to his disabled state. Maybe the ability to be satisfied with your abilities varies according to whether you were born with the condition or experienced a life-altering catastrophic event that initiated your disability. Vision problems, nervous disorders, heart conditions, lung deficiencies, brain damage: the list is unending of how the human body can fail, leaving one vulnerable to the generosity that one's social network and society are willing to provide in order to make moment-to-moment existence more favorable.

It really is paramount to realize our good fortune and to attempt to take advantage of the finite abilities with which we are endowed. We could all be chopped down from our heights of greatness. There will never be a fully satisfactory answer to the queries posed by the Book of Job. Bad fortune strikes at will.

Propaganda Shots

Cartoon Contest

The world has been gnawing away at its fragile cultural barriers lately. People seem to exalt offensively "free" speech because a hegemonic control over organized violence and information exists to put the uppety and powerless in their "place." To push those ethnic buttons, each group in this interethnic strife appears keen on staking out a claim on what aspects of its culture are sacrosanct and what assets cannot be claimed by other groups.

In my mind, the satirical cartoons of Mohammed aren't so different from a news video I recently viewed about a public high school teacher calling his pupil "niggah." Ok, so the prevailing theme seems to be that there are certain offensive ways of addressing one's own people or heritage that are only acceptable if engaged in by members of one's own group. Many Muslims are privileged to cite Mohammed and the Islamic creed in justifying political behavior. Similarly, in their estimation, black Americans uniquely possess the cultural right to address one another by racially sensitive terms. But, when the hegemonic power usurps this ethnic privilege in order to critique or deconstruct the ethnic speech or behavior, there is a violent and indignant reaction. Ethnic groups don't like to be told how to govern their own intra-cultural exchange.

The most evident and pressing notion that emerges from these controversies is that white/Western society controls, to a significant global extent, material and informational flows. Attained via the use of constant and concerted organized violence, the West maintains its domination over most of the vast non-Western sea of peoples. So, when the West affirms that it has the right to label or define the terms of someone else's intraethnic culture, violence is bound to erupt. Spasms of such conflict occur essentially only in the non-West at this historical juncture because the Western world has attained such an extreme level of wealth and control that underprivileged white people no longer need to revolt in a violent fashion - leaving such outbursts for the so-called ethnic entities that the West enjoys labelling as morally inferior because of this need to engage periodically in violent struggle with the West in response to their subjugation. When pushed to the limit, this paroxysm of anti-hegemonic fervor on behalf of the subaltern classes functions as an expression of inferior material status and invites a crackdown on these rebellious, ignoble savages.

This discussion of ethnic battles cannot possibly begin to explain the extent which certain groups have been included/excluded from the West. In America, the integration of Hispanics and Asians incorporates entirely different factors and is beyond the scope of this blogline. The cyberoisie might address such things later on, but these groups, like all other ethnic groups mentioned and assumed to be homogenous, classifiable, and generalizable are so complex that it becomes very difficult to reach any conclusions that could begin to be judged as scientific.

In the eyes of the subjugated groups (those actually present within the geographical confines of the metropolitan West, those who inhabit the periphery, and those of Western heritage who sympathize with the non-Western powerless), the Mohammed cartoons and the white use of the N-word are attempts to irreverently rub in the fact that the West is the ultimate legal arbiter of speech and violence. Though the West largely fashioned its dominance out of a persistent tradition of violence carried out under the aegis of the Judeo-Christian godhead, Western reactionaries feel that they must preserve their control over the discourse. The indefatigable power wielded by the West to crush resistance invites unfortunate violence upon the epicenters of Western life. A clash of civilizations exists empirically because people perceive it as such. However, normatively, a statement that there is an ongoing clash serves merely to egg on the perpetrators on both sides who seek to exacerbate tensions. There are huge numbers of Muslims and blacks who seek to justify their monopoly over their own cultural deities. Provocation of this desire to preserve the barriers of cultural exchange invites a seemingly irrational reaction on the part of the dominated groups.

Is this justified? Do white people have the right to toss around the n-word just because black people have this right? Do white people have the right to characterize the Islamic prophet because Muslims possess this right? To understand cultural barriers means that we must observe limits. There is undoubtedly humor in racist jokes and classifications that cannot be enjoyed by those outside the specific group because such labeling appears to threaten the group's power over its own destiny and image.

Retaliation for obdurate white behavior brings on the potential for cartoons satirizing Jesus with a machine gun aimed at the barbarians/infidels or depicting a Jew swiping a gentile's possessions. Ethnic stereotyping always consists of truthful (and potentially hurtful) elements. The hegemonic civilization is held to a higher civilizational standard, however, precisely because it already is in the lead. (Thus, Danish newspapers are said to be compelled to observe standards not observed in the Arab press and the Israeli government is obligated to abide by rules not followed by other Middle Eastern regimes). The West is castigated for pushing Islam a la limite. My sympathy goes out to those Danes and those Muslims who aren't engaging in the fundementalist discourse. The reactionaries on both sides fall into foolish assumptions about the intentions of that mysterious Other. The Other is exotic, seductive, dangerous. The more we seek to understand the Other, the more we erect barriers around Us that excludes Them. Thus, additionally and paradoxically, the more the Other seeks to call attention to its status, the more it identifies itself as different and separate. There will never be an end to ethnic, racial, or cultural conflict. It is a permanent feature of human, tribally fragmented civilization. Of course, its permanency ought not be exalted, but it's idealistic to declare postmodern society as postethnic. Ethnicities hybridize and collate, but they do not disappear.

I simultaneously mock, celebrate, and condemn ethnic divisions because it's so incredibly difficult to preserve a one-sided perspective. Though my voice arises from the hegemonic West, I cannot stop myself from advocating the position of the oppressed Other. I find myself caught in the middle of the civilizational schism.

So who wants to submit a cartoon satirizing Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed? Can we extract ourselves from the ethnic categories to which we belong and critique all our affiliations? Or are we limited to labelling/classifying only according to the cultural and "legal" rights ascribed to us?