The Breaking Time

Magnifying a subculture, pt. II (or: why are there no more feathers?)

El Circo took them.

A little while ago, Jenka Gurfinkel wrote a brilliant post linking the fashion-induced feather shortage to the emergence of the Circus subculture and style, coming out of Burning Man:

Our story begins almost 12 years ago, in a little town in Oregon, by the name of Ashland, where a group of kids came together to start a circus performance troupe called, El Circo. The group would gain recognition within the Burning Man culture for the extravagant parties they threw at the festival, featuring lavish fire performances, a large, geodesic dome venue, and a top-notch sound system that attracted world-renowned music acts to perform there. In a 2005 San Francisco Bay Guardian article on the effect that the various groups within the Burning Man community have had on San Francisco nightlife — an impact which now extends to the entire west coast’s, and arguably global, dance culture — the writer paid particular attention to the influence of El Circo...

The whole history's fascinating, and it brings up something I've touched on here before: how a relatively small subculture magnifies its influence. In the previous case, I focused on the reasons aging Hollywood narcissists show up in so many productions.

El Circo's case is very different, and more positive. But something of the same underlying process is at work, with a difference.

Now, Ashland has a population just over 20,000. Unlike Hollywood, it's not a metropolitan hub plugged into media that can quickly magnify the influence of its cultures. However, El Circo were really damn creative and instead plugged into a subculture, in the form of Burning Man, that could magnify that in its annual, temporary metropolis.

Their panache and style is unique enough that others pick it up after the citizenry of Black Rock City dispersed to their separate corners, including those in aforementioned metropolitan hubs. More mainstream art subcultures, always craving an infusion of the hot new thing, pick it up. Given time, you have Steven Tyler in feathers, pissed off fly fishers, and one tribe out of Ashland that's spurred a larger movement while changing the way people dress around the world.

There's a reason why the third word in Coilhouse's alt culture mantra is INFECT.

Now, fringe artistic subcultures gaining massive popularity is not new, despite the fact that every generation or so the same subcultures seem to forget the process occurs. However, the incubator of Burning Man is, relatively speaking, as is the way that more globalized communications decrease the necessity for El Circo or similar groups to plug in to more mainstream cultural networks to get their message out. There's other ways to magnify now, and they're seemingly less dependent on location than before.

More food for thought.

Update: Talking with Gurfinkel via Twitter last night, she added an important caveat: the tipping point for the El Circo style came after some of its designers moved to Los Angeles. Metropoli remain important, and LA in particular remains a major magnifier for entertainment/fashion subcultures, as its been for a number of decades. As with any time of turmoil, old and new methods of spreading an infection are at work at the same time.

Intermission, with riding crops (and singing)

I have a number of posts in the works, but reporting duties haven't proven kind this week, so the time to finish them isn't easy to come by.

In the meantime, here's Peter O'Toole singing "Dem Bones," from the sublimely strange 1972 movie The Ruling Class. Enjoy, and never trust an aristocrat.

A walk-on part in the war: Heavy Metal East goes to battle

Photo by Anja Niedringhaus, Associated Press

Back in 2008, I wrote a piece for Coilhouse on the heavy metal subcultures in the Middle East, and the amazing bravery of the young people participating in them. It was a trend that

As the protests, uprisings and revolutions have rocked that region this year, I wondered what happened to those same metalheads. It was their generation, after all, that forms the core of the protests, and given their fire for a different world, I figured many had to be involved.

In this piece from the Atlantic, I found my answer, or at least part of it:

MANY MEN HAVE psyched themselves up for war by listening to rock and roll or heavy metal. But how many have sung Pink Floyd’s “Mother” within earshot of the enemy in the dead of night? “When it got really quiet, we’d play guitar and sing ‘Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?’” said Abdulfatah Shaka, 22, his rocket-propelled-grenade launcher at his side. “The snipers would get furious and start shooting everywhere.”

---

Less than three months earlier, Shaka was an engineering student who had never even held a gun. Bassam Essraity, a handsome 23-year-old with gelled hair and a trim beard, who now sat opposite him cradling a Belgian-made assault rifle, was doing media studies. They would play guitar together, jamming on the beach or hanging out in parking lots at night in their cars, doors open, drinking strong coffee or bottles of non-alcoholic beer.

After asking me to sit on his left—firing RPGs had destroyed the hearing in his right ear—Shaka explained that his introduction to pop and rock, and to the English language, came via the Backstreet Boys. As he learned to play the guitar, and broadened his musical horizons through Internet downloads, his taste grew more refined. “Neil Young, Metallica, and Pink Floyd, especially Dark Side of the Moon,” he said. “Iron Maiden and Nirvana too,” Essraity added. “We were just young guys enjoying music, dreaming of freedom.”

Then, in the third week of February, the revolution began. Shaka stuck close to his uncle, who had fought in Libya’s war with Chad in the 1980s. His uncle grabbed an RPG launcher when Misurata’s armory was overrun. After blasting two of Qaddafi’s tanks, he was shot dead. His weapon, still stained with blood, was handed to Shaka. Essraity, whose house had been hit by a tank shell, joined him on the front line, as did Hazim “Haz” Bozaid, a powerfully built 29-year-old with a goatee, a stocking on his head, and a black Sepultura T-shirt. An import manager, he was also the lead vocalist and guitarist in a local thrash and death-metal band called Acacus. “I was inspired by Megadeth, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Chuck Schuldiner’s Death, that sort of stuff. It was not easy to find in Libya, so if you got something on tape, you guarded it like gold,” he told me.

The whole piece is emotionally wrenching, to say the least, and I was on the verge of tears by the finale.

Here's a country under the control of a psychopath for decades, with a radically different culture. But music is still music and humans are still human. It's spread past its original borders to something far more univesal. I don't know of any more potent symbol of a Breaking Time at its bravest than Libyan rebels goading a tyrant's snipers with Mother do you think they'll like this song? Another world is coming, bastards.

For the Heavy Metal East, it was just about living their lives and finding some expression for what they felt. But it wasn't that easy. The music was banned, but they listened to it anyway, and made their own. They wore the shirts and threw the horns, even if it meant a beating or jail. When they wanted their tyrants gone, they protested. When it was clear that wasn't enough, they picked up weapons and fought.

And here they are, a long long way from their smuggled tapes and garage bands, in a besieged, desperate city, many of their friends already dead, fighting. Singing "Mother" to taunt the snipers and "Wish you were here," well, just because.

Now, with Tripoli Street liberated, Shaka and his men were enjoying a day of rest before heading off to battle elsewhere. Bozaid talked about the metal festival he wanted to stage when Qaddafi was finally defeated. “It’s my dream—Hazfest,” he said. “It’s going to come true, if I’m still alive.”

I hope it will. The world, that world, is a fine place, and worth fighting for.

\m/

Poems for Friday: With god on our side

This is definitely an intermission-tastic poem day, due to the pace of the work week. Bob Dylan's birthday was this Tuesday, and WNCW marked the occasion by playing covers of his work. Like Leonard Cohen, Dylan's poetic style has proved wonderfully infectious, with some of the covers exceeding the originals.

The one below, "With god on our side," by the Neville Brothers, is one of the best Dylan covers I've heard. The video is mediocre, the song superb. Happy Friday, everyone.

Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies

In case you were wondering, here's a chart. Larger version here.

According to some calculations, most seeming to stem from the fundamentalist preacher Harold Camping, this Saturday, May 21 is the Rapture. Among those who do not hold with this, the typical reaction seems to be "party!"

While predictions of imminent apocalypse have a long pedigree, and one not just confined to Christianity, the Rapture is a recent and mostly American invention, arising out of 18th century Puritanism.

Growing up in the rural part of the Bible Belt, where mainstream and open-minded denominations rubbed shoulders with the more esoteric fundamentalists, this idea in particular always struck me as among the strangest. I remember a particular religious bookstore with a bargain bin of apocalypses, containing predictions that Gorbachev, hippies, AIDS and computers, among others, were signs of an imminent end.

At one point, around 4th grade, I acquired the sort of fascination with the concept that only a child can muster. After taking down a Bible and skipping forward to Revelation, I decided that the world would end the next week, around 10:40 in the morning, during the language arts portion of class. I waited quietly at my desk, inwardly relieved when the appointed time arrived and my teacher was not devoured by serpent beasts. Or harlots, for that matter, who I assumed were some type of badass female supervillain.

Later, I understood the roots. Poverty and upheaval are key to the American story, creating fertile soil for visions — not just religious or Christian — of sudden triumph. It is a hard world, and those who endure long enough would dearly love for the sky to open in their favor, just once.

In best secular fashion, more and more people are getting in on the celebration, and NPR is even asking for a soundtrack. After all, in my lifetime, we've had the Bomb, homegrown terrorists, Y2K, foreign terrorists and economic strife. As long as I can remember, things far more real than Rapture have loomed.

But here we are, still alive, throwing a party. Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies.

On the One Road

It's St. Patrick's Day, usually associated with green beer and massive inebriation. Like all holidays, however, the day is mutable enough to be what we make it. A part of my ancestry is Irish, and I respect the combination of dogged defiance and hospitality. So tonight I'll celebrate with friends our fortune in making it through hard times, and hope for better to come.

Ireland has produced an incredible amount of blistering laments, product of a long, bloody history. The song above, however, is different. "On the One Road" depicts a spirit facing uncertain odds ("we're on the road to god knows where") but roaringly optimistic ("night is darkest just before the dawn"), since something greater is coming, and everyone plays a role.

The song is about Ireland, but like all the best, universal at its heart. Wherever you are tonight, raise a glass, because the road doesn't end here.

The Rundown: DADT, monopolies, copper thieves (and anime)

Police arrest Iraq war veteran Rob Smith during protests at the White House against the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy Nov. 15. Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP

* “We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He’s big, he’s mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay.” 

That one quote, from an anonymous special ops soldier interviewed as part of the Pentagon's comprehensive report on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, sums up the absurdity of the whole matter in the most succinct way possible. Interestingly, the rank-and-file of the military doesn't see any problem with allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly. Funny how dealing with life or death situations tends to reveal how utterly stupid and irrelevant bigotry is. Hopefully this is DADT's nail in the coffin, and gay and lesbian soldiers will soon be able to serve openly, without bullshit.

* European Commission opens anti-trust investigation against Google European regulators seem ready to rake Google over the alleged prejudicial nature of its algorithms, ad programs and data. I'm not shocked, at all, and in the grand scheme of things, this sort of response is long overdue. 

Awhile back, I wrote about Nation vs. Corporation, and how Big Tech would likely be the next target, as the gleam of its "we'll bring you the future" message wears off, with governments and populations wanting its sudden power to be reined in. We'll see how it goes.

* AT&T offering bounties for copper thieves In Atlanta, AT&T is offering $3,000 rewards for information leading to the capture of thieves that are scavenging telephone lines for the valuable metal, as one of their recent heists left thousands without telephone service.

This is the latest evolution of an ongoing problem. Copper thieves have been a problem for years, especially in areas where the poverty rate is high. Hardware stores like Lowe's frequently hire extra security to protect from such theft.

As cultures have become more tech-based, the resources that technology guzzles become more and more valuable. Inevitably, that demand leads to such materials fetching a pretty penny, especially with growing economic insecurity. The black market ends up savaging one part of infrastructure to sell to another and I don't think bounties alone will overcome that.

* Every anime intro ever. Really. Try not to have a seizure:

The Rundown: bodies on the highway

The body of a man killed execution style and wrapped in bin liners lies by the side of the Acapulco-Mexico highway November 16, 2006. REUTERS/Stringer

*Drug Wars A stunning set of pictures inside Mexico's drug war. Fair warning, the picture above is one of the least graphic in the set, which includes everything from blinged-out .45s and narco-saints to headless bodies hanging from a bridge. A harrowing look inside how ugly a drug-fueled civil war is.

*New Haven uses SWAT team to crack down on nightlife New Haven, Conn. has apparently decided people drinking and attending strip clubs is such a dire threat that it needs to use the SWAT team — with masks and assault rifles, no less — to round up the patrons, on a search warrant that produced a single, unrelated charge. This comes on the heels of Operation Nightlife where police started rounding up clubgoers and were widely reported to have attacked and tased a Yale student. Bunny Colvin's rant from The Wire — "call something a war, and pretty soon everyone starts acting like warriors" — comes to mind.

*LGBTIQQAA Yes, that's now the going abbreviation. I remember when it was gay and lesbian, then, around the time I was in college, LGBT became popular, and that was fine. But at this point, the acronym's stretching to the point of uselessness.

There is a term, however, that covers all those groups and their struggle for rights without resorting to a ludicrous degree of political correctness or tongue-twistingly garbled abbreviations: human.

*Catholics in US overwhelmingly support homosexual unions Many do this in direct defiance of their official hierarchy, and in percentages greater, in some cases, than the rest of the mainstream populace. A reassuring sign and a reminder that adherents to a creed don't always follow the attendant hierarchy. Again, the lesson is to be careful lumping traditions into too-neat boxes. There is No They.

*Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? A surprisingly decent series on the rise, hybridization and collapse of a subculture(s?) by Steven Hyden over at The Onion's AV Club. A good look at the way grunge and alt music linked into culture trends in one of the last eras before rock n' roll (along with mass music in general) splintered or become totally retro. Particular kudos for the way Hyden manages to balance enthusiasm with a realistic look at the limits of art.

*Experimentation, orgasms and the rise of anal sex Slate journalist William Saletan looks at changing sexual trends. Interesting material here on a social revolution steadily continuing in the background, though some of the "whoa" tone in Saletan's is a little puerile.

*'39 Queen doing an acoustic (what? yes!) presentation of one of the peppiest, saddest songs ever written about space travel:

Intermission, with f'ing Muppets

Occasionally, when my workload gets to frenetic proportions, I start to get grumpy. I love writing, deeply, but every once in awhile I polish off the day's pieces, shamble home and the last thing I want to do is yet more writing, even if it's something I really want to finish. 

Then I remember that I am extremely lucky and fortunate beyond anything I ever imagined just a few years ago: I write for a living.

So if you happen to encounter me in my grumpy state, please just take it in stride. The work-load induced intermission here ends soon, and please believe that it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, have some Queen-singing Muppets, something that never fails to cheer me up.

The Rundown: Quotable edition

Fuck yeah grammarpunk

I love quotes and everything to do with them and so it seems fitting to base this edition of The Rundown on telling passages that sum things up perfectly. Like so:

* "Ethnographic studies have found that, during possession, ‘spirits’ may offer opinions or solutions to moral crises and may protect the individual from trauma and despair during times of violence." Mozambique's plague of spirit possessions.

* "If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away."

Running away from slavery was once considered a diagnosable mental illness.

* "There's stories of property owners who have court orders demanding their properties be left alone and they come in and demolish them" In Montgomery, the city government is using a local blight ordinance to target low-income homes — some in the middle of renovation or construction — for demolition. The owners are often billed for the cost and, when they can't pay (now being homeless) the city seizes the property for resale. Governments used to be at least more blunt about their intentions.

* "For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief. Call it then the Age of Paine." John Adams trash talks Thomas Paine. Epically.

* "There is a transexual prostitute on every floor, to satisfy customer requests" An interesting photo series on the quasi-legal Turkish brothels.

* "Each time your heart beats, your body moves..." A beautiful video on the zen of firing a gun.

Everyone Forever Now - "Shooting a Gun" from Everynone on Vimeo.