Many people say that American Fireman’s Day is a must-go destination for a person.
In this era of travel, which means that most people mean to escape, the meaning of this sentence can be imagined. The Fireman’s Day represents another possibility of life, completely opposite to everyday life.
carnival
What is Fireman’s Day? It is said that describing it to people who have not been to the Fire Festival is like describing the color to the scorpion.
Well, try to imagine yourself in the scene of the movie “Mad Max” – the desolate desert, the strong winds, the sand; the dark night, the mechanical rotation, the tens of thousands of people; the huge humanoid portrait burns, The fire is shining.
Because it is crazy enough, enough to be independent, enough “non-mainstream”, far away seems to exist only in dreams and movies, so Fireman’s Day is regarded as the utopia of every soul that yearns for freedom, a gorgeous mirage.
And its construction goes back to 32 years ago.
In the documentary of DUST & ILLUSIONS, Larry Harvey, the founder of the Burning Man Festival, sits in a leather chair and plays the fireworks on the fingertip cigarettes, telling the story of the beginning of the Burning Man Festival:
In 1986, in order to pay homage to the lost love, he held a summer solstice campfire ceremony with several friends at Baker Beach in San Francisco. They burned 9-foot (2.74 m) tall wooden figures and a smaller wooden dog. This is the first Fireman’s Day founded by several mavericks.
Since then, such activities have continued for several years until the 1990s were interrupted by the police without a permit, so they moved to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The event was hosted by Blackstone City Limited. Since then, at the end of August and early September each year, enthusiastic people will temporarily establish a “Black Rock City” for this gathering in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
The “fire man” who is dressed in a strange costume has its own dry food and fresh water. It uses a madness and flame to rise up on the beach for an 8-day city that never sleeps.
In the first year, the participants of the Burning Man Festival were only 20 people. In 2010, the number of participants increased to 50,000, and in 2018, there were nearly 100,000. A considerable number of participants are art creators who come with their own artwork.
In 2018, Chinese cartoonist Lu Ming brought his 15-meter-high, 10-ton steel sculpture, Fenghai Town, across the ocean to the Fireman’s Day. After the four days of construction, the big steel guy immediately became a highlight. Countless people walked under the sculpture and sent hugs and congratulations, beer and rice, necklaces and bracelets.
Title a from around the world, about 70,000 people gathered in the desert to participate in the Fireman Festival
Why do you do this? Lu Ming said that no reason is the real reason. Hard to find reasons, just because they like it, just for expression, just to commemorate. In all these expressions are attributed to pure occasions, strange and strange, and unconventional, but normal.
Here, during the day, people wear exotic clothes, or watch the art, attend lectures and activities, and give each other gifts. In the evening, deafening music and art buses spurting around, all kinds of large-scale music performances, dances, and parties are endless.
Carnival is maintained for 8 days, and the climax of the festival is two burnings – burning fire people and burning temples. After the ultimate bloom, all the structures and rubbish on the Fireman’s Day were removed without leaving a trace.
In September 2017, Heishi City, Nevada, USA, held a local fire festival, blazing flames to illuminate the night
furnace
It is said that the Fireman’s Day reveals the volatility of human beings, as if it were a melting pot of soul, because everything can be found here. It has a theme, but it is anti-theme; there is carnival, and it is also inclusive.
Since 1995, Larry Harvey has given different themes to each year’s events. For example, the theme in 2006 is “Hope and Fear”, 2007 is “Green Man”, and in 2010 it is “Metropolis”. A theme determines the design of the burning giant, to a certain extent, but it seems to be nothing more than that.
The theme of the 2018 Fireman’s Day is “I, Robot”, but the scene is not only not much robot and artificial intelligence display, the only robot shape is also forked, participants do not like more and more specific holiday themes.
The two climaxes of the Fireman’s Day are all burning, but the atmosphere and emotions are totally different.
In the first game, the burning fire, the explosion of the audience, everyone fell into the passionate dance, and jumped, it was the most intense moment of emotional outburst. But the burning temple of the next day turned into silence.
The Fireman’s Day Temple is a wooden place for prayer, meditation, and nostalgia. Many people will put photos of relatives and friends, pets, or their own cards, diaries and souvenirs, in order to mourn the souls of the people they care about, pin their own grief, and release the nostalgia of their hearts. The temple carrying the story and sorrow and joy will be lit on the last day of the Fireman’s Day. When it is burning, the lively scene will suddenly be silent. According to the participants, almost everyone shouted in tears and could only hear a slight cry and sob in silence. That kind of experience is the intertwining of the extreme discomfort of the body and the joy of the spirit.
In fact, it is not the only scene. The whole game of 8 days of the Burning Man’s Day is to cleanse the body and soul and find yourself.
Lu Ming said that he likes to sit in the desert at dusk, look at the mountains and mountains, and feel the land. Staying in the city and in society for too long will forget your connection with nature. But when he returns to nature and feels the wind blowing over the skin, the state at that moment is closest to nature and reality.
Therefore, when I came to the Fireman’s Day, I went to Tibet as if I were seeking change. I would rather find myself. Once you find yourself, people are able to approach freedom and truth, but that is not disorder and chaos. The invisible order of Fireman’s Day has been guaranteed by its spiritual core.
The “commoditization principle” is one of the most famous principles on the Fireman’s Day. It means that money cannot be used on Fireman’s Day unless it is used to buy ice and coffee. In such an environment, sharing has become a natural social principle for Fireman’s Day. The boundaries between people are also eliminated, and introverts are more bold here. Volunteers everywhere provide friendly and generous service. For example, if you are tired, you can go to the massage camp. There will be volunteers to wash your feet and massage your body. If you are bored, you can also enter a tent and people you don’t know. to chat with.
In addition to the “commoditization” principle, the other nine principles of the Burning Man Festival include: radical tolerance, giving, thorough self-reliance, radical self-expression, community work, civic responsibility, no traces, participation and immediateness.
It is said that these ten principles are listed by Larry Harvey after studying communist ideology, and it is these ten principles that form the basis of the so-called utopia of the Burning Man Festival.
Due to its deep spiritual foundation and historical tradition, for many old firemen, the Burning Man Festival is no longer a simple holiday, it has been transformed into countless stories into life, and an important spiritual source of lifestyle change. For Larry Harvey, the Fireman’s Day symbolizes a movement that moves toward freedom and liberation.
Classical spirit returns to modern
Fireman’s Day is a spiritual utopia that represents the other end of life. It is passion, fun, and diversity.
But it is not a different kind of imagination of life. Because passion, fun and diversity are life itself, it can be said that any whimsy, absurd madness is originally part of life, because it comes from human nature.
Humanity is the most authentic desire, which is acknowledged by most philosophers, but how to deal with it, different philosophers have turned to different paths.
Schopenhauer’s willingness to live as the will of the original, but eventually went to asceticism and escaping. But Nietzsche, who continues the pulse, believes that the roots of life can be joyful and indestructible, even if the essence of the world is suffering and misery.
This joyful and indestructible life is the ultimate expression through art. “Art is the highest mission of life and the metaphysical activity of life.” Nietzsche said in “The Birth of Tragedy.”
And what is noble art?
This is to start with Nietzsche’s analysis of the spirit of the ancient Greek Dionysus and the spirit of the Japanese god in The Birth of Tragedy.
In Nietzsche’s pen, the Japanese-style tendency is a natural impulse to construct a dream, while the Dionysian tendency corresponds to a drunkenness. The spirit of the Japanese god can be said: even if life is a dream, we must do this dream with gusto, don’t lose the love and fun of the dream. The subtext of the Dionysian spirit is: Even if life is a tragedy, we must play this tragedy with great enthusiasm, and do not lose the magnificence and comfort of the tragedy. The combination of the two is the aesthetic attitude of life advocated by Nietzsche.
Nietzsche especially praises the spirit of Dionysus and regards it as a horror and ecstasy. It is the god of the artist who is completely non-thinking and immoral. Because the spirit of the Dionysian style contains the ultimate spirit and value of human beings, only the excitement and transcendence of the Dionysian style can liberate the soul and demonstrate the will, thus maximizing the release of vitality.
Nietzsche said that what we call culture, education, and civilization today will one day be brought to the justice of the judges, because they are the decadent form of human beings, only art, on the contrary.
If we say that the ultimate sorrow and the ultimate joy of confrontation and blending, and even harmony, a noble and glorious tragedy in ancient Greece, then in modern times, it is Fireman’s Day. They are all art, and they are bridges that extrapolate the content of life to the form of life. The entire Fireman’s Day, all the artistic forms displayed, and the spirit of the spirits that are stirred up are the best manifestations of drunkenness.
Nietzsche’s discussion of the Greek tragedy is actually to discuss the cultural value crisis brought about by the excessive emphasis on rationality in modern society, and the spirit of the Fireman’s Day also breeds this spirit of resistance. In this sense, the spirit of the flaming people is not only a rebellion against modern alienation, but also a return of the classical spirit in modern times.
Tips: Those American festivals
Cow dung Festival (Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin)
Wisconsin is a dairy cow state with more than 2 million cows and is known as “Little India.” The state name is from Indian, meaning “grassland.” The people here, like the Indians, think that the cow is sacred. The local residents will raise a lot of cattle, take the dried cow dung to compost, make fuel, and can also take the game to see who is far away.
This festival is held on September 1st and 2nd every year. People use the mountain of cow dung to revel, use cow dung to roast fire, barbecue, and cook. There are real cows on the scene. According to the rules of the competition, the contestants held a dry cow dung block with a diameter of not less than 15 cm, stood in a designated area and threw it, and the person who threw the farthest won. The highest record of cow dung is currently about 75 meters.
Testicular Festival (Clinton, Montana)
This festival has nothing to do with sex, it is simply related to the testicles, only people over the age of 21 are allowed to participate. Festivals include eating testicles from cattle, oysters in rocky mountains, and running in underwear. It is held every year in mid-September.
Underwater Music Festival (Keys, FL)
The concert was initiated by long distance swimmer Diana Ned. In September 2013, Ned became the first person to swim from Cuba to West Lock Island, Florida. She sang a song for 100 miles without the protection of shark cages.
The concerts were all under water and aired through local radio stations and water pipes. The musician wears a mermaid and plays a special instrument underwater. A lot of diving enthusiasts will come to participate, which is also a festival to promote the protection of underwater coral ecosystems.
Garlic Festival (Gilroy, California)
Located in the town of “Kilro”, 30 miles south of San Jose, the garlic harvest is not only the highest in the United States, but also the beautiful ball, known as the “hometown of California garlic.” Since 1979, the town of Kilro has held a fresh and interesting garlic festival every summer, and the three-day “Garlic Carnival” is one of the largest agricultural festivals in the United States.
At the Carnival, there are passionate music and dance, unique crafts exhibitions, as well as garlic, garlic and potato chips. At that time, the ceremony of the coronation of Miss Kilro Garlic will also be held.
Headless Chicken Festival (Fruita, Colorado)
Every May, the city of Vruta, Colorado, hosts a 5km race, a car show, and chicken food to commemorate a cock named Mike. The chicken survived for 18 months while being cut off by the owner. A test by the University of Utah showed that the blade did not cut into the veins of the neck, and blood coagulation allowed the cock to die from bleeding. In addition, although most of the head was cut, Mike’s brainstem and one ear were still there. The news that the headless chicken Mike is not dead spreads, and people can’t help but marvel at it.
