Word: ritualization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...stole one of the grandest shows of the century in a wedding that marked her as both impossibly glamorous and a kind of universal Every Woman. TIME wrote in its walkup to the nuptials: "This wedding on the cusp of high noon, in front of a world short on ritual and parched for romance, is in fact one grand pass of the royal wand [in which] the future is assured and everyone can be queen...
...unknown artist, Larry Harvey, built a wooden statue on a foggy beach near San Francisco and then set it on fire. For Harvey it was a catharsis to heal a broken relationship. For his friends it was a soul-energizing blast, and Harvey decided it should be an annual ritual. He cast a single brilliant rule: no spectators. What he wanted, he said, was to create "a Disneyland in reverse." Everyone had to be a participant and march in the electric-light parade...
...rules are few and the possibilities infinite, Burning Man blossomed into a full-fledged happening. By word of mouth, via friend of a friend, with photocopied flyers posted in music stores, Burning Man quietly gathered a tribe of hundreds each summer to partake in the meaningless but mesmerizing ritual. And there, in its seclusion, it might still be, if it weren't for cyberspace...
...only does it offer the usual American pastimes--fast cars, parades, costume balls, picnics and all-night music--but it also provides the more contemporary attractions of survival camping, neon lights, nudity, performance art and staged extravaganzas. It's got the sun-dried culture of postmodern road warriors: deep ritual without religion, community without commitment, art without history, technology without boundaries. As essayist Bruce Sterling writes in the only book about the event, Burning Man (HardWired; 1997), which I and others at Wired magazine had a hand in producing, "It's just big happy crowds of harmless arty people expressing...
Early last Tuesday morning, an odd little ritual played out in dozens--perhaps even hundreds--of homes across the U.S. Rising before dawn, a lot of sleepy-eyed folks switched on their televisions to the Weather Channel, powered up their camcorders and recorded a minute of programming right off the screen. Then, with the camera still running, they went into their yards and videotaped the sky just as the star Aldebaran slipped behind the moon. Finally they came back inside, taped a bit more TV and went back...