Word: rituals
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...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...
...Virginia Institute of Marine Science, in Gloucester Point, has been studying great whites in the Farallons for the past seven years. Says he: "Their attacks are very controlled, as is their feeding behavior." Klimley agrees: "The white shark is a skillful and stealthy predator that eats with both ritual and purpose...
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...