another work of genius by Dimafleck: On the Subject of Bonnaroo.

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

Every year, the Bonnaroo Music Festival draws over a hundred thousand concert goers to the heart of Tennessee to partake in a four day freak out. Hundreds of bands, comedians, artists and bohemians transform American farmland into an enchanted playground filled with wonder and reckless abandon. The festival boasts the most eclectic line up in the summer music circuit and its environment is totally sequestered from the outside world. This festival brings out of broad range of music fans of different age and class backgrounds. It is these reasons that make Bonnaroo an excellent candidate in observing “mechanisms of engagementâ€, the culture industry and the “carnivalesqueâ€. It will become apparent that one may enter and exit the realm of play, however, only in the world of the carnival can one alter his or her performance.

The festival is a four day playground for its participants. Much like Bakhtin writes in his article on “Carnival and the Carnivalesqueâ€, participants of Bonnaroo “live in itâ€, there is no division between performer and spectator (Bakhtin, 250). It is for this reason that Bonnaroo is a different kind of play. Unlike a sport, game or any other kind of leisure activety, Bonnaroo is a place where individuals must live, and therefore, it calls for a new kind of performance. Bakhtin refers to this kind of behavior as “new mode of interrelationship between individuals (Bakhtin, 251). However, participants are still limited by the boundaries that are established by their everyday performance. In an environment where people are encouraged to push these boundaries and the the themes of escapism is sprinkled throughout the event, participants might push or briefly escape from their performative boundaries. However, they will never cross into the realm of taboo. It is for this reason that even in the most inclusive, demanding and all encompassing kind of game, participants of the still adhere to their performance.

An individual who experiments with natural psychedelic drugs on occasion will no doubt partake in this kind of activity. However, if their performance as an individual involves a taboo zone of“ no chemicalsâ€, than they will not do so, even in an environment where drug us is widespread and widely encouraged. What makes Bonnaroo the ultimate kind of game, is it does have the capacity to push boundaries to the point of a breaking. An individual who normally would not partake in chemical drug use, might in fact indulge while in the environment, however, any break of boundaries is still inherent to the performance, it just required the proper enviorment. Furthermore, any kind of break would in turn, become the performance itself. In essence, Bonnaroo is the ultimate game because it is the all encompassing carnival that Bahktin refers to. For a brief moment in time, “the laws, prohibition and restrictions that determine the structure and order of the ordinary is suspended†(Bakhtin, 251). Only in this kind of “world turned inside out †can performance be stretched to the limit and be reshaped into something new. Participants leave the four day gathering with a new idea of what it is they are; no matter how minute, their performance has been altered.

It is this kind of altering of performance that makes environments such as Bonnaroo an incredibly powerful cultural force. In the study of popular culture, MacCabe writes that the most influential of cultural products break the national grid (MacCabe, 9). Motown, The Beatles, Joyce’s Ulysses have all had their own sphere’s of cultural movements and influence. He suggest that in the study of popular culture, we must look at the “fault-lines opened up by these cultural products â€. It is in the realm between play and performance where culture is forged.

Adorno theorized that the culture industry had effectively integrated itself with society and created mass consumption to organize “free†time (Berstein, 4). Here, he presents mass culture as the negative integration of capitalist ideals within society. Applied to Silverstone’s concept of play, the culture industry has created an environment where playing is no longer even about personal fulfillment, but only provides “easy amusement from the relief from labourâ€. Once again, we are presented with the understanding that the games that we play within our culture do not alter our performances. However, inside the world of Bakhtin’s “carnivalâ€, the game is different, and inherently, so is the play. Only in environments where one must exit the world in which they perform can the performance be shaped, reshaped and altered. As children, we were able to enter the world of pretend, now we must enter the world of the carnivalesque.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

can you summarise in 20 words or less?

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

you're a dirty hippy that requires escapism to change who you are.

[NewRider]

2008 Rumors begin...

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=85960

[MarcO]

paragraph breaks are the hottest new trend!

[NewRider]

I read somewhere that paragraph breaks are like sooo... 2006!

[Booche]

Dima would last about 25 seconds at a Raiders game before kneeling to his knees and violently weeping.

[balogna pogna]

2008 Rumors begin...

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=85960

My favorite quote from the page you linked to:

What's yellow and red, and looks good on hippies???

FIRE!