So we decided to recognize the occasion with some homemade moules frites. Fabulous. This the day after a fabulous weekend camping, complete with a bit of actual summer thrown in: sun for more than an hour and temperatures creeping up towards a cool winter in Florida. Today we hit 22 degrees C. That's low 70s in American. There was much rejoicing.
Oh, and for the North American and Alaskan marketing teams that were in a small Scandinavian country recently, we were camping to better experience BIRDS! Terns, to be specific: Sandwich, Common, Arctic, and the elusive Roseate. And a hobby (a small European falcon) thrown in for good measure. So there!
Now, where was I? Oh yes. Shivering in a field surround by 1,200 other buck nak-... First the disclaimer again. If I didn't fulfill the promise of an American R rating in my last post, I will this time. Put the young 'uns back in front of the TV if you don't want to answer some very peculiar questions.
The second set up was a bit more like traditional nude photography. Well, as traditional as a Spencer Tunick event can be. All the men were given white roses, the women red. We were paraded into a neighboring field, again with the castle in the background. We went through several poses this time, including an extended time laying on the dewy grass.
It was during this time, as we bent one way and then the other, that one was confronted with certain anatomical details at close range that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. For instance, Irish men's members are largely in tact. That is to say, they are largely uncircumcised. That's not to say that they are especially large. Just uncut. Furthermore, the fashion for pubic grooming is not confined to women. Plenty of landing strips, and less, for the ladies, as well as more than a few bald beneath the smalls for the lads. And tattoos and piercings in some unholy places for both genders.
I digress.
The second set up was quite a bit longer than the first. And you'd think that stretched out on the ground would've been even more uncomfortable. But we were much more closely packed-in this time around. And for skinny butts like mine, the greater proximity of other bodies made a big difference.
When Spencer gave us the all clear, there was more hooting and hollering and running back to our clothes. But the ladies didn't stay dressed for long; the third set up was girls only. In the meantime, there were several humorous side stories, all around a central theme: where the hell are my clothes? The organizers had given us giant plastic bags in which to stash our belongings whilst in the buff. Upon our return, several poor souls ended up wandering around for up to half an hour looking for them. I overheard the last guy to reunite with his clothes say that he didn't mind being naked at all, until he was the only person naked.
Meanwhile, the ladies went off to a separate wooded garden that was above the fields we'd been in all morning. Their disrobing location was directly above us. Several of them took the opportunity to enhance the occasion with a bit of striptease/booty shake to much enthusiastic cat calling from the blokes. Again, it took me out of the moment for a bit, but really didn't detract from the overall mood of the morning. As we couldn't see the actual photos I've really no idea what their pictures were all about, other than at least one pose involved roses in teeth.
It was then the gents' turn to go solo. Our stage was a creek. But first we had to disrobe, right smack in front of the ladies. The cat calls were boisterous and joyful, and high pitched. Back to the creek. 100 of us were chosen to stand in the creek balls naked. Except, Spencer didn't like the effect, so he then asked us to kneel. Cold? Oh yeah. By that point, however, the cold was no longer the primary concern. The rocks under my knees were much more on my mind. Luckily, the cold numbed that problem soon enough.
In the end, blue skin and indented knees were small price for the feeling of being intensely alive, and of having participated.
Slainte.
Showing posts with label Participate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Participate. Show all posts
Monday 14 July 2008
Tuesday 8 July 2008
Participate!
Where does the time go? Can it really be two-and-a-half months since my last post? Well, I've received enough complaining that maybe I should do something about it.
As recently reported on the pollybloggy, PK and I participated in a Spencer Tunick installation in Cork last month at Blarney Castle. Before I explain any further, I should probably put all the families on notice that what follows is a PG-13 story at best, probably R in Eastern Washington, most of the expanse between St Louis and Sacramento, and anywhere else that voted for W in the last election. Over here in Europe, it'd be G; but there you have it.
PK and I, along with about 1,200 strangers, got buck-naked in public and had our picture taken.
Sorry, we got nude. This was art after all. Tunick is an American artist famous for what he calls "site specific" nudes: photos of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of nude models in interesting locations. He's done this all over the world, from Newcastle to New Mexico and Barcelona to Brazil. I believe the largest yet was in Mexico City with 18,000 volunteers. I've wanted to be a part of one of these events for years, and lept at the chance when I heard about it.
He came for two installations in Ireland, ours in Cork, and one the following weekend at the Docklands in Dublin. We had to gather at Blarney Castle at 2.00am on a misty Tuesday morning, and await instructions. We arrived right on time and found ourselves to be early for most. Very Irish. Maybe it's a Catholic thing: manana culture is very strong here. At the gate to the grounds were a bunch of lads dressed up as priests from a popular TV comedy (Father Ted), admonishing all us sinners for this wicked behaviour; we later saw them in their altogether. All in good fun.
We handed in our legal release and went in. The crowd that followed us really was a great cross-section of the community. While there were lots of the expected college students, art students, struggling artists and the like, there were also groups of housewives, professional looking folk, aunties and nieces, and the rest of us normal workaday slobs. That's not to say that, as we discovered later, tattoos, piercings of all kinds, and other body modifications were not the norm: they most definitely were. But more about that later.
As we sat in a field beneath the castle and large flood lights waiting for the dawn, misty showers would pass by every now and again, with people scurrying under the cover of trees for protection. Everyone was dressed, mind you, and having rather a good time. Some more than others. There was music and lots of laughing, and more than once smoke wafted over us that did not have, shall we say, legal sanction.
As the sky inched bluer and our excitement (anxiety?) rose, Tunick's assistant got on a loud speaker and gave us the low down on how everything was going to work. There would be four set ups: two for everyone, one for ladies and one for men. Spencer then spoke to us a couple of times before deciding the light was right and giving the green light. Amidst hooting and hollering, 1,200 people stripped off and walked about 50 yards to an adjoining field.
A note about the weather. It was mid-June, you'd say. Surely it was lovely, you'd say. I'd say, we'd already been sprinkled on at this point. I'd say it was about 57 degrees F. I'd say it was effing wet and cold to drop trou! It was funny to see the other skinny guys (and gals) like me shaking in the chill. Trying to hold still for the photos in these conditions promoted a certain comical wobbliness in skinny rear-ends that will likely remain forever etched on mind's eye.
But aside from the bracing, mist-inflected breeze, the very next thing to strike one was the almost immediate normalcy of it all: being naked with that many people, with that many different shapes and sizes and colours, made the nudity irrelevant. As if to say, so what you're nude! So am I! So is she! So is he! And them! And those guys! The article that PK cited summed it up nicely. "Here I was worrying about my white bits, my wobbly bits and my private bits, but to be honest there were too many "bits" on view for anyone to take notice of my nakedness after the first moment." To be fair, I wasn't worried about any of my bits being on display; but the sentiment is profoundly true. The nudity was not a big deal a'tall. Aside from the cold, that is.
The first set-up was a standing shot in a field lined with conifers, and some as islands in the middle. We were arranged by loudspeaker: Spencer on a cherry picker with a bullhorn barking instructions to his assistants to move this or that person, this way or that. What seemed to be an eternity passed before the artist was happy with the pose. Then it started to rain again. It was mercifully brief, and didn't happen again for the rest of the shoot. We started facing the camera; then turned around. The final shot of the set-up inspired more than a little giggling: facing perpendicular to the camera's line of sight, he had us touch our toes. That's right ~ bend over, baby! We were thus briefly pushed out of context and reminded of our nakedness. Equilibrium was quickly restored, however, and the sniggering passed.
Hopefully that has whetted your appetite to hear more, and I promise it won't take 2 months.
Slainte.
As recently reported on the pollybloggy, PK and I participated in a Spencer Tunick installation in Cork last month at Blarney Castle. Before I explain any further, I should probably put all the families on notice that what follows is a PG-13 story at best, probably R in Eastern Washington, most of the expanse between St Louis and Sacramento, and anywhere else that voted for W in the last election. Over here in Europe, it'd be G; but there you have it.
PK and I, along with about 1,200 strangers, got buck-naked in public and had our picture taken.
Sorry, we got nude. This was art after all. Tunick is an American artist famous for what he calls "site specific" nudes: photos of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of nude models in interesting locations. He's done this all over the world, from Newcastle to New Mexico and Barcelona to Brazil. I believe the largest yet was in Mexico City with 18,000 volunteers. I've wanted to be a part of one of these events for years, and lept at the chance when I heard about it.
He came for two installations in Ireland, ours in Cork, and one the following weekend at the Docklands in Dublin. We had to gather at Blarney Castle at 2.00am on a misty Tuesday morning, and await instructions. We arrived right on time and found ourselves to be early for most. Very Irish. Maybe it's a Catholic thing: manana culture is very strong here. At the gate to the grounds were a bunch of lads dressed up as priests from a popular TV comedy (Father Ted), admonishing all us sinners for this wicked behaviour; we later saw them in their altogether. All in good fun.
We handed in our legal release and went in. The crowd that followed us really was a great cross-section of the community. While there were lots of the expected college students, art students, struggling artists and the like, there were also groups of housewives, professional looking folk, aunties and nieces, and the rest of us normal workaday slobs. That's not to say that, as we discovered later, tattoos, piercings of all kinds, and other body modifications were not the norm: they most definitely were. But more about that later.
As we sat in a field beneath the castle and large flood lights waiting for the dawn, misty showers would pass by every now and again, with people scurrying under the cover of trees for protection. Everyone was dressed, mind you, and having rather a good time. Some more than others. There was music and lots of laughing, and more than once smoke wafted over us that did not have, shall we say, legal sanction.
As the sky inched bluer and our excitement (anxiety?) rose, Tunick's assistant got on a loud speaker and gave us the low down on how everything was going to work. There would be four set ups: two for everyone, one for ladies and one for men. Spencer then spoke to us a couple of times before deciding the light was right and giving the green light. Amidst hooting and hollering, 1,200 people stripped off and walked about 50 yards to an adjoining field.
A note about the weather. It was mid-June, you'd say. Surely it was lovely, you'd say. I'd say, we'd already been sprinkled on at this point. I'd say it was about 57 degrees F. I'd say it was effing wet and cold to drop trou! It was funny to see the other skinny guys (and gals) like me shaking in the chill. Trying to hold still for the photos in these conditions promoted a certain comical wobbliness in skinny rear-ends that will likely remain forever etched on mind's eye.
But aside from the bracing, mist-inflected breeze, the very next thing to strike one was the almost immediate normalcy of it all: being naked with that many people, with that many different shapes and sizes and colours, made the nudity irrelevant. As if to say, so what you're nude! So am I! So is she! So is he! And them! And those guys! The article that PK cited summed it up nicely. "Here I was worrying about my white bits, my wobbly bits and my private bits, but to be honest there were too many "bits" on view for anyone to take notice of my nakedness after the first moment." To be fair, I wasn't worried about any of my bits being on display; but the sentiment is profoundly true. The nudity was not a big deal a'tall. Aside from the cold, that is.
The first set-up was a standing shot in a field lined with conifers, and some as islands in the middle. We were arranged by loudspeaker: Spencer on a cherry picker with a bullhorn barking instructions to his assistants to move this or that person, this way or that. What seemed to be an eternity passed before the artist was happy with the pose. Then it started to rain again. It was mercifully brief, and didn't happen again for the rest of the shoot. We started facing the camera; then turned around. The final shot of the set-up inspired more than a little giggling: facing perpendicular to the camera's line of sight, he had us touch our toes. That's right ~ bend over, baby! We were thus briefly pushed out of context and reminded of our nakedness. Equilibrium was quickly restored, however, and the sniggering passed.
Hopefully that has whetted your appetite to hear more, and I promise it won't take 2 months.
Slainte.
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