The Tumblelog for Luna Park Productions.
The Tumblelog for Luna Park Productions.
On the eve of Bumbershoot (one of my clients), it’s worth considering this quote from Michael Pollan’s THE BOTANY OF DESIRE, page 101 (emphasis mine):
A carnival is a social ritual of sanctioned craziness and release—a way for a community to temporarily indulge its Dionysian urges. For its duration, the identity of everyone swept into its vortex is up for grabs: the village idiot is made king, the poor man suddenly rich, the rich man just as suddenly a pauper. Everyday roles and values are suddenly, thrillingly, suspended, and astounding new possibilities arise.
(See my review of the book on Goodreads.)
Pollan of course is applying this observation to variations in plants, but right behind it is how we approach food: how we imagine it in our culture. And behind that is how we imagine things in the first place: festivals, carnivals, circuses, fairs… they are all valuable and necessary. (And in the case of the State Fair, not too far removed from the production of food—historically, the rides were just a sideshow to the main business of agricultural commerce.)
