The Fool on the Moon
Who is a fool?
You haven't heard of Occlève Siméon, the first man
to visit the moon? I know, I know. You think Neil
Armstrong was the first, flying through space in his
lunar lander. But as poet-journalist Dany Laferrière
has pointed out, Armstrong arrived only to find a
Haitian peasant already waiting.
"I haven't had a cigarette for three days," the peasant
said, according to Laferrière's sources. "Do you
know what that's like for a smoker?" We shouldn't be
surprised to find The Fool on the moon. For him, it was the perfect
job. America
had reached its crowning moment of ego, and needed to be deflated. Even
more
importantly, the world needed a reminder that an epic journey of
spirit-a
metaphysical flight-can take you much farther than to a rock in outer
space. The
Haitians, living in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, knew
exactly
how to bring America down to Earth. "That's a mighty big rocket you've
got there,
Uncle Sam," they said. "Is it as big as the mind? As free as
imagination?"
The tale is heavy with festivity and fantasy, the twin pillars of
foolery. The pillars
stand on a foundation of greed, arrogance, authority, pride, all those
"pitiful little
tricks and handsprings." These are the acts of real fools, without
which The Fool
would be useless and mute.
The Fool is a looking-glass. She is male and female, he is human and
animal,
they are one moment immersed in the workaday routine and the next
overturning
the norms of daily life. When we play The Fool, we are The Other,
strangers who
are in this world but not entirely of it. The ancient term
Narrenfreiheit means
"freedom of the fool." That freedom reminds us that in a moment of
ecstasy we
can sweep away the illusion of so much of what we endure. The Fool
breaks the
trail; the revolutionaries follow. "World-changers need not be joyless
and
ascetic," writes Harvey Cox, author of Feast of Fools. The original
Feast of Fools
was a medieval tradition, older even than the age of court jesters that
turned their
pitiful tricks for those in power. In the Feast, priests would don rude
masks, pious
citizens would discard and ridicule cherished rituals, underlings would
parade in
the robes of rulers. Often, the day of festivity would spill over into
a week.
Authorities constantly condemned the feast, and it faded some 500 years
ago.
The tradition, though, has traveled through the underground, nourished
by Fools
from hundreds of cultures. In the past century, we've seen Dada and the
surrealists; the situationist vision of the city-as-funhouse; the beat
poets, Yippie
pranksters, punk artists and drag queen parades. And now, once again,
The Fool
is on the rise, stiltwalking and firebreathing over the heads of
corporate culture.
The Feast of Fools was celebrated at the start of each new year. Now we
stand at
the start of a new millennium. What better time to revive The Fool's
spirit?
Imagine the sweet chaos of a single day dedicated to popping a
jack-in-the-box
in the face of the global elite. How will society cope with 24 hours of
raw
weirdness, a rain of pranks and unexpected public dreams?
let's return Fools Day to its rightful tradition: tweaking the nose of
power and authority. Let's turn the world upside down, and see what
falls out the
pockets.
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<@><
Fisheye in Cyberspace:
http://www.geocities.com/fisheye23/
Visit this site or another Moose dies.
^-^-^- xx -^-;-^
(..)
Other fools who have visited the moon include Baron
Munchausen, Domingo Gonzales and numerous
shamans
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