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PAN_DOMESTICATED
April 20, 2008
So, so, so...
of late I've been hanging about Cellspace,
looking for things to do to help out. The word went
out around the
So I find myself suddenly end of last year
being an "insider" some place that Cellspace
that I used to peer in the was in trouble.
doorway thinking that maybe
some day, if I could find the Rather than whine
time to work at it, I might about yet another
find my way in... cool place gone,
it was time to
get involved.
So, attending the events cluster
meetings, doing some stints as house [ref]
manager and so on, I got to see a
strange phenomena growing in the
Cellspace gallery:
Cardburgh
AFTER_THE_FLOOD
A group of volunteers were in
there constantly, for weeks on To quote Mona Caron:
end, snipping up little pieces
of cardboard and gluing them "I'm exactly the same
together into a cardboard kind of obsessive-compulsive,
city that filled the room. and when I saw them working
I immediately got it,
For three weeks running, they and in fact, I thought:
held events in the gallery 'Don't let me get too
where they acted out skits close to that....' "
telling the tale of the
development of Cardburg,
leading to it's fore-ordained
destruction at the hands of
the strange creature that was
once it's saviour: Duck-Squatch
Duck-Squatch! being a man
dressed in a
There was an elaborate baggy, hairy
event planned for the suit wearing
destruction of Cardburg, a cardboard
a party in the main bill on his One might wonder
space with a shadow face. "Why a Duck?"
puppet show, bands, and
so on. But maybe
that's why.
All seemed to be going
according to plan...
The crowd was a bit rowdy, but
in good spirits.
They'd taken the old Cellspace
couches and put them up on flat
dollies, and they were riding them
around on the dancefloor using (I was not house manager
them like bumper cars. that night, so thankfully I
didn't have to decide if
this should be allowed.)
Some of us were a little
concerned about the
possibility that some drunk
might take a match to
Cardburgh, so a few of us
were stationed at each end
of the building, with fire
extinguishers at the ready.
At one point, we smelled smoke -- Someone had forgotten to turn
a false alarm, essentially. on the exhaust fan in our
metal shop (which doubles as a
I grabbed my fire extinguisher and smoking area), so the
went running toward the back, combination of cardboard dust
across the dance floor. A rolling in the air plus traces of
couch crashed into me from behind, cigarette smoke made us think
and I sat down on the back of it, there might be paper burning.
gliding across the floor with fire
extinguisher in hand, getting to
my destination that much sooner.
The grand plan for
Cardburgh progressed:
Workers ran around the city,
removing supports, paving
the way for it's ducky
destruction.
The music shifted to
a thrash metal sound.
Monsters of cardboard emerged,
and engaged in apocalyptic combat.
I went into the office to do a cash
drop, and when I stepped out again,
there were some signs that something
had changed:
People were not waiting for
the webbed feet of the duck-squatch,
and were taking the job into their
own hands.
Someone was racing from gallery
to dance floor, heaving some card I later learned this
board buildings into the crowd. was the infamous
Chicken John.
The gallery space went
into an hour-long melee They had planned on
as the city was death-by-duck, but
flattened by hipsters they had reckoned
of various stripes... without The Chicken.
Some of them
Then they began wearing stripes:
beating each other
up with carboard [ref]
buildings.
Throughout all of this chaotic
pandaemonium, everything was
out-of-control... and yet
nothing went beyond the limits.
The organizers were
surprised by what
happened, but not
unpleased.
The attendees were all
having a good time: no Though, one woman
one was hurt. seemed a bit down about
a rip in her tights.
Her boy friend commented
"So you'll always remember
where it happened."
She did not
seem consoled.
Then at 2am or so,
I decided to take (Rather then get roped
my leave. into the clean-up crew
again).
Public transit was
unusually awful that
night, and so I walked
through the Mission
late on a Friday night.
On all corners, people jumped up
and down trying to attract the
attention of taxis.
SUV drivers played their usual
test-your-brakes game at every
stop light.
A car drove up honking behind a
driver that was daring to drive
slowly through an intersection
(they were making a left). The
honker swerved to the right
to pass, and plowed through
against the red.
Mission Street itself was half
blocked by emergency vehicles:
fire, ambulence, and many police.
There seemed to be large
numbers of ugly, nasty
drunks around.
On one sidewalk of Mission Street,
two drunken women in little
nightclub dresses wrestled and
screamed incoherently. A half
block up the street was another
pair of them: some friends had
intervened in a cat-fight, and so
created two cat-fights.
And I thought to myself:
"Normal people...
I fuckin' hate em."
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