We're going to have a bonfire and burn a couch and another cut from a log.
Dates are 21-22 June 2008, So far about 50 CS’ers are coming. This has been a topic of intense discussion in the Melbourne Group, including the need for an organic couch.
The event will be held on CS member Redgum's property 'Pepper Leaf Creek,' 10 kilometers out of Mansfield, in North East Victoria. If you're arriving by BUS, please, let us know, so we can organise rides out to the bonfire.
If you start arriving from, say 11am-ish, then we're happy. Remember, it's winter, and you're very near Mt Buller, so it'll be chilly. There's no power or drinkable water on the property. If you're camping/sleeping in cars - IT WILL BE COLD. YOU WILL DIE. You need, need, need blankets and doonas, and maybe thermal underwear to sleep in.
If you come, you'll be in the country. There's animals and insects and stuff, as well as neighbours on either side of the land. Please respect the fence lines - if you climb through onto someone else's land, they might shoot you.
There's a dam on the property. It's inside a fence, and you can't swim in there or drink from it.
Bring guitars, drums or battery powered radios, and we can have music. Alcohol is fine, as long as you remember you're near a fire and a deep dam.
There's room for cars, but access might be limited if haven't got a 4WD. Erin will provide a 4wd ferry service over the dry creek bed - or the wet one, if it rains.
BURNING COUCH MANIFESTO (Like the Boston Tea Party but for Southern Hemisphere CS’ers)
At the winter’s solstice, which this year in the Southern Hemisphere is again on the shortest day, we will burn a couch. This is to celebrate lots of things but mainly that we have a tradition of festivals as good as if not better than those of the Northern Hemisphere.
So we need (1) a couch (2) somewhere to burn it (3) matches (4) some we, err...I think I mean people (4) a calendar, as I have no idea when solstice is (5) maybe a jersey. And that, err...is paragraph two.
Burning Couch is also because throughout history, pre-history and even the little bit before that, ancient Hosts burned unworthy couches to encourage contact with benign spirits and their good references surfing the ether seeking a temporary shelter or home (three day stay max, no pets).
Burning Couch is uniquely antipodean and all those other fun parts of the world in the Southern Hemisphere. Indeed the word itself is derived from an early type of ancient wooden couch. ‘Hemi’, meaning half, and ‘Sphere’ referring the circular aspect of a log, and ‘Southern’ meaning to lie on or with the bottom part (rather than with the very heavy and possibly fatal top part).
So Southern Hemisphere literally means ‘to lie on the bottom half of a log,’
Also in the Northern Hemisphere it’s the height of summer and so total fire bans. And as the term ‘Northern Hemisphere’ itself indicates they sleep under the wrong bit of log, ha ha ha. And that’s the real reason why all those Euro’s and Americans come here – how many times have you heard ‘Travel in Australia is so easy?’ Also why, when you go to London and all those other northern places, when you wake up in the morning you usually have a sore head.
But back to those days, when couches were called logs and surfers, often tired, exhausted and unwashed lay on uneven wood with only rough woven wool or cotton for warmth. So no change there.
More recently, unearthed archeological evidence indicates the importance of ceremony, ritual and alcohol in these seemingly primitive burnings. In fact it is now known that Burning Couch was a highly organized and even ornate affair - see paragraph two.
Burning Couch does not have a single focus or even yet a single couch. Burning Couch will be subject to participants involvement and include community, artwork, absurdity, decommodification, revelry and similar words downloaded from the net. Participation is encouraged, and being a spectator discouraged [42].
Burning Couch will be governed by about 10 principles and 17 slabs (that’s beer for the rest of you). These include gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, communal effort, civic responsibility, participation, and immediacy. Which were pretty easy seeing money had yet to be invented.
However, money has now been invented although not always evenly distributed. So Melbourne Hosts and Couch Surfers, are adding to collective Couch Surfing wisdom by creating Burning Couch.
The one rule is; this is not a Northern Hemisphere thing. Now BURN your own COUCH!
Cheers, Craig1 and some others.
Couch Burning without Boarders(TM)
42 = meaning of life. Just thought I’d add that.
Posted June 14th, 2008 - 6:53 am by CRAIG1 from Melbourne, Australia
