July 6, 2008


Fire Jumpers

You’ll find this image at enigma janitor, one of the sites belonging to Balkan ‘flocker Alek Lindus. I just had to post it here, not only because it is mesmerizing but because it sets one to thinking about the ’safety culture’ that so many people in the US have adopted over the past decades.

some time at the end of June, they collect all the bunches of flowers that have decorated the doors since May Day and make a bonfire in the street of them, the children then jump over the fire. Intentional double exposure.

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posted by Sheila Ryan in anthropology, beauty, photography 

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5 Responses to “Fire Jumpers”

  1. Daryl Scroggins on July 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

    Oh–see? There is nothing in the U.S. it seems, that leads anyone anymore to such glorious community practices as burning the old flowers–or of decorating the doors with them in the first place. There used to be great autumn rituals of raking leaves into big piles for all the kids to dive into and roll about in, and then–with kids extracted–burning the re-raked leaves. That smell! And then the hot chocolate. But now–it’s too dangerous to burn leaves. Nuts with guns all over the fucking place; ample wars to grow up into; medicine chests in almost every home packed with enough pills to kill the kiddies ten times over–but it’s too dangerous to burn leaves.

  2. Deron Bauman on July 6th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

    In Tehran, every new year (theirs is february or march, I think) they would set fires in the street, smaller to larger, and all the men and boys would gather and jump through successively.

    I remember my father and another man holding either of my hands and helping me over the larger fires.

    I also remember molotov cocktails and goldfish in plastic bags.

  3. Sheila Ryan on July 6th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    Cooper offered an observation (at enigma janitor) that I believe worth cross-posting here. Hope he won’t mind.

    I’m glad Sheila cross-posted this at Clusterflock. It is, in many ways, a frightening shot, partaking of the terror of rioting and civil disorder and war, while actually a shot of something quite harmless and rather delightful. And that “spirit” that seems to be rising up, just right of center, into the sky–marvelous.

  4. Mike D. on July 6th, 2008 at 9:26 pm

    My dad was a charter fishing boat captain; a Florida good ol’ boy with a passion for nature and a quiet, thoughtful side. One July 4th morning, we were driving to the docks with a half dozen boxes of bottle rockets behind the seats of his rust-bucket pickup. A honk from behind us signaled the arrival of one of his buddies, a fellow captain or mate, headed down the same seaside back road. Dad looked at me with a grin. “Take the wheel!”

    I was six years old–it was only months earlier I had peed myself on a long hike across the parking lot to empty out a bucket of trash. The mates would “one! two! three!” me off the dock, pulling me back from the green water at the last minute. Each morning, I would puke my breakfast into a trash bucket before heading across the bucking deck to greet the dawn, honorary mate and mascot of The Lucky Strike.

    Take the wheel. I reached out a shaky hand to steady the wheel as he ripped the top off a box of rockets, tossed one into a pipe and aimed it out the drivers side window, a bouncing hand cajoling a lighter toward the fuse. For 2 miles, I held on to that cracked plastic wheel in sheer terror, stealing glances in the rearview to catch trails of smoke streaking off the other truck’s windshield as both men honked and cursed laughed with maniacal glee, scaring the brown rabbits off the road side, back into the dawn-lit seagrass flats.

  5. Sheila Ryan on July 6th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

    Speechless.

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