What does take place in our offices and corridor during summertime? Well, it’s a recess. We do publish twice a week on the European parliament’s website some editorial contents that are lighter than usual (but still worth a look as we have slideshows.) We prepare September by thinking about how to improve our work. We will have new things to cover, new colleagues joining the team, new challenges and even a new event website on which Florent, Barbara and Sophie are working hard.  In the corridors, we compare our summer T-shirts, outfits and tans. Some afternoon, girls train in touching their elbows in their back and boys look at girls training to touch their elbows in their back. We’ve known worse professional times.

First, get a licence to fool

While surfing on Internet to collect screencaptions for a benchmarking on best current editorial practices proposed by major news actors, I found the story of an American conceptual artist who happened to be confronted with some kind of Hawaiian curse while he was preparing an exhibition. Conceptual artists are my thing. I had the misfortune to study in a Business school instead of an Art school. Business schools grant you with a licence to cheat, if I am to believe all the news about financial crisis, while Art schools deliver an official licence to fool.  Have  a crazy idea, call it a concept, have fun while producing it and sell it. Oh my, that must be such a great line of work. If you don’t meet the curse of a volcano god, that is.

Bags of dirt - this is art

H. Mathis is a conceptual artist. His website and his blog are all about his work, exhibitions and thoughts about art. One of his work, “THE DIRT” (H. Mathis writes mostly in capital letters, another cool thing about being an artist), aimed at collecting dirt from all United States of America. Using Craig list, he posted ads and set up a full DIRT RETRIEVAL SYSTEM involving prepaid envelops and so on.  The process went well and he managed to get dirt from all States but one: Hawaii.

I POSTED SEVERAL TIMES ON HAWAII’S CRAIGSLIST EXPLAINING SAID PROJECT, ASKING FOR DIRT. IT WAS CONTINUALLY FLAGGED AND REMOVED. FURTHER, I RECEIVED UPWARDS OF 50 EMAILS EXPLAINING THIS WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA, AND THAT I SHOULDN’T DO IT. SOME POLITELY INFORMATIONAL, OTHERS DOWN RIGHT RUDE, writes H. Mathis.

Nevertheless, since artists are at least consistent and, at most, studborn, he accepted the offer of a friend of his to bring back some dirt from Hawaii. Here are the facts as explained on his blog:

“Fact. On the return flight home he became extremely ill, and ended up in the emergency room.
Fact. At age 27, he was diagnosed with Diabetes.
Fact. He called me from the hospital, in which he stayed for a week or two to let me know this.
Fact. There is a Brady Bunch episode where the one kid brings back a lava rock, and terrible things begin to happen.”

Note that on his blog, the artist writes like everyone else. The best is still to come: H. Mathis called the official bureau of tourism.

I CALLED 1-800-GO-HAWAII, THE OFFICIAL BUREAU OF TOURISM. (IT IS ONE OF MY BIGGEST REGRETS THAT I DID NOT RECORD THIS CONVERSATION). I EXPLAINED THAT I WAS WORKING ON AN ART PROJECT, AND THAT I HAD A PIECE OF LAVA ROCK, RED SAND, BEACH SAND, AND DIRT FROM SOMEONE’S BACK YARD. SILENCE. I EXPECTED A CHUCKLE, OR CONFUSION. IN A SERIOUS DEAD PAN VOICE, SHE QUICKLY RESPONDED THAT I MUST IMMEDIATELY RETURN THE LAVA ROCK AND RED SAND. I SHOULD PROBABLY RETURN THE BEACH SAND, BUT THAT IT WAS UP TO ME. AND THAT THE DIRT WAS OK.

I REPEATED: “SO THE DIRT IS OK, BUT I NEED TO RETURN EVERYTHING ELSE?”
“YES.”
“SO, ABSOLUTELY, THE DIRT IS NOT CURSED?”
“YOU SHOULD BE FINE.”

SHE GAVE ME THE ADDRESS OF THE BISHOP MUSEUM, AND SAID THAT IF I WISHED, I COULD INCLUDE A NOTE OF WHY I WAS RETURNING IT. I CAN ONLY IMAGINE THIS PLACE, FILLED WITH LITTLE TINY BAGS OF SAND AND LAVA ROCKS, WITH LETTERS OF PAIN AND AGONY ATTACHED.

The said cursed dirt.

So. People living in Hawaii are totally comfortable with the idea that they live on some kind of holy ground, which soil shall not leave the island under any circumstances. Otherwise, the risk of a curse is terribly high. And there is even a place where to return the exfiltrated dirt by mail.

And why not, after all. It’s no worse than Americans with an Irish ascendant buying real Irish dirt to be buried in when the time comes. (Official website)

Despite being a native of Descartes’ country, I am fully in favor of some irrational thoughts to spice up the reasonable life.  All societies have been built around a set of myths which provide some explanation to the way the world works, the nature reacts and the relationships between members of the society and with other communities. In our community of little scale that is our team, we have some myths and rituals too. We believe in my Latvian grandmother as being the reader we are all writing for. We stand up every Monday morning to read the scriptures, eg our weekly schedule. We trust the synopses. The “Buzz of the week” is an editorial product that has always been cursed when produced and rarely published. And one day, our editorial room’s walls will be painted. For sure.

Those are small bonds that help to tie us together, to create a common culture. We feel stronger against the outside world because we have them.

Is it common to have those kind of superstition in the field of politics? One of my president was famous, amongst other things, for consulting his astrologer now and then. Barack Obama decided to play basketball before primary elections’ results, as reported by the New-York Time, because everytime he did, he won (a lame excuse to have fun and kill the stress). In the same story, we learn that McCain, were he elected, would have been the most supertitious president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“One wonders how he keeps track of all his lucky charms: A feather from a tribal leader, compass, flattened penny, nickel, 1976 bicentennial quarter, laminated four-leaf clover, pair of shoes, rubber band, sweater, hotel room, and “pouch of sacred stones” have all been reported as charms. Then there are the things he believes bring bad luck—grabbing a salt shaker from someone (general bad luck) and throwing a hat on a bed (which could cause a death in the household).

(…)

“It’s superstition,” McCain admitted. And it’s taken pretty seriously—the Washington Post wrote that when the lucky feather and lucky compass disappeared (at different times), there was panic until they were recovered.”

Where does EU stand on superstition?

But I don’t think the EU, as a super-meta-administrative-intellectual-political construction has any voodoo-dark-side-of-the-moon stories nor gizmos. And maybe that’s a miss.

Few years ago, we wrote a story about MEPs’ superstitions, which was of course published on a Friday 13. This story belongs to the kind we favor because it does bring a human touch to our dear Members. Some of them can now feel closer to Mr McCain, at least on this gentle superstitious field. But I don’t think the EU, as a super-meta-administrative-intellectual-political construction has any voodoo-dark-side-of-the-moon stories nor gizmos. And maybe that’s a miss. If the only common ritual we share is voting, we know how complicated it is perceived by our fellow citizen (which is not necessarily  a bad thing for a ritual), and boring, they say, and with no concrete felt results. If Washington has its “rainmakers”, Brussels must cope with its “eurocrats” and “lobbyists”. We have wisemen and Commissionners, MEPs and assistants, civil servants… but no angry gods, no secret ceremonies to sustain the Common market, no Shamans to help us to decipher the guts of a freshly killed goat. Man, how I’d love to write the synopsis of the Plenary debate on the Shaman’s conclusions with open question from all political groups.

Far from me the idea of turning the European Union into some kind of celtic cult, with paganism and long-white-bearded druids. Not to mention the traditional flock of virgins. But in our daily building of a common European public sphere, where people would get interested and debate EU affairs with passion, a pinch of irrationality, if well balanced, might  help. Everybody loves those kind of stories. I am sure you can’t wait to go to Hawaii to see if you dare to bring back some dirt (if you do so, please bring me an official flower shirt).

The time may have come to write the Secret Book of the Union, a possible best-seller which would be to our institutions what Da Vinci Code has been for the Vatican. Or to spread mysterious gossips regarding the curse of the room ASP-01-E-17 in which every report is rejected, whatever the subject is, whoever the rapporteur is. Dont’ tell me you didn’t know about this room?