I can­’t claim to speak for all the Wel­ling­tonista, but I have to say it: Sev­ens week­end is hor­rible. There’s a lot of gushy talk in the main media out­lets about how col­our­ful and vibrant and alive the city becomes, but one could say the same about a nasty fungal rash. Many of us who live in the cent­ral city can attest to how col­our­ful and vibrant and alive the city is most of the time, and in an appeal­ing, organ­ic and inde­pend­ent way, but we found the CBD close to unbear­able dur­ing the week­end.
 

What is it that appals us so much about this spec­tacle?

Let’s start with the aspects we don’t mind. The tour­na­ment itself is fine: we’re not neces­sar­ily against rugby, and it’s good to have a big inter­na­tion­al event in the city. It would be a bit rich for most of us to com­plain about the drink­ing, and we can all enjoy a bit of bois­ter­ous carous­ing. Debauch­ery, even. Most of us enjoy dress­ing up, some of us rather often. And I for one am not com­plain­ing about groups of well-put-togeth­er young ladies in skimpy out­fits.

But it’s all just so very … naff. There’s a strong whiff of cor­por­ate team­build­ing about it, of Dav­id Brent’s “MC Ham­mer shit” and the pro­ject-man­aged jol­lity of the office Xmas do. This is Car­ni­val for people who think that Stein­la­ger is a premi­um beer and are genu­inely look­ing for­ward to a new Feel­ers album; who are happy to ditch the Rodd & Gunn for two days of wear­ing a hi-lar-ious $2‑shop tutu but would shout “whad­darya?!” to any­one who dared to dress uncon­ven­tion­ally in pub­lic any oth­er day of the year.

True, there are some truly ima­gin­at­ive cos­tumes every year, but why do many people still seem so amused by hordes of Flint­stones and T‑shirts that read “FBI (Free Breast Inspec­tions)”, after so many years? I think Robyn got it just right on one point: it’s the uni­form­ity of the cos­tumes that is so unheim­lich; the “group cos­tume [that] lets you dress up but not stand out”. Safety in num­bers, and the great Kiwi tra­di­tion of being “a team play­er”, out­weigh any chance of true expres­sion.

Under­neath that, there’s an under­cur­rent of aggres­sion that is quite dis­turb­ing, a mix of frat-boy haz­ing and build­ing-site cat­calls that gets worse as the vomit and broken glass piles up. Medi­aev­al car­ni­vals were undoubtedly heady events, and far from pretty, but the there are times when the Sev­ens is more Bosch than Breughel. I know that Denis Welch has brought out the Bac­ch­ic pre­ced­ent, and while I’m not going to get all Bakht­in on you, I have to say that this is neither an over­turn­ing of estab­lished hier­arch­ies (as in the north­ern European tra­di­tion) nor a lust­ily Lat­in cel­eb­ra­tion of the good life.

Which brings us to the Cuba Street Car­ni­val, which is upon us in less than a fort­night. I’m look­ing for­ward to it, and hop­ing that my friends get into the spir­it by dress­ing up for the party. Isn’t that a bit hypo­crit­ic­al? Is it alright when hip­sters and bohemi­ans get dressed up and drunk, but not build­ers and account­ants? Isn’t there more than a touch of intel­lec­tu­al snob­bery in that?

Well, per­haps. I’m cer­tainly more of a Cuba Street per­son than a Cour­tenay Place den­iz­en, and the Sev­ens is Cour­tenay Place writ large, so of course my taste is more likely to run to the Car­ni­val. And I’d dearly love to see Wel­ling­ton cel­eb­rate music, art and dance at least as wildly as it does sport and bad beer. But I think there’s some­thing more fun­da­ment­al than that; some­thing to do with the way that cel­eb­ra­tion and joy are or are not woven into the fab­ric of our lives.

If we don’t have a touch of cre­ativ­ity and sen­su­al­ity in our daily exist­ence, then squeez­ing it all into a couple of days will just cre­ate a forced and sorry mess. If, how­ever, you seek out new tastes, rhythms, col­ours, friend­ships and adven­tures just a little bit every day, then on those spe­cial occa­sions when you col­lab­or­ate to cel­eb­rate that togeth­er in the streets of your city, the res­ults are going to be a hell of a lot sex­i­er than a job-lot of slutty cow­girls and drool­ing oafs.