Revolutionary New Entertainment Concept Involves Doing Absolutely Nothing
Nation Charges £25 for Silent Standing Competition
In what marketing executives are calling “genius,” Buckingham Palace’s Changing of the Guard ceremony has been officially recognized as Britain’s most successful immersive theatre performance featuring people who absolutely refuse to acknowledge your existence.
The ceremony, which draws thousands daily to watch highly trained military professionals stand perfectly still while tourists desperately attempt to provoke reactions, has achieved the impossible: making waiting boring.
The Existential Crisis Phase
American visitor Tom Henderson described his experience as “transcendent.” “For forty-five minutes, I stared at a man in a furry hat who stared at nothing,” he explained, sounding suspiciously like someone experiencing a breakdown. “Was it meaningful? Was I changed? Did he blink? I’ll never know.”
The ceremony’s genius lies in its complete rejection of traditional entertainment concepts like “things happening” or “reasons to be there.” Instead, it offers something far more valuable: content for social media that proves you were there.
The Photography Nightmare
Japanese tourist Yuki Tanaka spent seventeen minutes attempting to photograph a guard, only to capture the back of an Italian teenager’s head in every shot. “Very authentic British experience,” she said diplomatically, having learned more about smartphone cameras than British military tradition.
Meanwhile, a guardwho legally cannot be named because he’s part of a hivemindcontinued his duty of pretending tourists don’t exist while simultaneously being the reason tourists exist there.
The Deeper Meaning
Cultural anthropologist Dr. Sarah Mills suggests the ceremony’s popularity reveals something profound about modern tourism. “People travel thousands of miles to stand in crowds watching people stand,” she observed. “It’s performance art about performance art. Also, everyone’s phone dies.”
At press time, a small child was testing the guards’ legendary discipline by doing increasingly unhinged dances, while his parents tested their own discipline by not throwing him in the Thames.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/?changing-guard-watching-still-blokes
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. Contact: editor@prat.uk
