0:00

proof positive germany is going bananas

0:02

was

0:03

largely inspired by the phenomenal

0:06

amount of material that i was receiving

0:08

from german correspondents

0:11

with the banana in the press in various

0:14

situations and of course one of the

0:17

issues in germany was that

0:20

in east east germany they had no bananas

0:23

during the time of the wall and so on

0:26

there was it was just not done

0:29

and so when the wall came down

0:31

which was after

0:33

the was it after the proof positive no

0:35

it wasn’t

0:37

um

0:37

the wall came down the first thing that

0:40

people were hauling back into east

0:42

berlin were big stalks of bananas

0:45

and so all of this all of this was

0:47

covered in the material that i was

0:49

receiving then the outstanding

0:51

contributor in germany was a man called

0:53

plg peter l gross

0:55

and he i just think he must have looked

0:58

at every piece of media that was going

1:01

and sent me these materials so it became

1:03

a build up of well my god look at all

1:05

this stuff that bananas in germany in

1:08

advertising and

1:10

in the newspapers a lot of it i couldn’t

1:12

understand but anyway the banana was

1:14

very prevalent so it seemed to me that

1:17

uh i had a case

1:19

to present which was that germany’s

1:21

going bananas and how i presented the

1:23

case was that i took the magazine

1:25

articles newspaper stories and blew them

1:28

up to 11 by 17. so they were pretty

1:30

legible

1:32

had them laminated so they wouldn’t get

1:34

destroyed in the process of trucking

1:36

them around to these various cities and

1:38

and venues

1:40

and had them punctured with the little

1:43

grommet so they wouldn’t tear and they

1:44

were very easy to install

1:47

and through my network setup i think was

1:50

something like nine or ten venues from

1:54

stuttgart i know we went as far up as

1:57

hamburg

1:58

and

1:59

when i had the venue then i would set up

2:02

whatever the situation was set up all of

2:04

these there was over 100 of these

2:06

newspaper magazine articles

2:09

and so i would introduce

2:12

the the project sometimes in german

2:14

sometimes somebody would speak for me

2:17

basically that this was my case here it

2:20

is

2:21

have a look at these hundred stories and

2:23

you tell me that germany isn’t going

2:24

bananas

2:26

and so then i invited them to do the two

2:29

tests that i had constructed

2:32

i love doing tests like making them up

2:35

one is the rorschach banana peel test so

2:38

it’s a it’s a parody of the um

2:41

inkblot the rorschach ink blocks

2:43

and i have 12

2:46

black background cards with banana peels

2:49

in various configurations and and then a

2:51

response form for the people to see what

2:53

they could see in these things and we

2:56

had lots of butterflies and flowers and

2:58

things came out of that interpretation

3:01

and the other test was a parody of the

3:04

mmpi which is the minnesota multiphasic

3:07

personality inventory

3:10

and it’s actually 400 items in that test

3:13

and in in my test i took 200 items from

3:17

that and in about half of them i changed

3:20

one word in the sentence to banana i

3:22

feel nervous when i come into a room

3:24

full of people i feel nervous when i

3:27

come into a room full of bananas

3:29

and so on and then there was the judging

3:32

was it

3:33

strongly agree slightly agreed neutral

3:36

slightly disagree strongly disagree

3:40

until they checked oh you know it’s very

3:42

official looking forms

3:44

200 items

3:46

and uh and i gave people a degree of

3:49

bananology who had participated in it

3:52

and then when i got home i wrote a

3:55

completely

3:56

facetious report on my study and the

4:00

outcome being the uh

4:02

that it was the subliminal advertising

4:05

of

4:07

mercedes-benz that was the cause

4:09

the banana that divides into three

4:11

segments and there’s a whole biological

4:14

or botanical explanation for that and i

4:17

don’t know if you know bananas do not

4:19

reproduce they only grow from the corn

4:23

they don’t produce a seed that’s viable

4:26

and

4:27

so anyway so that was that was how

4:31

people

4:32

participated in the event and then i

4:34

sent copies of my report

4:36

to a few people but

4:38

um i i acquired so much material along

4:42

the way

4:43

and i even had like banana things

4:45

happening in different cities that had

4:47

nothing to do with me

4:48

in manheim they had the day of the

4:51

museum of work and here’s one one thing

4:54

is all about banana packaging and then

4:57

in

4:58

bremen

5:00

it was it bremen i think it was bremen

5:04

this shopping mall had a whole banana

5:08

promotion and they had a guy on stilts

5:10

in a banana costume and there was banana

5:13

decorations everywhere and the mayor and

5:15

the council because it was a banana

5:17

porting uh exporting

5:20

city

5:22

so i got to have a picture with me with

5:24

the mayor and the guy who’s the head of

5:25

this banana exporting company so again

5:29

it was it just was

5:31

a very fun

5:33

project and even though my german was

5:36

limited

5:37

i still and i had usually people in each

5:40

of the cities that were speaking english

5:42

as well that could sort of

5:44

hi you know accompany me on this

5:47

voyage

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