Survivor Panama: Exile Island Courtney and the Burners
Strategy commentary by VikingBear
On Survivor Panama Exile Island, Bobby declared Courtney Marit to be one of the three most annoying persons on the planet. Her actions as part of the Nut Case alliance leave us wondering which planet. From her own frame of reference, though, things just might be perfectly normal.
What makes Courtney tick? I don’t have a clue! But I’ve found some references that, put together, just might make her a bit more understandable. After all, we want to know how she might vote if she’s on the jury, or how she might get the vote if she’s in the final two!
Let’s take a look around and see what we see. This being Survivor, let’s check the tribes over on tribe.net. Josh asks if Courtney’s a burner. Not being one myself, I don’t know what a burner is, but now that we’ve seen Courtney with her fire toys, we know this might fit. Josh is assured:
“Yeah, she showed up at Moontribe a little while back.” and “I met Courtney at Space Island a while back, she’s in my friends. Yep, she’s a burner, and pretty cool too.” and “Coutrney is really chill.”
So, Courtney’s definitely a burner, and probably tribal. Just what does that mean? Wikipedia tells all:
A burner is anyone who participates in Burning Man or one of the many regional Burning Man events that occur outside the Black Rock Desert… Burners differ from other subcultures, but often strives to be hip to current trends. Many see their fellow Burners as members of an intentional family or tribal group that is associated with specific values (such as radical self-expression and self-reliance).
And in fact the Wikipedia description of the six-day Burning Man event makes it sound like a New Age vision of Woodstock, taken annually and a generation later.
Ruth and Rolf over at TiVo Community give us additional insight. Ruth, watching Courtney do yoga a few episodes back in Bruce’s rock garden, explains:
“Isn’t a Zen Garden an appropriate place to do yoga? Or is Bruce supposed to own that little piece of land?” I wondered about that, too. Bruce seemed overly-angry about the whole thing. From the little we saw, I thought Courtney even might have intended what she did as a compliment — wow, you’ve built such a great place for yoga, here I am showing you how I appreciate it — but Bruce certainly did not take it that way. I wonder if it was all just a misunderstanding, or if there was some critical part of the interaction they didn’t show us — her asking if she could use the garden, him saying no, her using it anyway? him asking her to leave and her refusing? Who knows.
Rolf continues:
Since Courtney is from California and lists her occupation as a “Fire Dancer”, my guess is that she’s a regular at the Burning Man festival. (Disclaimer: I’m also a Burning Man regular) At Burning Man it’s very common for people to interact with other people’s art. Courtney doing yoga in Bruce’s zen garden would be normal behavior at Burning Man. I doubt Courtney meant to offend Bruce with her actions.
Bruce, I think, was already annoyed by Courtney’s lack of work around camp (another typical Burning Man behavior). Courtney doing yoga in his garden just increased the annoyance factor. Not only was she being lazy in Bruce’s eyes, she was doing it right in the middle of his project.
Avoiding work isn’t typical of all Burners, but in many camps there are some people that do a lot of work, and others that do very little work, just like in camps on Survivor.
A couple of pictures from her website appear to be taking at Burning Man. Since her site is set up as promotion for her business, maybe she decided to not mention Burning Man there.
If Courtney and the two burner Amazing Race contestants show up at this years Burning Man, I’ll bet Jerri Manthey (another burner and fire dancer) will be happy to have them take some of the reality TV star attention away from her.
So… I’d say this could be interesting. Bruce sees Courtney’s use of his “space” as disrespect. Aras sees Bruce’s working the rock garden as missing the priority of keeping the fire going, and working around camp. Shane thinks they’re all nutballs and wants out of his alliance with them. Cirie has been laughing and laughing, but she also seems to be getting annoyed and frustrated.
Bring it on!
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