Stress? Slug A Guy In A Panda Suit In NYC. No, He Wants You To.
Over at My Modern Met, they have a ridiculous story about Punch Me Panda. Nate Hill is an artist who dresses up in a panda suit and invites people to wail on his stomach. Fucking amazing. The idea is to serve as a whipping post, designed to reduce stress in the average chap. How goddamn brilliant is that? I mean, I often consider much of what Rendar and myself do around the house and with friends as performative art. Sometimes it’s hard to find where our act ends and our psyches really begin. Or I mean, do they, ever?
But this shit is a notch above.
Hill elaborates on the get-up and his goals as the Kung-Fu (receiving) Panda at Modern Met:
Hill ordered the panda suit on eBay and bought the biggest chest protector he could find on the internet. He wanted to offer a public service – to relieve people’s stress through violence. He gets punched (and roundhouse kicked) about 100 times a day.
“I choose the panda suit because the panda face really melts people’s heart,” says Hill. “I wanted to have people get out their aggression on something cute. It’s fun to have that contradiction. This is an art project. I’m not just a thrill seeker.”
Fantastic. I always wish I had the testicles or throbbing ovaries to go about doing something like this. Maybe running around Main Street Suburbia in a Scream mask whipping Snickers off people. Something like that. The life fantastic. Until then, it’s vicariousness like what.
Hats off, Mr. Hill.