Who Hoops?

Does hula-hooping long enough to break a Guinness Book world record make a person a performance artist. This I wondered (aloud – although there was no one around except for my dog) recently when I read a blog post about a young man in yellow running shorts and an orange t-shirt who is trying to do just that. He didn’t look like a performance artist to me. His hair was well coiffed and his glasses, although wire-rimmed, were the kind with the double bridge in the middle. Y’know: the kind of glasses T.V. producers like to slap on regular looking actors to indicate that their character is a nerd. There were no face tattoos, giant piercings, braided facial hairs or rainbow dreadlocks. He was not what a T.V. producer would easily recognize as a performance artist. But, the blogger responsible for the post I read qualified him as such. That’s why I’m wondering if it is merely the act of attempting to break a world record with a hula-hoop that makes him one. If so, he should know, that wouldn’t play well on T.V. He should get a Mohawk or wear clothes made out of tape or something.