In our last post, we talked a little about the intensity and vast beauty of deep playa. We had encountered many things on our trek, but we were about to encounter an amazing (and our favourite) oasis. But first, we encountered some new, different skeletal structures, unlike any we’d seen before:
More desert skeletons? What could this mean?
We first found this clue, but we were unsure what it meant[1]:
A clue! But what could it mean?
There was also this odd insignia we found attached to many of the skeletons:
The odd insignia we found attached to the skeleton of the metal being.
S also found that there was an interesting music playing in the wind:
A strange and peaceful place, but a place of transition, not yet a place to rest, so we continued. Next, we happened upon this strange structure, the number of bicycles gave the lie to the population inside, yet we saw few people outside:
We arrive at this strange structure, it seems very inward focused.
Going towards the entrance, we saw one of the inhabitants peeking out, as if to beckon us closer:
One of the inhabitants peeks out, as if to beckon us in.
Inside, we saw a riot of colour, at the same time as an incredible calmness:
A riot of colour and calm activity greets us at the entrance.
They also had this little windmill and (I think) solar panels, I’m guessing to power whatever equipment they had there. The sound in the video might help you understand the incredible peacefulness of the space, peaceful enough that I didn’t want to disturb it with photos:
They had someone using one of those amazing singing bowls, a number of people lying down and resting or napping around the edge, another person describing some sort of tea or coffee ceremony. The best oasis we’ve ever found.
We took one look back, later, and received a feeling of relaxation of peace:
A glance back at our oasis, and a feeling of peace.
In our last post, our plucky crew had just happened on a strange and impenetrable art installation in deep playa. Continuing on from there, they happened on a strange sight, four skeletons in front of a mirror. And then we noticed that they might be poseable:
S focuses intently on posing the skeleton.
And they were!:
The happy skeleton poser.
Here was the very serious output of our work, or our marriage, in a nutshell:
Our marriage, in a nutshell.
Next on our trek, by the trash fence, we saw a very important warning sign:
A very important warning sign.
For those who are not aware, the ‘trash fence’ is basically what its name suggests. Onsite, what you or I would label as ‘trash’ is generally called ‘moop’, or ‘Matter Out Of Place’. This is taken very seriously indeed, because if the Bureau of Land Management finds that the Burn has been leaving too much behind, they will not allow them to return. (And the amount of moop they’re allowed to leave behind is tiny, about 4″ square per 1/10th acre.) The ‘trash fence’ delineates the outer edge of the permitted area, along with catching whatever moop may be blowing in the wind. (It’s also the site of many actual late night dance parties, and the perennial fictitious ‘Daft Punk Trash Fence’ party.)
It’s also in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, and far away from everything. Here’s kind of a panorama to give you an idea:
Deep Playa Panorama I: Trash FenceDeep Playa Panorama II: Mountains in the distance.Deep Playa Panorama III: Playa, playa, and more playa.Deep Playa Panorama IV: From whence we came.
This may give a small inkling of the dry heat, the oppressive sun broken only by a refreshing wind every so often, a stark wasteland punctuated by oases of subtlety, art, and friendship.
And through all of this, carried by my trusty steed:
My trusty steed, and the parched ground of playa.
Note the parched playa underneath. Ideal conditions for biking, unlike patches like this one:
Playa bicycle sand trap! (Nicely (and unusually) signed by someone.)
We continued on our merry way, on to more adventures in deep playa:
Our heroine continues on her merry way, in search of more adventure.
This installation seemed to be entitled ‘Happenstance’, or perhaps something else entirely. It was a delightful mixture of little ambiguous mini-installations and trompe l’oeil pieces like this one:
Happenstance! (Is kind of windy?)
Our intrepid heroine encountered a flying fish there:
A windy flying fish?
And decided to experience the wind in the only way that made sense:
Experiencing the wind with the flying fish.
The colour of the installation was this nice light blue, including these boxes or something that we couldn’t figure out:
Next time, we’ll venture even further into deep playa! Hopefully we’ll survive!
[1]I wanted to comment on the indescribable feel of being on Playa, the dryness and starkness and smell of the alkali desert, the feeling of finding little oases such as these as you travel around, but I think it deserves its own separate post.
In our last post, the first night of the actual Burning Man festival had just ended, with Mirror Blaze bringing pleasure to hundreds, if not thousands[1].
So, what better way to celebrate a successful build, than to go out exploring, to experience some of the other art that other people had wrought!
But first, as always, a morning trip to the portapotties, with some eloquent commentary…:
An eloquent commentary on love and happiness.
…and some perhaps eloquent but also confusing commentary:
BODY LANGUAGE IS OFTEN WRITTEN ON PORTAPOTTIES, SOMETIMES LITERALLY
We then passed Circus Boot Camp, where we always saw various people practicing their various flying arts:
Circus Boot Camp. For those who wish to teach their boots the trapeze.
Then, we passed the Contraptionists, who were very popular between 2:00 and 3:30 every day, when they would make[2] and give out snow cones:
Contraptionists! Purveyors of snow cones and strange machinery!
Turning onto a side street, we saw this little one[3] reminding us about the 5mi/hr speed limit[4]:
Bed/couch observation deck. Unfortunately, the flag bear only had one head.
Just before we made it out of the city, we saw something in the distance…Could it be…?
Mooncheese?
…It was! Mooncheese!
Mooncheese!
Leaving the city behind, we set out across the dusty plains. Here, our intrepid heroine encountered a sign. Of something:
Ruling the Earth.
Gazing along, you could perhaps start to see something a little larger than yourself, that looking at things in larger scale might bring you a slightly different perspective[5]…:
At the edge of the Earth.
Next time, we go out even further, into deep playa! Stay tuned!
[1]My closest hand-waving estimate was about a thousand. If you see me repeating this number again and again, it’s because I’m surprised (and proud) every time.
[2]Using very cool all mechanical machines for shaving ice, so they wouldn’t need a power source. I think I have pics of this, but that’s later in the week!
[3]True story, we would later see them again in Amsterdam!
[4]Or perhaps they just liked waving flags. SLOW SEMAPHORE.
In our last post, we had successfully opened Mirror Blaze and the Charnival.
Little did we know how popular it would be. For whatever reason, we were deluged with people on the first night of the Burn. I estimate about a thousand people went through Mirror Blaze during the first four hours it was open. So, sit back and enjoy the best we were able to video on that first frantic night!
But first, any event at Burning Man starts, as you might expect, with a dance party, organized by Charlie:
But back to the Charnival. Here’s what it looks like in full swing (things flame effecting l-r : Riskee Ball, Hellblazer, Fire Tetris, Francis the Fantastic, Pyrokinesis, with many others in the background!)
One of the most difficult things to capture with Mirror Blaze was the reactions of people to the flame effect. Much of this was due to the crowds, either because there were too many peope in the way, or because when there’s a huge lineup, it’s pretty obvious what is happening to the people in front of you. All of this is to say that the following video is one of or the best reaction video I have of someone reacting to Mirror Blaze:
And here’s a blurrier version, with more people:
I have no idea what this guy was doing or why he has a giant ice cream cone on his bike:
Bice Cream? (I have no idea.)
Here’s the art car that S calls ‘The Inappropriate Tank’, next to the Man:
Inappropriate Tank and Man.
Somehow, its mission complete, it drives away:
All through this time, we were directing people through Mirror Blaze, at peak, by my count, one person every 5-10 seconds. This led to significant usage of propane, leading to:
Propaney’s big brother, complete with snow line!
It may be difficult to see on the tank, but there’s line of snow/ice about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the tank. This is caused because whenever you draw off gas into the accumulator to fire off through the flame effect, more propane jumps into the gaseous phase[1], taking energy from the liquid phase and using it to provide heat of vaporization[3], with an approximate equation of:
some, warm propane(liquid) + no propane(gas) -> less, cooler propane(liquid) + some propane(gas)
And then, all of a sudden we were done! We took a moment to dance our happy dance:
And then a further moment to document our feelings at the time:
Thanks for continuing to join us on this journey! At this point, much of the stress was off, as our project had worked! There was still an entire week of running it, but also another week of adventures! Stay tuned!
[2]This is actually a very useful principle for many applications, including human behaviour. But that is a different post entirely…
[3]Yes, I know this is actually the higher energy liquid molecules leaping off into the partial vacuum, and not being replaced because there aren’t as many gaseous molecules of the same type. This is a useful small lie similar to using the idea of evolved systems as designed systems to help understand them.
In our last post, the Charnival had just gone dark, waiting for opening hour (7pm on Sunday).
Now that it was dark, we could get a true idea of what Mirror Blaze would look like!
S climbs the lifeguard stand and gets into position by the Big Red Button!:
S climbs the lifeguard chair to take her place atop the MIRROR BLAZE!
And we perform a flame test!:
Well, we try to, but this is what happens when you have multiple layers of safety. The glow fly[1] was on, but one of the quarter-turn safety shutoff valves (we had at least two that I remember, one at the fuel depot, and one right by the flame effect) was still closed.
Try again?:
Success! Cackling[2] ensues!
Next, you can see the bunting and a view of stage right/back of the maze in the dark:
Mirror Blaze, stage back/right, with bunting.
Here’s an overhead view of stage left, with Francis the Fantastic on fire in the background providing illumination:
Mirror Blaze entrance/exit, with Francis the Fantastic providing illumination.
This is the video of Mirror Blaze that I show most often, as it’s short, and shows the striking difference between ‘totally dark’ and ‘on fire’:
While I was up in the chair, S took some time to explain the secrets of the Mirror Blaze to some unsuspecting passers-by:
S explains the secrets of the Mirror Blaze to unsuspecting passers-by.
And then we were open! Here’s a (very) short video of what nighttime burners look like navigating a fire mirror maze:
Success!
To end off, I’ll share my favourite picture of Mirror Blaze and the Charnival. I had thought it was taken by Matt, but I’m no longer sure, as there were a number of people who wanted to climb the lifeguard chair to take pictures. It might have been taken with S’s or someone else’s cellphone. (Please let me know so I can give proper attribution!) This is taken from the lifeguard chair overlooking Mirror Blaze, looking out over the Charnival:
Charnival from Mirror Blaze observation chair. (l-r Riskee Ball, Charnival Barker’s stand, dodecahedral art car?, Fire Tetris, Hellblazer, Go Fly some Flaming Clown Heads, Francis the Fantastic, Flamethrower Shooting Gallery, Pyrokinesis)
Next time, Charlie visits again for a dance party!
[1]Honeywell ‘hot surface igniters’ or ‘Glow flies’ are the propane flame effect igniters of choice for Site 3 Fire Arts. They’re pricey, but reliable. Putting a wind/gas-directing shield around them helps protect them from wind and makes them more reliable (more pics of this later).
[2]Surprisingly, the cackling seems to have been coming from me.
Yesterday, we talked about how we had just received FAST fire approval for Mirror Blaze, just in time for the Sunday evening ‘soft open’. We went back to camp for a quick meal, then headed back to the installation. On the way…
…Just as a warning, much in this post may be triggering, as this caution tape so eloquently says:
Trigger Warning: Everything.
Our intrepid heroine gazes upon the Charnival from afar:
Our intrepid heroine gazes upon the Charnival from afar.
(Note that the burningman.org photo galleries break the ‘back’ button and history, so you’ll need to right-click->open in new window/tab on any links in there.)
Yesterday, we were wondering whether how Mirror Blaze was faring, whether we would be able to obtain the coveted FAST[1] approval.
But first, another trip to the portapotties. The dusty, dusty portapotties:
Dusty, dusty portapotties.
Some might wonder why I talk so much about portapotties. It might be because when I was growing up, it seemed like bathrooms were never discussed in movies, that it was significantly transgressive for Mel Brooks to have a bathroom scene in ‘Spaceballs’.
But it’s probably because when you’re trying to stay hydrated in the desert, and you’re drinking all the time, even though you’re losing a lot of moisture through breathing and just standing there, you’re also processing a lot of it through your kidneys.
On the way back from the portapotties, we took a gander at the Charnival signs:
S peruses some of Charnivals’s offerings.
And here we saw that we were in good company (not shown: The Bearded Sparklepony!):
Mirror Blaze in good company.
Mirror Blaze was coming along, the ‘little big top’ was starting to look like it:
The ‘little big top’ entryway.
And the application of bunting was about halfway along (you can see the bunting-to-be-applied tied on the side of the lifeguard chair):
Then a kind person from FAST came by and told us that we APPROVED FOR FIRE! At first, we were excited.
Fast Approval. Are we excited?
Then it really hit us, and we were EXCITED! YEAH! LET’S MAKE SOME FIRE!
Fast Approval! Yeah, we’re excited!
So, of course, we instead took a wander around Charnival, amazed at our good fortune[2], and took a gander at some of the other projects on the go, starting with ‘Flaming Clown Heads[3]’:
Go fly some Flaming Clown Heads!
And FaIRE Hockey, here we can see Marc and Francisco discussing some of the finer points, along with the skeleton of the air baffles that they had setup:
Marc and Francisco discuss some of the finer points of FaIRE Hockey. Note the baffling wind baffling wind baffling.
A closer view of Marc tuning the tables on FaIRE Hockey:
Marc tunes the tables on FaIRE Hockey.
And finally, to round out the day, what looks like a Mouse art car? Is that bicycle made of cheese? Do mice actually really like cheese that much? Maybe the bicycle is made of peanut butter?:
[2]Apparently, fortune favours the bold and well-prepared.
[3]’Flaming Clown Heads’, or ‘Let’s Go Fly Some Flaming Clown Heads’ to its friends, apparently started life as ‘Let’s Go Fly A Bicycle’, which apparently was nixed for being too dangerous even for Burning Man.
Today, we’ll check in on our intrepid heroes as they count down to the 7pm ‘soft open[1]’ of Charnival!
Here’s what Mirror Blaze looked like Sunday morning:
Mirror Blaze, Sunday morning (day 4 of construction).
And a quick peek at FaIRE Hockey, and our common fuel depot:
FaIRE Hockey, and our common fuel depot, Sunday (build day 4) morning!
Note in the pictures above, you can see the snow fencing used as a safety perimeter around Mirror Blaze and the fuel depot (those are 100lb propane tanks, for scale). We aimed for a 10′ minimum safety perimeter around the fuel depot, but this was never an issue, as we had lots of space.
So, next, we had to add all of the bunting around Mirror Blaze! This went kind of like this:
S: “Could you pass me the drill?” (the bunting was cloth S had cut into pieces slightly larger than 4’x8′ (the size of the mirrors), and then attached gromets around the edge, which would then be drill-screwed into the wooden frame.)
Me: “Here you go.”
Wind: “Wheeeeeee!”
Cloth: “Wheeeeeee! You can’t see me!”
S: “Augh!”
Thankfully, we had help other than the wind:
(l-r Fate, S) Due to an incident with red chromakey, Fate’s hair and most of Sarah were removed in post.
While all this was happening, we were going through the process of being flame effect certified. After trenching and covering, and covering the flame effect wiring with aluminum foil so that the backdraft ‘FOOMF’ wouldn’t melt the wire insulation, we were ready to install the tube:
TOOOOOOOOOOOBE!
The tube was the single point of failure for the project. We had spare mirrors, could wrangle spare posts, spare screws, bolts, wind bracing, propane hose, propane tanks, bunting, gromets, screwdrivers, etc, etc, etc, but if the tube broke, all was lost. It didn’t help that we really didn’t know exactly how strong it was. It was (and still is) a 7′ long 1′ wide quartz tube, so chosen because it’s basically impervious to propane flame (which is why it’s used for fireplace windows/lamps/etc… It was obtained at great expense from China, including some quite involved negotiations[2] by S.
The intrepid build crew who helped mount the tube (Francisco came up with the nifty design for the ‘metal tape’ to hold the tube. It really takes a village.):
Build and tube raising crew day 4 (l-r S, Jack, Francisco, Kosta, Fate (shown in previous slide))
S took a moment to bask in her satisfaction (and the intense midday sun):
S’s smug satisfied construction face.
We also took a moment to bask in the fact that our local Cheshire CatNekoBus had received approval from the DMV[3]!:
Splat ecstatic about his Cheshire Nekobus DMV approval! (l-r Splat, Carl, Sara, Greg, Seth)
While Sara was explaining something:
Sara explains.
We were immediately caught off guard by a full strength ‘Last Flamethrower’ test:
THE LAST FLAMETHROWER TEST. EVER.
‘Flamethrower[4] Shooting Gallery’ had been coming to the Burn for a number of years (we convinced them to join us at the Charcade in 2013), but the logistics were getting to them, so they decided to go for one last burn, but wanted to do something a little different. Instead of four flamethrowers, they decided to go for one HUUUGE flamethrower. Honestly, this pic does not do it justice.
Next time, we finish the Mirror Blaze bunting, and we’ll see if we also get approved!
[1]My understanding of the agreement with Burning Man for the honorarium project was that Charnival had to run for a number of days, a number of hours each. My understanding was that this played out as six days at four hours per day. (The six days being Monday-Saturday, with a late start on Saturday because of the Man Burn.) We opened an extra day on the opening Sunday, partly as a ‘shakedown cruise’, partly because we wanted to be open on opening evening, partly because we wanted to open and show off our cool projects.
[2]This included a frantic message in the middle of the night (Toronto time, probably daytime in China) probably in Mandarin that we didn’t understand, but the tube arrived, so I guess it was all okay?
[4]In flame effect circles, there is a distinction between ‘flame effects’ and ‘flame throwers’. ‘Flame effects’ are made using gaseous[5] fuel like propane (safe(r) and legal), and ‘flame throwers’ are made using liquid fuel like gasoline (very unsafe and illegal). The Flamethrower Shooting Gallery got special dispensation to use actual flamethrowers by being the most meticulously safety conscious group of people I have ever seen (think a meticulous checklist combined with a range safety officer plus perimeter plus one safety officer per flamethrower plus I’m sure many other things).
