In our last post, our intrepid heroes, true to type, had visited the Man and experienced various other poignant adventures on their way back to the installation. But there were still more adventures to be had!
Off in the distance, our heroine saw something, perhaps a friend?:
Our heroine sees something (or someone)in the distance. But who (or what) is it?“Hmm hmm-hmm hmm hmm…”“Oh, hello. How are you doing? It’s very different being out during the day.”“If it was nighttime, I could breathe fire like this!” [WOOSH]
After swapping tales of fire with our newfound friend, our heroes resumed their course back towards the Charnival. Here, you can see it in the distance, filling the (slightly canted) horizon:
Back to the installation! This (to me) best (from afar) shows the scale of the Charnival.
Just before they got there, they encountered some men in suits making some sort of statement. It was somewhat unclear, although all of the men in suits looked rather warm:
The man in the suit on the left was part of the statement being made by this piece.
Back home to Mirror Blaze, still proudly flying the flags!:
Back home to Mirror Blaze, still proudly flying the flag(s)!
Our heroine takes a moment to truly enjoy what she hath wrought:
Our first look at Mirror Blaze in the light, after running for hours the previous night. S expressing her satisfaction.
And our heroes take a couple of moments together:
Words cannot contain our happiness!Also, we really need to clean these mirrors.
Next time, our heroes survey the rest of the Charnival, and continue their explorations!
Try as they might, the Liliputians were unable to send a message. They would have to find another way.
Continuing on their journey, our heroes encountered a somber procession:
A somber procession approaches.
Reading what the procession was about, there was a moment of silence, and poignant thoughts[1] as they continued:
A very poignant procession.
Moving on, they decided to swing by The Man on our way back to the installation and then to camp. On the way, they encountered this guy, but decided not to disturb him. (The Burn had just opened, and he was probably exhausted from a week of setting up, followed by celebrations last night.):
Many people sleep during the day here, including many of the Brick People.
Crossing one of the axis roads, they saw The Man in the distance. They decided to turn up the road for a close look (and perhaps a chance at the iconic shot):
Almost the iconic photo.
For many people, the following picture epitomizes and iconifies Burning Man. The Man in the distance, bicycles in to foreground, dust swirling everywhere, with random ridiculous heavy machinery off to the side:
The iconic photo.
Zooming in, they saw the friendly elephants at the gate, directing them to the carnival around The Man:
The friendly elephants direct you to the carnival around The Man.
Moving on, like Voyager after a gravity assist, they caught a more candid glimpse of The Man, at rest:
A slightly more candid shot of The Man, at rest.
Next time, our intrepid heroes find a new friend, contemplate the impact of money on the Burn, and visit the installation for the first time since opening night the previous night.
[1]There is nothing quite like thinking about extinctions while walking through a place where almost nothing can live.
In our last post, our intrepid heroes had been exploring their inner 8-year-old amongst the dinosaurs and stars. Today, they go on a more spiritual quest.
A cross-cultural three-dimensional religious experience?
We then stumbled across what purported to be the truth:
But what is inside?
But what was inside?:
Oh! It’s me! I’m the truth? Selfies are the truth?
Me? I’m the truth? Selfies? The sky? Tell me! Wait…Uh oh…:
Uh oh…
A WILD S APPEARS!:
SHE COMES!
AUGH! [incoherent noises]:
AUGH! [incoherent noises]
Our monstering[1] finished for the day, we headed towards our original goal, the Burning Man Temple. It’s a special place, for people to express their grief, to help them come to terms with things, a deeply personal place for each person. In the words of one of the builders:
”
“I went down and talked to [a large computer company] and they call their place a campus. They have a barber shop, you can get a haircut. There were three different restaurants, at their campus. I forget how many people are there, 2,000, 3,000 people. If you feed that information into a computer, for 2,000 people, at least three of them are going to have lost a family member. And they don’t have any place in their campus to address [that] and they want to profess that they’re building a family yet they don’t have a place to address the loss of a family member.”
“It’s like, when Burning Man built up that population, we all of the sudden needed that. It was just an obvious absence. There was a void that no one really noticed. They got the porta potties, they’ve got the police station, they’ve got the medical and they’ve got the Man. They just didn’t have a place for grief. And the Man kind of did grief for a while, but it was a mixture of so much celebration that it was hard to really have a quiet place.”
”
It’s another one of those places where it feels wrong to take pictures inside, so I only have a few pictures, all of the outside, from a distance. Here, you can see S on her way towards the back of the temple:
Heading towards a place of spiritual contemplation.
The 2015 temple[2], ‘The Temple of Promise‘, to us felt like a welcoming entrance, squeezing out the emotions you wanted to express, and almost rebirthing you into a treed garden. Here is the temple:
The Temple.
The imposing yet welcoming entrance, leading through the tighter and tighter squeeze of all of the memorials:
The Temple Entrance.
Until you emerge into the peaceful garden (on the left):
The Temple garden to the left, after you exit.
The temple is always[3] so full of emotions, people grieving, memorials, it’s difficult to put words to it. All I can say is that each time I have gone, I have experienced something. A catharsis for sure, but also something else difficult to quantify, or even qualify.
Next time, our intrepid heroes experience a type of comically large quotidian object, along with a poignant procession. Stay tuned!
[1]And photobombing.
[2]Interestingly, googling ‘2015 temple‘ (at least for me) returns pictures of the temple, and a bunch of irrelevant (to me) text results.
In our last post, we found some strange metal skeletons, and visited our most favourite oasis. Today, we follow our adventurers as they continue their journey back from beyond the edge of the world, relaxed and refreshed.
Bicycling along, our adventures came across a curious installation, like part of a room had been transplanted onto playa. S stops to take a look:
…but as they had just come from a nap and ponder at their favourite oasis, they decided to take a more active look:
S finds something. (Also, that chalked sign might have been useful for Mirror Blaze, although probably not (more on that later!))
Our heroes had found a book! A ‘Colouring Book of Unfortunate Situations’!:
A colouring book of unfortunate situations. Sounds interesting!
What was inside?:
They seem to understand us.
S pondered the pictures with the utmost of seriousness:
S peruses the book with the utmost seriousness.
Stegosaurs? They don’t seem unfortunate! They’re my favourite dinosaur! (Possibly my favourite animal.) But the destruction in the background perhaps explains what the authors are attempting to convey:
Stegosaurs! (And Bojack Horseman?)
Finishing their perusal of the book (and eschewing the use of the hourglass), they decided to peruse some of the comments left by other visitors:
Some relevant (and poignant) commentary from some of the participants.
(I had meant to translate the Chinese characters there. I recognize ‘Tien’ (and I think ‘food’), but I’m unable to read the rest of it, although I did find what looks like a cool on-line dictionary.)
Moving on, our adventurers came upon this…object… Having no idea what it was, they used it for its sundial properties, figured out that it was time to drink some water[1], and moved on:
No idea.
And then this happened. As the sun was baking, our adventurers did not visit this installation more closely. Perhaps there were more surprises within. But there was no soup for them.
Worhol, or Banksy?
Stay tuned! In our next episode, our plucky adventurers make their inner 8-year-olds the happiest people ever!
[1]”If you’re cranky, drink some water. If you’re thirsty, drink some water. If you think about water, drink some water. If you think about anything, drink some water. Drink some water. Drink some water.” -Paraphrase of Burning Man mantra
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.
!["If it was nighttime, I could breathe fire like this!" [WOOSH]](http://nayrb.org/~blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_1322-e1467522851863-1024x768.jpg)
![AUGH! [incoherent noises]](http://nayrb.org/~blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/IMG_1282-copy-768x1024.jpg)
