What is the opposite of a clown car? S asked and answered this question earlier today, but before we get to that, a commentary about what an opposite is and isn’t from Roy Greenhilt:
So, getting back to our initial question, we need to start with a description about what a clown car is:
“A car from which many clowns emerge.”
So you could say something like:
“A car from which few (or no) clowns emerge.”
Or perhaps a ‘Clown Truck’:
“A truck from which many clowns emerge.”
Or the ‘Anti-Clown Car’:
“A car which absorbs clowns with no end.”
(Although any clown car would probably have to gorge clowns anyways before it could disgorge them.[1])
But my favourite is S’s:
“A clown from which many cars emerge.”
We tried oppositing other words as we were talking, but none of them really caught on. The opposite of a fire truck was done in Fahrenheit 451[2], the opposite of a cat is clearly a dog, and what is the opposite of a duck?[3]
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.
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.
