B u r n l o g

…On the Playa!

Look for the huge blue iceberg with live and DJ music pouring out for the thirsty party folk. We’ll be having a good ol’ time!

With so many folks headin’ to the Burn each year, the participants’ “carbon footprint” is an increasing problem, especially considering that this year’s event is supposed to be “Green”.

CoolingMan has a number of solutions to identify and offset the huge emissions problem of all our vehicles and fuel usage. At least take the time to check out some ways to reduce your footprint. There are tons of simple examples!

Here is one sweet set of wheels. I’ll be sure to keep a look out for the Crimson Crow on the playa: SFist: This Crow’s Gotta Fly — A Plan For Burning Man

Second Life, the virtual 3-D world, is about to launch their 5th annual Burning Life event.

There’s apparently a virtually giant virtual man effigy and virtual temple for your virtual self to strut about, staring blankly into the digital void of a virtual desert. There are some 63 plots of land set aside for users to build upon, only for the whole event to disappear after a brief period just like the “real thing.”

I wonder if participants are unable to get early passes to build their labors of love despite having huge cool art cars to give to the virtual community on the digital Playa, while at the same time getting a somewhat draconian edict that no art cars will be accepted without a written invitation though the organization cannot seem to overcome technical problems in sending said invitations… Just kiddin’! I know the DMV is up to their goggles in work and complications as the Playa grows ever larger each year.

What’s interesting though is that Burning Life event kind of qualifies as a regional burn. It’s yet another spinoff of the spirit of the Burn into new and different places.

[Author’s Note: I have to eat my words now. Upon visiting the DMV for our license inspection, apparently our “ø” character in our “Ice-Flø” title mangled the system and the their invitation kept failing to send. It’s all our fault for having a funky character! Sorry DMV folks. We loved you all along!]

Apparently, a video game is in the works with Alvin and the Chipmunks, bustin’ loose in all manner of urban chic chip-hop style, rhythm dancing in such exciting locales as Burning Man.

WTF?!

I’m envisioning Alvin, clad in his red street style hoodie, after having “thrown-down” and cheeky victory insults in his tweaker voice at the “Rockathonapalooza”, is magically transported to the Playa. Once there, the chipmunk “posse” is assaulted by a gang of dust encrusted tribal techno bunny-suit-dweebs in neon wire lined pink fur.

The “Heavy Jamz” begin with bizarre elongated art sculpture octopi menacing in the background as twisted naked marionettes dangle treacherously nearby straight from Jiffy Lube, with throbbing Deep House beats to break to.

The boss finally overtakes the scene in the form of a several story tall Burning Man effigy, envisaged as a steely-toothed evil “klown”, wreathed in technicolor flames, releasing wicked devil DJs and body-painted harlots on stilts from high above via pneumatic duct tape tubes tipped with razor zip-tie fingers.

Alvin wins by out-breakin’ and poppin’ the “Krusty Klown Krew” before the full white-out hits and engulfs the desert floor in a morass of writhing bodies and twisted mangled sculptures.

Check out the many picts of the Ice Flo construction in progress.

It’s looking spectacular and will no doubt haul in tons of writhing burners to bask upon our chilly banks and hear the sweet music that will pour forth on the Playa!

HATE

We always hear about those in Nevada who hate Burning Man and all it represents. While I can understand the residents around Gerlach being annoyed with all the hubbub (and with the less than considerate attendees’ moop drop offs) each year, there are others who would piss on anything given the chance.

The Scathing Op Ed
Case in point is this acidic barfing by a tired old chap named Guy Farmer for the Nevada Appeal. Apparently, this represents his usual grumblings. It’s full of the turned-nose sarcasm and the tight-assed, old-timer ranting that reminds of some WWI era grandpa wheezing about when the conservative world was a righteous and perfect place. Yawn…

Pounce!
Farmer greedily jumps on the issues concerning the “sell out” of Green Man (and he should well know about selling out!) with commercial green interest entering the Playa and throws in the John Law backlash for good measure. To him, these issues must confirm his precious ire about the downfall of Burning Man and those who make it. Of course, he tries to paint a corrupt picture of the organizers as cash thieves, hiding behind a non-profit ruse. Someone in the comments points out correctly that Burning Man has always been designated as LLC. That means it’s a business like any other.

Waaaaaa…
Of course, there’s no mention of any number of positive elements of the Burn. And you just know he’s never been. It’s sad and amusing at best to have to look down upon somebody as he wallows in his own bile. A toddler in a delirious tantrum from too long without a nap, stubbornly moaning on the ground with dirty tears upon the cheek, is easier to deal with than the same in the shape of a grumpy old fart.

Some people just gotta find a crutch to piss on regardless of what or where they find it and whether or not they really know anything about what they pretend to!

LOVE

Then there are those, like Nevada Magazine, who love it. Well, maybe not quite that far. Bizarre colorful picts of nutty burners and fire sculpture makes for great copy in glossy travel magazines looking to capture the RV casino set with a few minutes between gambling bouts in the hotel room and, of course, to sell some ad space.

Still, they have some good shots in there that make me pine even more. Just a week or so until the action begins…!!

Here’s a little treat to tide us over.

UPDATE: Shoutfit WAS cut just right. Alas poor Shoutfit has died an ignoble and swift death. It suddenly stopped working in late 2007. Sorry, folks. No more fun to be had here… move along…

My favorite new social site is Shoutfit.

Think trends, friends, outfits, and closets of your own creations and those from others who are proud to show off their style. The trendsetters there are fun and stylish to the extreme. Plenty of Playa style cabaret, gothic, circus, apocalypse, vampire, aristocratic, wasteland, fruits chic by and for the folks who do and appreciate it!

One neat feature is the Collage element that allows you to take your photos of different clothing bits and pieces and arrange them on a white board. You can also show an outfit and then create squares over the bits and pieces to point out and explain to viewers what and where you got your stylish duds. Shoutfit is still in beta so will no doubt get better.

It’s irresistible to anyone on the Etsy DIY style wavelength. Lookit me in ma clothes!

The Mechabolic, A Trash-To-Fuel Land Speed Racer Slug is a… well, er… Just click the link above and go to Laughing Squid for the best description.

It defies my words. This from the The Mechabolic Project site:

The Mechabolic project is a large-scale bio-imitative installation of hydrocarbon based fuel production, transformation and consumption. Our goal is to create a fantastical, bio-machine hybrid environment –a burlesque of the “synthetic metabolism” of machines– recasting internal combustion engines and petroleum fuels as their parallel animal organs and plant generated carbohydrate foods.

As a physical sculpture, the Mechabolic will take the form of an exploded assembly of digestive and respiratory organs, laid out across the desert floor, and mashed up with their associated mechanical metabolic machines (i.e. internal combustion engines, refining gasifiers, anerobic digesters, liquefiers, process tanks, condensation towers, etc.). All features and functions will be rendered in the aesthetics of human anatomical illustration meets blown V-8 hot rod fetishism.

Whole Life Times has this interesting article by Charles Shaw about Burners Without Borders and the unusual act of going to a place of need and just getting important work done sans red tape. Offshoots are abounding in other regional burner groups around the country and in the Green Man ‘07 pavilion project this year:

Whole Life Times: The Revolution Will Not Be Invoiced

Burners Without Borders is led only by an idea: that of a boundless, leaderless movement, based on gifting and community, that seeks no publicity, recognition, money or power. All it seeks to do, like its progenitor, is to build community through addressing social needs, creating art and healing the deep wounds of a disconnected culture in the throes of anomie.

“My personal philosophy,” Burners Without Borders co-founder Carmen Mauk intones, “is that this community is ready to do something more than just party. People are ready to make meaning of their Burning Man experience in their everyday lives. Whenever you bring that ethos off the Playa, that’s Burners Without Borders. And that’s precisely what happened in Mississippi.”

As a movement med by an idea, not ideology, Mauk and Price and the rest of the co-creators of Burners Without Borders are now watching their creation spread organically across the nation. In San Francisco, Mauk and fellow Burners worked with the National Park Service to rebuild the North Beach fire pits. In Detroit, Burners are building a Temple out of wrecked cars in order to spur economic development to blighted neighborhoods. Chicago Burners have performed in parades, taught art and recycling at high schools, and helped South Side neighborhoods deal with seasonal flooding by showing residents how to collect storm water by disconnecting their downspouts. Chicago’s Burning Man community also stepped up last April to provide the art and entertainment for the city’s inaugural Green Festival, bridging for the first time in any organized sense these two vanguard cultures. In New York, this July, Burners cleaned up Governor’s Island and staged an interactive public art show. During this year’s Cinco de Mayo, Burners in twenty-five cities got out and cleaned their public parks and beaches.