B u r n l o g

“Camp Hookah”. LOL!

I’m always amused that so many people associate Burning Man with “Hippies”. It’s just some sort of brain-dead cliché certain outsiders are overjoyed to foist on anything counter to anything I suppose.

On the Playa, where are flowers and trees to hug? Who there is wearing organic hemp clothing or, it hurts to even say it, tie-dye? Nobody’s growing their own food in the dust bowl Playa. Drum circles are relatively sparse in actuality. The preciousness associated with the usual vegan-earth-drunken-love-and-peace-please mentality is pretty much ripped apart for fun out there. So, tell me, what’s so “Hippie” about the Burn?

Ah shucks, in gouging a cliché I had to illustrate with a bunch of “hippie” stereotypes…

From Earthday Events:

“YOU WOKE UP on Sunday and saw the rain pouring down and thought ‘Well, I can’t go to Earth Day now.’

Sure, you were all set for the free concerts, like the one on the Mall — and maybe you were even going to wear this old tie-dye shirt you got that one time from your friend who went to Burning Man, and it was gonna be sweet, man. But the rain…”

UPDATE!
Our good pal M~ sent a snarky list of “hippie words and phrases and what they really mean”.

Note also the truly amazing “Astral Chakra Matrix” so you can “magically manifest your ‘prayerformance’ troupe name, playa-name or next CD name with ease.” Finally, thank Goddess!

A few enlightening hippie definitions:

Burningman
A huge art installation in the desert that many hippies have mistaken for a model of Utopian society which they attempt to recreate in their hometowns for the next 51 weeks. Ignoring the fact that everything about it is completely unsustainable.

Festival
A party; usually dressed up to have some kind of socio-political or spiritual significance. This of course has little impact on the number of bad trips, fights, and misuse of the land that takes place. Often doesn’t change anything but gives revelers the impression that it has.

Gifting
The act of dumping your useless crap on other people.

Gift Economy
Two possible meanings:
1) Great until you end up with a bunch of “landfill fodder” from people who missed the point or
2) Rich people giving away free drugs

Tribe
MySpace for hippies.

Wiccan / Pagan
Subscribing to a belief system to prove to everyone that you don’t subscribe to belief systems.

Poor banana got peeled by the fuzz! Photo from Sumerset.

The whole lightsaber thing is warping out of control…

Torontoist: May the Force Be With You

This Friday, November 16, we (Newmindspace) will be hosting our very first lightsaber battle! This summer at Burning Man, we witnessed a 10,000-person lightsaber battle put on by a camp called Watto’s Junkyard, easily the largest lightsaber battle since the Jedi Civil War…

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 mangled the system and the their invitation kept failing to send. It’s all our fault for having a funky character! Sorry.]

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.

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!

In case y’all weren’t tired of aging web memes, take a looksie at Flickr: lolburners.

This from Laughing Squid:

• Hear AND see why and how you should vote for Chicken John in the Video: Help Chicken John Run For Mayor of San Francisco
• VoteForChicken.com site to further illuminate San Franciscans on resusitating a “city of art and innovation” (not to mention the chance to drive a truck into that Embarcadero giant bow and arrow sculpture if he’s elected! YES!!)

I love these heart-broken crazy soapbox rants from those who would impose their tiny-box religious views of mind and body control. They speak as though the rest of us humans can even understand what they’re talking about!

This is the second (see the first) major article I’ve found on the wretched evils of Burning Man circa 2000-01. Must have been one hellavah time at BRC! Lee Harvey is obviously be a Satin-Worshiping-Free-Mason-Symbol-Power-Pushing-World-Domination-Evil-Free-Love-Pedophile-Sodomist-Secular-Humanist. He definitely prefers burning real people like his idols the Druids, while defiantly spitting in the face of America by single-handedly crushing the stock market down each year in a trickster’s delight as any godless Lucipher loving neo-pagan should.

Of course, the article comes complete with amazing burning SATAN graphics!
Burning Man 2001: Satan’s Birthday Party

LOL:

Many of these independent camps are so disgusting and distasteful that they defy explanation. In a new age Mecca where anything goes, people can get creative in an evil way. They are encouraged to leave their inhibitions behind and they do.

I knew I was in a modern day Sodom and Gomorrha, but I had to believe that the Lord had not closed the door to his mercy on these precious souls. Nevertheless, my heart was broken by what I witnessed. I know Jesus loves them, I didn’t need to be reminded of that, but that didn’t prevent my stomach from turning when seeing men kissing and groping each other. Thousands of people were wandering aimlessly around. To find themselves, or express themselves, I’m told. Certainly not to justify depravity, or to reverse the meanings of the words ‘good’ and ‘evil’. There were many nude, many cross-dressers, and those just trying to look as freakish as possible. Haven’t you heard? It’s all art.

As I was leaving the Burning Man ritual, the Lord impressed upon my heart that this country would be judged for it. In commenting on a 200 point drop in the stock market for the week prior to Labor Day, Lou Dobbs of CNN’s Moneyline stated that just about every year at this time, it takes a dive and then quickly recovers shortly after Labor Day. Christian author John McTernan has shown where the Lord has judged this country using natural disaters as well as the stock market, in response to its abominable actions. The World Trade Center tragedy of September 11, happened ten days after Burning Man, and while I believe that Burning Man strongly contibutes to the judgements  that are to befall this country, I wouldn’t say that the WTC disaster happened specifically because of it.