Now for those of you that have never gone to Burning Man, the best thing you can do is to find a regional event where you are and check that out first. That way you don’t have the dust and the lack of showers and the inability to use a cell phone and all the rest of what sometimes makes this society unbearable. You get the art cars, the art, the flames, the dancing, the techno music, and the bacon.
We walked a little ways into the event, pausing here and there, and saw the huge map of the city that was in the very center of center camp. It’s a huge map that’s staked down in the center of center camp which shows all the art installations, or at least the bulk of them, and it also shows the theme camps and the city proper. So of course I went over to the spot that mattered most to me, 7:30 and I, where I had been camped. They had magic markers and were encouraging everyone to place where they had camped so I placed my first mark there that I’m thinking of including as a “sign” for my website. It’s an amalgamation of the first letters of “from the ridge” in a bizarre and slightly brandingish angle. So I placed it there, saw that others had already placed animalia camp there and immediately looked around to see if anyone I knew was there. While looking around I saw the unmistakable Day-Glo colors of the lunapillar, which was the first art car that my buddy and I had ridden out in the desert. As a gift they, those that ride the moth and feed her and clothe her and make her happy, had given out lifetime passes to the moth when 2012 hit so that there would be those of us with a pass that would survive the vortex and find our way into the new universe. Since I had on my playa gear I reached into a pocket and whipped out the card. I asked if she remembered me and she said she did, then ran over to where they had set up a tent on the curb and brought out the towels I had passed out as my gifts. She cradled it lovingly and told me that wherever the luna goes, the towel comes with as well. Which made me smile like crazy. So I gave them all hugs and anointed them with my Man Mojo Mix, let them know that in a few years I’d be back to the man, and we walked on our way. They had a partial segment of the soma art exhibit from the playa, which I’m sad to say I didn’t see when I was out there. Which seemed to be the case with a lot of the art. Most of it I had seen when I was out there, but the rest of it was new. They had a bus that was decked out to look like a reel to reel player with rotating reels on it that glowed because of large sections of electro luminescent wire, which is the coolest stuff around. I’ve been thinking that I need to get a “vest” of sorts for my vest so I can thread it through the sections of my vest I have and glow glow glow in the dark. They had about five or six stages set up where there was constant music and dancing and fun occurring at every turn. The hookah dome was there, along with bacon and Beethoven, the liquid latex lounge, the midnight popcorn palace, BRC post office, and so much more that I must insist that you all go to the burning man site and check it out, if you haven’t already.
