they were talking about us before we even hit the playa

From August 11th, 2005.

"A good place to start the Playa day with ease is the Waking Grounds camp at 7:30 & Fetish"

By coincidence? this is the photographer who shot our masthead image.

BM @ home

HOW TO ENJOY THE BURNING MAN EXPERIENCE
FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME

Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When everyone leaves, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.

Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.

Stack all your fans in one corner of your living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a full vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.

Pitch your tent next to the wall of speakers in a crowded, noisy club. Go to sleep. Wake up 2 hours later in a 110+ degree tent.

Buy a new pair of favorite shoes. Throw one shoe away.

Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 4 days. Hide all the toilet
paper.

Pay an escort of your affectional preference to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig; dance closely naked with you, then say they have a lover back home at the
end of the night.

Visit a restaurant and pay them to let you alternate lying in the walk-in freezer and sitting in the oven.

Don't sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend.

Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don't go to a doctor.

Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.

Spend weeks preparing and freezing tasty, nutritious food and then forget it in your trunk for a few days of 110 degree heat. Eat it anyway - and
like it.

Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think you are going to scream. Scream. Realize you'll love the music for the rest of your life.

Get so drunk you can't recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.

Sprinkle dirty sand in all your food.

Mail $200 to the Reno casino of your choice.

Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali's more disturbing but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.

Spend thousands of dollars creating a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Blow it up.

Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum'n'bass until the embers are cold.

Have a 3 a.m., soul-baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile, and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you're hallucinating.

Shaking Grounds

Coy and Dan are not alone in their visions of future group ad-ventures. A serendipitous meeting of 10 beautiful minds here in Eugene simultaneously wished bon voyage to Brent y yo as we venture south and allowed for a much needed Waking Ground catharsis. It also brought two new bright souls into this family-in-process: Welcome Bodhi and Katie.

Here is my interpretation of the happenings:

- We are not interested in being part of Camp I am next year. Too much politics. Before we open our group's edges we must establish our core. Our first priority is figuring out who we are. Our feelings were reinforced by the catalyst call, the fourth, from Clif (We owe $33 to settle up on the truck). We do however, want to camp near Camp I am next year, along with Heebee's, Swingers and Snuggletown

- We are interested in Coy's ideas of being more self-sufficient. Unfortunately, most of us do not have our own gypsy caravans (despite the apparent universal desire within our group to be a gypsy). However, small groups are valuable, not just for possible camping logistics such as food, water and private shelter, but within the planning stages as well. This brings us to PODS.

- Pods are small groups of people who can organize themselves whenever and however but share the knowledge of the groups CORE VALUES and are able to make group decisions that do not necessitate full group consensus. They are also responsible for jump-starting their visions into reality, if they so desire. This may simply entail communicating vital Pod information to the larger group.

- CORE VALUES are on the agenda of upcoming PODDINGS. Some topics we began exploring are:
* minimizing our dependence on material stuff
* creating thoughtful, intentional group space
* encouraging creative expression
* making decisions by consensus
* consciously deconstructing power structures and hierarchies

As a good friend explained to me: Our group's CORE VALUES should be the filter that all ideas and people run through to make sure they belong within its perimeter. They are the beginning of our Identity. CORE VALUES make up the umbrella that encompasses all the little pods and the little fishies swimmin' around doing their thing. They unite us and protect us, allow us to function safely, freely and more fully.

- Other ideas got people excited:
* constructing a stage for performers in our group to do their thing, to entice people into our space, to provide us with regular entertainment and to make our space run off creativity and self-expression rather than addiction or material trade.
* Having a General Store. Building shelves for people to put their excess stuff and for other people to come and take what they need. Virtually hand's free service with the potential to help a lot of people.
* Hosting art workshops, building mazes, Having RECESS everyday.

Energy grew like yeast in warm water and we talked well into the night. It made this disillusioned Burner believe again.

Coy, there should be some money coming your way soon. Please repost your address so we know where to send you what we can.

If anyone wants to pitch in on the $33 you can go ahead and give me 1/25th of that the next time you see me (or better yet buy my a cup of coffee cuz chances are that's where its going anyway). Its worth it to me to send the check so I don't have to keep avoiding Clif's calls. I declare it my last act as treasurer.

Yoko, Good luck in your concert tomorrow. I am sorry to miss it.

I love you all
Helen/Maven

next year

Regarding future camp:

While there are many things I could say about my experience at BM this year, I'd rather look positively forward to co-creating an even better experience next year.

I want to be part of a creative, egalitarian group of people with balanced time/energy commitments among all. I feel that this is easier to achieve with a small group of dedicated people or Coy's idea of a coalition of small, self-sufficient subcamps, who trade dinners with each other.

I'd rather be minimalist and self-sufficient than rely on the large village, which provided less than what they offered and asked for more than most of us expected.

I really enjoyed our service to the community this year, though I'd like to explore alternative ways of promoting human interaction besides consumption. Joy & Serenity across the street was a big inspiration to me. They simply created a beautiful, interactive space which drew people in. What I'm saying is, we don't need to be serving something for people to come. It would be wonderful if the first motivation was appreciation for beauty or human interaction rather than "I'm hungry" or "I need my caffeine fix". Meeting cool people and building morningtime community seemed to be secondary to a lot of people who would "use" us like a Starbucks -- with thanks, of course, but again it was secondary. Contrast that with Joy & Serenity: no one can "take advantage" of the colorful streamers because that option is simply not provided.

Fully admitting that I too take advantage of service-oriented camps (the bars), for my own time and energy I'd rather create a beautiful space that evokes emotion or facilitates authentic human interaction. Like J & S, or the shadowy metal cocooon on the corner of 7:30 and Catharsis.

I'm also way down for gypsy weekend gatherings.

love,
Pyramis

wired magazine at decomp

I was interviewed by Wired Magazine for their coverage of Burning Man Decompression in San Francisco last weekend. Best quote:

"There was this one really interactive remote-control robot," said
attendee Daniel Steinbock. "It said, 'Prepare to be inseminated!' and started driving toward me brandishing a metal phallus."

Here's the article.