Return from Burn
Sep. 7th, 2009 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaBurning Man was awesome! I had a fantastic time this year. :)
It was very windy and dusty this year. A lot worse than last year, but our little art tent withstood it pretty well. Its design worked as hoped, keeping us cool during the day and warm at night as well as keeping out the majority of the dust. We ended up talking about the design of it to a lot of people and showing them how it worked.
Stacey's power management system for our solar array also worked great. Our lights came on at dusk and stayed on all night and we always had plenty of power to spare.
The boxes/camp seats were solid and got a lot of use and kept us fairly tidy and organized.
The first coat I made the week before BM ended up being a good fit for a friend and she really seemed to enjoy it (especially since it kept tending towards rather cold at night) The coat I made for myself also ended up being pretty darned awesome and several chilly nights I went around nearly naked with my great coat thrown over panties and stockings. A comfortable and awesome-looking coat really changed how I felt about being out at night compared with last year. .. Actually, I took a lot of stuff I had made over the past year and had many different flamboyant costumes and it was rather fun. :)
Oh! And, happily, my solar oven performed rather well. There are a few things I could do to improve it. Notably, the counterbalance system was a pain to set up when loading up the oven, but other than that, it performed really well. Making my own hot meals at BM was a nice switch from last year when I lived mostly on granola. :)
My bike was also fun, though it was a little underwhelming compared to many of the bikes there. Plus, on the way up, our roof rack had a malfunction and we lost Stacey's bike so we didn't get to ride around together as much as we'd have liked and I ended up not riding my bike as much. Also, we had a problem with the SpokePov upload tools so I didn't have anything on my wheel but the default patterns.
This year I made a lot more effort to go out and interact with other people. I spent some time with friends and some time off wandering alone. I played flute for a lot of people and joined in several different jam sessions and went to a lot of different events. I even got up the nerve to make my way over to camp Beaverton for a lesbian social mixer (and ended up getting tagged by the monkey and kissed by a few different women. O_O; ) Met lots of really cool people and got lots of great ideas for future art and performance projects.
There was so much incredible and amazing art that I can't even begin to try to quantify it all. Best I can do is touch on a few of the highlights. The temple was incredible, the Raygun Gothic Rocket ship was amazing, the miniature ruins made of clay made from the Playa itself were really really neat. The alien eggs, the giant watch and zoetropes made from the insides of its gears. The trees that had focused microphones and changed colors reacting to sound, and on and on and on and on. It just didn't stop!
There were also some really really amazing vehicles this year. At one point, a chunk of New Orleans drove past my camp. Seriously. A bunch of people sitting in front of a little cafe with a live jazz band playing. The people were dining and dressed in period clothing because it was a performance as well as a vehicle. (There were lots of performance pieces this year, see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gentle_gamer's report for more about this) but I confess that probably my favorite piece of art at Burning Man this year was the Neverwas Haul. Photos just don't do this thing justice. It's a 3-story tall victorian era steampunk house vehicle. It's richly detailed inside and out. It is utterly fantastic.
Anyhow. All in all, I summarize my experience as A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Will do again.
And now I'm going to go work on some cleaning and unpacking and art while I'm still energized. :) I feel a need to do something more spectacular for next year. :)
It was very windy and dusty this year. A lot worse than last year, but our little art tent withstood it pretty well. Its design worked as hoped, keeping us cool during the day and warm at night as well as keeping out the majority of the dust. We ended up talking about the design of it to a lot of people and showing them how it worked.
Stacey's power management system for our solar array also worked great. Our lights came on at dusk and stayed on all night and we always had plenty of power to spare.
The boxes/camp seats were solid and got a lot of use and kept us fairly tidy and organized.
The first coat I made the week before BM ended up being a good fit for a friend and she really seemed to enjoy it (especially since it kept tending towards rather cold at night) The coat I made for myself also ended up being pretty darned awesome and several chilly nights I went around nearly naked with my great coat thrown over panties and stockings. A comfortable and awesome-looking coat really changed how I felt about being out at night compared with last year. .. Actually, I took a lot of stuff I had made over the past year and had many different flamboyant costumes and it was rather fun. :)
Oh! And, happily, my solar oven performed rather well. There are a few things I could do to improve it. Notably, the counterbalance system was a pain to set up when loading up the oven, but other than that, it performed really well. Making my own hot meals at BM was a nice switch from last year when I lived mostly on granola. :)
My bike was also fun, though it was a little underwhelming compared to many of the bikes there. Plus, on the way up, our roof rack had a malfunction and we lost Stacey's bike so we didn't get to ride around together as much as we'd have liked and I ended up not riding my bike as much. Also, we had a problem with the SpokePov upload tools so I didn't have anything on my wheel but the default patterns.
This year I made a lot more effort to go out and interact with other people. I spent some time with friends and some time off wandering alone. I played flute for a lot of people and joined in several different jam sessions and went to a lot of different events. I even got up the nerve to make my way over to camp Beaverton for a lesbian social mixer (and ended up getting tagged by the monkey and kissed by a few different women. O_O; ) Met lots of really cool people and got lots of great ideas for future art and performance projects.
There was so much incredible and amazing art that I can't even begin to try to quantify it all. Best I can do is touch on a few of the highlights. The temple was incredible, the Raygun Gothic Rocket ship was amazing, the miniature ruins made of clay made from the Playa itself were really really neat. The alien eggs, the giant watch and zoetropes made from the insides of its gears. The trees that had focused microphones and changed colors reacting to sound, and on and on and on and on. It just didn't stop!
There were also some really really amazing vehicles this year. At one point, a chunk of New Orleans drove past my camp. Seriously. A bunch of people sitting in front of a little cafe with a live jazz band playing. The people were dining and dressed in period clothing because it was a performance as well as a vehicle. (There were lots of performance pieces this year, see
gentle_gamer's report for more about this) but I confess that probably my favorite piece of art at Burning Man this year was the Neverwas Haul. Photos just don't do this thing justice. It's a 3-story tall victorian era steampunk house vehicle. It's richly detailed inside and out. It is utterly fantastic.Anyhow. All in all, I summarize my experience as A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Will do again.
And now I'm going to go work on some cleaning and unpacking and art while I'm still energized. :) I feel a need to do something more spectacular for next year. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 10:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-08 03:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-08 03:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-09 06:11 pm (UTC)Were they simply lesbians using the pun, or were they actually from Beaverton?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-09 06:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-10 08:57 pm (UTC)