Wildilocks Can Has Journal?

Cass’ Afterburn Report, 2008!

I’m writing this on my flight back to Melbourne from the US, as I do have a whole lot of time, and would like to write out as much as I can remember.

Firstly, people say your first Burn always rocks, and your second always sucks. I’d just like to say a big eff that: I had an awesome time, and I don’t regret going one bit. Sure, there were some ways I didn’t enjoy myself as much, but there were other ways I enjoyed myself much more.

Arrival sucked in some ways, as we would be arriving a whole day later than I did last time: in retrospect, it turned out that there was a whiteout dust storm for most of Monday, so if we had left earlier, we could have got stuck at the gate for anything up to six hours. So taking it relatively easy getting our food, water and last bits and pieces like parasols and stockings and tutus, having a delicious sashimi dinner around the corner from syncretin’s apartment and making sure everything was carefully tied down in the back of his enormous hire truck [well, a ute], turned out to be a most excellent decision.

Tuesday. As previously written, I had no plans for camping: I had a couple of people I was planning on looking up once I got there, but finding people in the dark I knew from last year was virtually impossible [didn't stop me trying though], and the first night was eventually spent just sleeping by the car in some random location while syncretin went to find his camp – Spike’s. He returned after daybreak, and we went in to drop off his stuff, after which I’d planned to look for friends in the light. But when we met Spike’s “camp mommy” The Muse, she took a shine to me and asked if they could keep me – as I loved Spike’s last time I was at Burning Man, and the weather was hot, and I really liked the idea of just setting up camp and hiding from the sun asap, and they seemed real nice, I accepted the offer. We spent the rest of the day setting up shade structures for ourself and other campers, then our tents & camp areas, and getting a bit of sunburn in the process. We were offered to go out and do fun stuff in the evening on an art car, and met many of the Spike’s crew during the day, all of whom were lovely: but I was so exhausted, after a tipple of absinthe with D. and a small meeting for fire safety, I crashed out at about 9.30.

Wednesday. Woke up around 5am after a nice amount of rest, so decided to go out and explore! The last bar crew were hanging out on the balcony and I chatted for about half an hour til they went to bed, and I went out to the deep playa as dawn broke over the city. Took photos of several art pieces, but mostly it was quite bare out there, and cycling was awful – too little rain over the winter left the playa surface with huge sand drifts and getting off and walking was a frequent occurrence. Climbed the Tower of Babylon – which I can’t in all honesty call a piece of art, it was simply a tower, though it was indeed tall. Wandered back to camp by about 11am or so. Later I went out to the Bomb Bay Tea House, which was the only really steampunk themed camp on the playa this year – not a bad little place, delightful tea and lovely people to boot, but not a patch on the Neverwas Haul of 2006 which will always have the fondest memories to me! Afternoon was meant to go to the Kiwi burner gathering, but was too terrified by the hoardes of sweaty naked men at the Human Carcass Wash to dare ask for directions to Mark’s camp. I heard later from ferrouswheel that it was really quite hard to find and there weren’t too many people there anyway, and several people showed up waaaay late! Later in the eve was ferrouswheel’s Camp Straya Aussie gathering, and I caught up with Mark, Gadgit and Tammy there. Plus met a ton of new folks, gave out much kangaroo jerky [my playa gift specialty which went down as well this year as last time] and went wandering half way through and found my pal Tzara who was camped not far away! It was great fun surprising everyone who had no idea I was showing up. Wed evening ended with me wandering off with a bunch of guys who intended going to Abstininthe, but it took forever of going down very dark streets, and I got tired and went back to camp. Hung out at Spikes for a while, first time I’d actually set foot in the bar, too. Good timing, because anachronaut and nadja_lev turned up while I was there. It was absolutely delightful to meet them! We chatted about Coilhouse and hair stuff for a short while, but all of us were tired, so we resolved to catch up tomorrow. Then I went to bed!

Thursday. Didn’t do a heck of a lot today: went on a wander for a couple of hours around lunchtime but that was uneventful, then languished in the heat, I think syncretin appeared with his ladyfriend morleyroarly who I got to meet finally, and gush about DDI [which she was one of the creators of!]and such…. then 7ish I went to anachronaut and nadja_lev’s camp, the Black Rock Country Club, for some cocktails and croquet: charming! Then off to my first shift at Spike’s, which was fun but cut short, and I was once again exhausted, so went to bed about 11pm.

Friday. Woke earlyish to head over to Tzara’s camp to head out on the Art Tour their camp’s art car was doing at 10am. Tzara was a bit worse for wear but still managed to get up and come out. We walked with the art car for a short while, and saw a totally amazing white furry bus at centre camp where we were taking on passengers – it was the furriest bus ever with air con, which was totally amazingly wonderful and I didn’t want to leave it. The art tour was kinda neat, learned a few new things about some of the art, but generally, the art this year wasn’t hugely exciting compared to 2006. We got back to Tzara’s camp from the art tour about 2.30ish, and hung around there in the heat, eating berries and ice cream, and drinking “Pornge Dreamsicles” [yummy blended cocktails] until I decided to head back to camp. Then syncretin and I went out on the playa for a few hours once it was dark, went to Thunderdome, watched the Flaming Lotus Girls fireworks display and then “Fire Idol” which was really funny – and had some damn good fire performers! Then it was time for our double shift at Spikes, which was fun but a bit stressful as we had to card minors – minors over here being anyone under 21, which was a damn hard call for an Aussie, us being so used to people drinking at 18! I was tired by shift end, but made the effort to head past Arachnophobia [goth/industrial camp, bit boring] and then over to the Abstininthe bar with syncretin in tow, which had power problems so was dark, but still had great absinthe. I went on a solo ride out to 2 oclock after that, but no music grabbed me, so I was back to bed by about 4ish.

Saturday. Tried to sleep late but the heat of the morning made that really too hard. We’d been warned yesterday of a front coming in at any time: it took til mid afternoon for it to hit, and it hit pretty hard, with whiteout conditions pretty much up til the Man burned. Put me in a pretty grumpy mood for a while, lack of sleep plus everything getting horridly coated in dust = not so much fun. Fortunately, the Man burn was pretty awesome, though they didn’t do the fire conclave because of everything running so late and the risk of the dust storm returning was moderate, but the burn was beautiful, with the most amazing cracks appearing in the main vertical supports that looked like calligraphy, very much reminiscent of the elven script on the One Ring in LOTR. He fell very gracefully and there were some late fireworks like fireflies [though some of the earlier fireworks were a bit pedestrian]. After the Burn, we walked back to syncretin’s friend morleyroarly’s camp and then parted ways: I headed over to Opulent Temple and caught a good chunk of Dex Stakker, who I really loved, then Adam Freeland was on – but the start of his set frankly hurt my ears, I gave it 10 minutes but gave up and went out to the Tetris art installation where a bunch of art cars were
hosting sound. Unfortunately, the music was crap there too, so I went back to Spikes. In fact, the music in general I was not so jazzed about this time round, maybe just bad timing [and I missed the Temple of Breaks on Wednesday] but the best music was at ferroushwheel’s party and at Spikes. Didn’t hang out too late on Sat night though, was very tired.

Sunday. Last day! And it involved a whole bunch of teardown: we were helping pack up all the front of Spike’s from about noon til about sunset. Was pretty dusty for much of the afternoon, but it was cool and it was good weather for hard work really. Unfortunately, I got either an alkaki or sunburn on my arms, and they stung like hell for hours after the day’s work: 2 days later little blisters had popped aaaaaaall over my forearms with little scabs, eeek! Never had anything like that happen before. Had to pack up our camp completely before the Temple Burn, and headed out there super grumpy because of how much pain my arms were in. Managed to find Tzara thanks to the very easily identified art car of his camp [Mobile Groove Bomb], and got lucky enough to be allowed up the top with him to watch the Temple Burn from pretty much the most awesome viewpoint, just as they started the burn. Drank sparkling red wine, and said goodbye to Tzara, then cycled back towards the remains of the Man, who was still glowing embers, to look for the Spike’s burn which was scheduled to happen at midnight. Unfortunately, the winds picked up again and it was total whiteout not half an hour after the temple burn, and it was freezing so I stayed warming myself at the Man, giving out kangaroo jerky to people, and waiting til midnight, which came and went with still heavy winds, so I cycled back to camp, still in whiteout! So I did manage to get a pretty impressive whiteout experience out there, which I’d avoided the day before. As Spikes was all packed down, people were gathered in the shipping containers where it was slightly warmer and windproof, and I grabbed a bottle of Sake, proceeded to get extremely drunk and take lots of photos until my camera battery conked out. Tuatha, New Zealand burner and ranger, was there - he knows the Spikes crew quite well apparently! So was nice to meet someone of Kiwiburn fame but not longer in NZ. Then it was pronounced clear enough to burn Spike’s bar [which had been conglomerated into a rather awesome art piece out on the playa] so we all got herded into the back of a covered pickup, which was hilarious, and drove out there, Spike’s was set fire to, and it was quite emotional…. partly due to them playing “Ordinary World” as the burn started, one song totally guaranteed to make me cry like a baby. I felt very honoured to be part of it. Spikes next year will be combining forces with the Steampunk Treehouse guys to create something they are calling “The Underworld” so I’m interested to see what will happen with that…

Once the Spikes burn had finished, we were driven back to camp said goodbyes, and promptly headed out onto the road for Exodus – which was completely trouble free and no delays at all, though the road was quite busy. Was very sad to leave, and the drive back to SF I was kind-of half awake, no idea how syncretin managed to stay so alert, but he did, and we got back without incident. I crashed as soon as possible, we got yummy takeout for dinner, and had an early night.

Then Monday I caught up with ianloic for lunch at Cafe Gratitude [which was AWESOME x1000 and I ate SOOOO MUCH] and then it was frantic packing and off to the airport.

When I look back on it, I really didn’t do anywhere near as much this year as 2006, partly due to having more time in 06, maybe partly due to being in a theme camp, and partly due to being much more careful about getting extra rest, not wanting to over-stress my body after health shenanigans earlier this year. I’m really happy with how I’ve coped generally.

Special Mentions - there are always a few happenings which embed themselves in your consciousness at Burning Man. This year, some which spring to mind easily:

Better Living Through Chemistry. I have discovered that two things I didn’t have last trip made a huge improvement on both flying and Burning Man: mersyndol, which allows for sleep under uncomfortable conditions [yatta!] and Silk Infusion, a hair & skin product which moisturises and rebuilds damaged skin and hair, and was fantastic on the playa and has been good to use on flights as well due to skin getting so dried out!

All in all, a great burn, with great people, wonderful to meet so many new faces, and see old ones again. And, I think the lack of truly inspiring art has given me a bit of a mission: I now feel very motivated to create an art piece for Kiwiburn for next year. Like, REALLY motivated. Which is a nice feeling, and haven’t had that so far. I want to give back more to my local burner community, make KB bigger and better and more inspiring for other people.

Now, I am home again, and happy in the arms of my love, who I did miss terribly, but still managed to have Fun and Adventures on my own. Yay for adventures!!

Current Mood: chipper

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under Burning Man and You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.