Monday, October 06, 2008
likelihood that i'll ever write a full post about burning man: non-high
instead, i'll just repost a story about one of the best parts of the week, with the accompanying photo, which was taken by michael broxton.
friday evening on playa, a bunch of fP folks were chillin on top of the true prophet art car, strangelove, watching the sunset and trying having confusing lethargic half-conversations in a vague attempt to figure out if strangelove was actually going to de-dock and wander around. after many minutes of this, while the sky played a grand symphony of 360 degrees of technicolor, a true propheteer came up and told us that strangelove was indeed going to head out of camp, but that the primary passengers were going to be a group of officials from the u.s. bureau of land management. we were welcome to stay for the ride, IFF we promised to behave ourselves.
several humans, without further ado, scampered the hell off of the vehicle. the handful of us who remained looked at each other, mildly perplexed. authority figures! in direct proximity to us! and we might not all be, um, completely sober! but...sunset! and art car! and roaming the desert without having to deal with riding a bicycle through that #$%&@ sand! and then, gradually, we realized that ALL of those things, rather than just some of them, were in fact huge chunks of awesome.
so. a half-dozen or so BLM officials--plus, we later discovered, larry and marian--climbed onboard. several of them came up to join us on the top of the car. and we proceeded to give them what we hoped was the best tour of the playa they'll ever get :) we talked about as much cool shit as we could think of--all the parts of burning man art and culture that we're proud of or part of--burning man regionals and san francisco burner culture; yuri's night; false profit and false profit labs; the black rock arts foundation; the significance of the temple in general and basura sagrada in particular... and they talked to us about their histories with the event--two of them had been working in conjunction with bmorg for over twelve years.
we dropped them off at center camp a few hours later, after a long tour of art and a climactic show at the flaming lotus girls mutopia.
best night of the week.
new levels of fear; new thoughts on caution
on saturday, around 1pm on a gorgeous calm warm day in san francisco, a friend and i encountered the results of a three-car accident that completely blew my mind. the vehicles involved in the accident were placed roughly in the center of the intersection of 16th and folsom. top speeds in that intersection rarely exceed 40 mph, and even 35 mph is probably pretty rare. but somehow, these three cars were arranged such that one car was upside-down and partly on top of another car, with the trunk of the upside-down car resting on top of the hood of the right-side-up car. both of these cars' noses were pointing the same way, and they were both pointing straight down folsom streen in line with the lanes. the third car was positioned mostly perpendicular to the other cars, slighly askew, with the front right side smashed in where it seemed to have encountered one of the other two cars. sadly, and even more oddly, the upside-down car looked like it was full of camping gear or such, with gear packed onto a bike rack coming off the trunk.
queries
a) if you are good at this sort of thing, and can try to explain to me how the upside-down car ended up in its position, let me know. i crave this knowledge with a serious thirst.
b) what steps do i personally need to do to make sure my car doesn't end up upside-down on a low-speed city street?? since i had previously considered the possibility of this sort of consequence to be roughly, oh, 0, i'm kind of wondering if i'm unaware of certain types of reckless driving that are practiced by a small percentage of our population, and that i may fall privy to on beautiful autumn days when i'm quietly setting off for a weekend's camping retreat.
c) i've been nervous to cross all streets, both in a vehicle and on foot, for the last three days. one of the images that is flashing before my eyes when i deal with such terrifying adventures is a slo-mo of a car falling roof first from the sky. i think it's coming off the top of a building. what, precisely, is the likelihood that i will get smashed by upside-down falling cars while crossing a street in san francisco? (pleeze give answers for scenarios both with and without godzilla-type monsters in the near vicinity. and remember, we have earthquakes AND multi-level parking garages!!)
queries
a) if you are good at this sort of thing, and can try to explain to me how the upside-down car ended up in its position, let me know. i crave this knowledge with a serious thirst.
b) what steps do i personally need to do to make sure my car doesn't end up upside-down on a low-speed city street?? since i had previously considered the possibility of this sort of consequence to be roughly, oh, 0, i'm kind of wondering if i'm unaware of certain types of reckless driving that are practiced by a small percentage of our population, and that i may fall privy to on beautiful autumn days when i'm quietly setting off for a weekend's camping retreat.
c) i've been nervous to cross all streets, both in a vehicle and on foot, for the last three days. one of the images that is flashing before my eyes when i deal with such terrifying adventures is a slo-mo of a car falling roof first from the sky. i think it's coming off the top of a building. what, precisely, is the likelihood that i will get smashed by upside-down falling cars while crossing a street in san francisco? (pleeze give answers for scenarios both with and without godzilla-type monsters in the near vicinity. and remember, we have earthquakes AND multi-level parking garages!!)
untoppable song-writing (aka: a notable lack of progress in r&b classics for pre-teen slow dancing since 1994)
on saturday night, i rocked it old skool at a rollar rink in the sprawl of sacramento. i was mocked extensively by most of the several hundred middle schoolers at the rink, due in large part to the fact that my friend had insisted that we all wear outfits 'appropriate for, say, black rock rollar disco' to his birthday celebration, but also due in moderate part to the fact that i insisted on dancing on my skates any time the dj played top 40 hip hop (which is to say: pretty much the whole time). but i still had a rad time. excessively rad, really--rollar skating is fucking awesome.
all of this pales in interestingness, however, in comparison to the identity of the last song of the night--
the ONLY couples skate song that they played--
the song in the coveted sigh-it's-almost-time-for-mom-to-pick-me-up-and-omg-my-crush-is-right-there-i-totally-get-to-skate-with-him-holding-hands!!!! time slot--
i'll make love to you, by boyz ii men.
all of this pales in interestingness, however, in comparison to the identity of the last song of the night--
the ONLY couples skate song that they played--
the song in the coveted sigh-it's-almost-time-for-mom-to-pick-me-up-and-omg-my-crush-is-right-there-i-totally-get-to-skate-with-him-holding-hands!!!! time slot--
i'll make love to you, by boyz ii men.
