RE-THINKING DIRTY SUNGLASSES

     Today I'm finally heading to Burning Man. People tell me everything I take will soon be covered with dirt and dust.  Wind storms rise up, they say, causing "white outs". You can't see beyond five feet until they pass. And when they do, everything -and everyone- sports a layer of Mother Earth.

   Most of the time the sun is shining.  Everyone wears sunglasses.  I decided to created designer "dirt glasses" for the 9-day event. I cover the frames with glue and drizzle them with dirt, dust, and the occasional pebble.

     (These are the "Big Sur Edition", coated with roadside dirt gathered from California's spectacular coastline.)



The festival has a "sharing" economy", nothing is for sale. I'll be giving them away. 
                _________________________ 
     

My latest designs were a big hit with cousins David and Terry 
 

THE MUTANT VEHICLES OF BURNING MAN

    Tomorrow I'll be driving my van to Burning Man. I'll park it in Reno then join two Burners I've never met in a rented RV.  The three of us will be living together for eleven days. I hope they don't mind snoring.
    We'll be camping in the Black Rock desert with 70, 000 other people.  We (and two others) will be an art group, "The Balloon Chain Camp".  We will put long chains of balloons in the sky, arching rainbows and undulating snakes.
   Below, our group pulls a 500' balloon chain with our art car (2015).




   At night, we will offer rides our group's art car (they're called "mutant vehicles" there).  It's a rolling armadillo.
     
   While our mutant vehicle is rather diminutive, there are many mind-blowing, massive ones. They are sculptural vehicles that roam the desert by night such as Draka the Dragon. It features two bars within its scaly iron hull and, of course, breathes fire.


Here are several others from previous years...

    I'd like to take you along for the ride. It may not be easy.  They tell me it is difficult to get a wifi signal and there is no cell phone reception at Burning Man. That's part of its charm.
    What a treat it will be seeing thousands of people enjoying art, music, and mutant vehicles... happy people tuned into each other instead of their telephones.

                       :)                        (: 

CLOWN SHOES

        I'm going to a 9-day festival in a few days. "Burning Man" takes place in the Nevada desert that has triple-digit temperatures. If you're feet aren't covered, you'll have burning feet.

   You need special footwear , shoes that will be kind to your doggies while looking outrageous at the same time.  I found mine at "Out of the Closet", a Berkeley thrift shop. My Michael Jordan's, (size 17) are the largest and ugliest shoes I have ever encountered. 
    They set me back five bucks.

    When I showed them to my god-granddaughter she exclaimed, "Wow, clown shoes!". She was kind enough to model them for me.


   If the Burning Man wore burning shoes they'd probably look like this.
 
Mine had several images of Leaping Man on them so

I replaced them with symbol of the one that burns.


   I sent my wife a photo of them (she's back in Miami now) and Francesca replied, "They're perfect for you and your B-Man adventure. Just don't bring them home".
    Will anyone need a pair of clown shoes next month?     __________________________________________

     PARTY 24/7 IN A 747!

   I hear some pretty outrageous things happen at the annual B-Man art festival.  I'm heading to my first one on Friday. This year one artist
is turning a 747 into a party venue. 
   He had house movers truck it in pieces to the 
Nevada desert festival site.

    It is being assembled there now.  The Grove Guy will do his best to report on this and all other  burning news when the festival begins on Sunday.
   
            ---------------------------------------------

GETTING NAKED IN SAN FRACISCO

     We arrived in San Francisco too late for the naked parade. The day before forty people had taken to the streets wearing nothing but shoes and sunglasses.
 Previously I had been thinking  the King Mango Strut was the weirdest parade in the universe.

    Turns out, the birthday suiters were protesting new city laws limiting public nudity.  "What's this city coming too?",  grumbled marcher, Dave Price,  who was interviewed in the street wearing nothing but a hat. He added, "This place is becoming just like Milwaukee".  *

    *  In prudish Milwaukee they have law that says, "It is illegal walk down the street naked."                            _______
   
     I think the whole bunch of them should move to Miami.  Who wants to march naked in the cold? Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

   We chose to bundle up and enjoy SF MOMA (the San Ffrancisco Museum of Modern Art). Here are a couple of things we saw


 
 









plus the world's reddest bathroom.
__________

   Later, we crossed the Bay Bridge to lunch with Grove artists, Cynthia Shelley and Terry Ferrer, in  Berkeley. Every summer they come here to escape the Miami heat.
________
    We then met Francesca's sister, Carmen, to  shop at our favorite food place, Berkeley Bowl (a converted bowling alley).

It's produce section is as big as the whole interior of a South Florida Publix.

              









 There were 27 varieties of apples for sale.  One was pink in the outside. Another was pink on the inside!

                                                Bundled up in the hills of Berkeley, sisters.
                               __________

BURNING MAN RULES

               THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF BURNING MAN

    In 2004, Burning Man co-founder, Larry Harvey, wrote ten principles that reflected what his festival's culture had come to be. The world might be better if more of us followed these "rules".

Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Radical Self-reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.
Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.
Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience. 
      _________________________________________________

     Everyone that attends the festival (it begins in ten days) is asked to follow these rules.  It'll be something to see the world through Burning Man's eyes.

 

BURNING MAN

    Burning Man is the coolest festival in the universe. Every year 70,000 celebrants gather in the Nevada desert to create a city from sand.

It is an incredible experiment in community and art. Since it began thirty years ago, I have always wanted to go.
            At the end of every festival, the man is burned


    It is difficult to get a $400 ticket. I lost in last May's ticket lottery but last month, I got lucky. A friend's friend found one. I will be joining a group that produces visual art for the 8-day event.

     There is nothing for sale at Burning Man. Everyone is expected to practice "radical self-reliance" bringing everything they need. I just started a shopping list.
     There are no spectators at the festival.  Everyone performs, everyone shares, and burners
are costumes in radical ways.  Here are photos from previous events,

 

   



 I was visiting my brother, Bruce, in San Luis Obispo yesterday. We went Burning Man shopping looking like this. 

     When we got home we looked somewhat different.



The man burns in 22 days.
                                                        I'm excited.
                             ______________