30 Days of Burning Man – Day 23, The Art

This year there is a possibility that there will be a much higher percentage of newbies heading to the desert so I thought I’d spend the 30 days before the gates open throwing out some information, some images and a little bit of wisdom, advice and snark about the place I love so much. These posts will be generally directed at Burning Man virgins but hopefully some of you old dogs out there will contribute through comments or get some enjoyment out of them as well. So here we go.  .  I’ll include at least one photo from Burning Man each day and once a week I’ll do nothing but photos.  I hope the posts are sometimes helpful and also enjoyable, enjoy ~ ZD Blue

Whenever people talk about Burning Man they talk about the art.  Let me first talk about what “art” means because it is a pretty broad definition.  You see art can take many, many forms there are the things we always think of paintings and sculptures, we sometimes broaden that to include performance art and if we think about it music and dance and a lot of other things come under the umbrella of “art”.  One of the things I love about Burning Man is that all of these forms and more show up on the Playa on steroids, not only from a size perspective but from a thought perspective as well.  One of my favorite camps in BRC is the wholly politically incorrect Barbie Death Camp & Wine Bistro.  There is something at the same time horrific, beautiful and utterly snarky about the display they create each year and to me art has to make you feel and the death camp certainly does that.

There is a lot of random performance art or as the principles call it, radical self-expression in BRC.  One of my all-time favorite moments occurred while I was walking the Esplanade one night and I stumbled upon three women doing a performance, or a ritual but they were reading from an old book and dropping roses into a fire the whole thing had a very Pagan feel to it.  What made it utterly spectacular was that included in the circle of people who had stumbled upon this little show was Jesus Christ, crown of thorns, full sized cross and all.  Where else in the world could a good Christian like Jesus Christ enjoy a good Pagan performance?

Finally, I get a lot of questions from people who ask me, do people really burn their art?  Yes Virginia, people really do burn their art.  I think this is done for a lot of reasons and each artist probably has his or her own reason for why they create something so beautiful only to see it go up in flames.  For me, I love the idea that it represents the impermanence of everything, the art, BRC and even our lives.  Like flowers, the impermanence of the work makes it even more beautiful for its fleeting existence.  As always, some images of art on the Playa and sorry, I don’t have a picture of Jesus at the Pagan ceremony it was one of those moments that I was too swept up in what was happening to shoot.

 

July Poetry, the final day – Wait

There are some poems, no matter how many times you read them you just can’t get the hook of them.  This is one of them, I have alternately described it as depressing and hopeful.  I think it’s possible that this piece is nothing but a mirror playing back the emotions of the reader.  If that is true then Galway Kinnell is not just an artist but a magician, enjoy ~ ZD Blue

Edinburgh Castle Saint by ZD Blue

 

Wait
By Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

July Poetry, Day 3 – Anais Nin

A short but really powerful piece by Anais nin.

Photo by Z Deacon Blue

 

Risk
By Anais Nin

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

Call me when the revolution starts

I recently spent three weeks in Ireland, one of the things I really didn’t miss about being out of the country was the constant reporting on the upcoming presidential election between Romney and Obama.  More than that it was incredibly nice not to have to listen to all of the hate speech spewed back and forth between US politicians and all of the idiotic talking heads on the cable news channels.  So I’ve made a decision, I’m only going to get my TV news from The Jon Stewart Show, seriously he seems on a nightly basis to be able to summarize all of the idiocy up in about 18 minutes and do it in a way that makes me laugh.  I’m an information junkie so I’ll still troll through the news websites but I’ve given up news coverage on TV.

The bigger issue in all of this is the fact that our politicians don’t give a shit about the people, not Romney, not Obama, not Democrats or the Republicans.  What’s worse is that now everyone seems to have to be labeled and those who label themselves basically filter the world through that lens, if you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail.  So all the conservatives see socialism under every bush and liberals see cruelty and discrimination everywhere, get a grip folks.  If the world was so damn black and white all of the problems would already be solved.

So I wonder is it time to tear it all down and start over?  If the answer to that is yes call me when the revolution starts, it may be televised, but I won’t be watching.

Fun Friday: A visual reminder of why we go to Burning Man

So there has been a lot of noise in the Burning Man community over the great ticket debacle so I decided today to post up a few visual reminders about why we show up in the dust every year.

For the newbies, soon to be virgins and even the sparkle ponies I previously posted a virgin guide and for those planning on photographing in the dust a guide to photography at Burning Man part 1 and part 2, enjoy and happy Friday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun Friday: Even More Images

So we haven’t pumped out a Friday image day for a while, most of these courtesy of FB friends, so here you go, enjoy:

Fun Friday: Random Images part 2

Fun Friday: Random Images part 2

So I got such a good response from last week’s fun set of random images I decided to do round 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gary Oldman one of the best actors of our time?

Gary Oldman one of the best actors of our time?

Recently the Oscar nominations list came out and Gary Oldman was nominated for best actor, this, came as no surprise, the surprise was that it was his first nomination.  He has been nominated for his role as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Gary Oldman is one of those actors whose name may not bring an immediate recognition but is someone whose work you absolutely know.  Here’s a picture of him in one of his most iconic roles in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula.  Most recently he has been playing Commissioner Gordon in the latest Batman series, The Dark Knight.

 

Oldman has always fascinated me, it seemed during the 1990’s that he was the bad guy in every film worth seeing.  He was iconic as Dracula, Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, Mason Verger in Hannibal, and one of the most over the top wild-ass bad guys in The 5^th Element.  I have great admiration for his acting talent and much like the great Michael Caine, as much of a star as he is; he still seems to have retained an aura of being an ordinary guy.  He’s one of those people I would love to have a beer with sometime.

This past weekend Oldman was a guest for one of the games, not my job, on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and as always they do a quick minute or two with the star and it’s usually fairly interesting, but the back and forth with Goldman was unbelievable funny, give it a listen and if by some miracle he reads this, good luck Mr. Oldman, I hope you bring home the Oscar.  Below is a link to where you can find the clip, it’s definitely worth the time, enjoy.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/04/146320715/actor-gary-oldman-plays-not-my-job

Debunk: End times prophecy of increasing earthquakes

Debunk: End times prophecy of increasing earthquakes

According to the nut jobs who claim there is significant evidence for the end times being now there has been an increase in the number of major earthquakes.  Dr. David R. Reagan claims there is a greater instability in nature; the end times online selectively pulls the frequency of earthquakes for a high activity period leaving out key data; and the prophecy fellowship makes a list of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 as if by just listing them it makes them more important than the actual data.

Unlike most of those sites who create their own graphs and data, here is an actual graph and link to data on global earthquakes:

 

You’ll see from the graph that we’ve definitely been in an active period but the overall trend in the amount of energy released from earthquakes has been decreasing since 1900.  When you look at the numbers of global and US earthquakes you will see there are half as many quakes overall as well as in the 7.0 and above range, here is the link to the data:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/other/quake1.html

So our first debunk piece of the year to try to counterbalance the nut jobs who are claiming it’s all over in 2012 because of all of the overwhelming evidence of the end times.

If you don’t believe in Global Warming, you’re an idiot

If you don’t believe in Global Warming, you’re an idiot

If you don’t believe in Global Warming, you’re an idiot; you might think that is a strong statement but really it’s not.  Let’s define Global Warming, simply it is the fact that the average global temperature of the earth is increasing.  There is plenty of data from ice core samples to support this, as well as the correlation with CO2 but that’s ok, we don’t have to go there, just look at the graph below recording the temperatures we have measured.

Now sure, you can say it’s just a fluke or a short-term trend but you can’t deny that temperatures are rising or that the top 10 hottest years have all occurred in the last 15 years.  So Global Warming is a fact plain and simple, if you don’t believe in facts than you’re an idiot.

Now what most people want to argue about are two things, first whether or not there is a long-term warming trend and whether or not the warming is caused by human activity.  Below is a NASA site that provides all of the information you could ever want about Global Warming, including the uncertainties we have about climate science.  That’s right, as any good scientist will admit, we don’t know everything about how the climate works.  There are things that are still mysteries to science, like why winter Antarctic sea ice has grown in area over the last few years.  We don’t understand all of the intricacies of how the Earth’s climate regulates itself.  But just because we don’t understand every detail of the mechanism doesn’t mean we’re wrong.  We don’t understand every detail about how gravity works, and if you think that fact means that the science is crap, well then you go and jump off a roof and we’ll see if the theory of gravity holds for you.  And by the way, since you only believe in science where you can easily understand everything, please explain to me the details of the workings of the internal combustion engine, or start walking to work.

A definitive site on the evidence for global climate change showing evidence for each category of evidence showing how the earth is changing.  http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/

To see more of the arguments that skeptics have about Global Warming and the scientific response check-out the following link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703819904574551303527570212.html

And if you buy the idea that no one is convinced by this, take a look at the following Creation Science site  http://www.icr.org/article/evidence-for-global-warming/

On the flip side I also hear a lot by climate deniers about how scientists don’t believe in Global Warming either, well take a gander at the following survey data: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/

Finally if you don’t think the world is warming, if you don’t think this is a significant issue than answer a couple of questions.  Why are the Antarctic ice sheets melting, why are global glaciers disappearing, why is the permafrost thawing?  

While most of you can afford not to care, we’re talking about global climate and things moving on a geologic scale, even when change happens quickly by geologic time it typically takes centuries for impacts to show.  So most of you will likely be dead when the real nasty effects kick in.  However, there has been some recent work that shows that occasionally, and granted this would be a rarity, that massive global sea level change can happen very, very quickly and may be related to cultural memories of the great flood.  Additionally, there exists the possibility that melting ice could quickly disrupt Atlantic currents and paradoxically plunge North America and Europe into a mini ice age.

So who knows, there might be a reason for you to be worried after all and I haven’t even mentioned the potential severe weather impacts that might occur.  Do you live in tornado country, along the coast in the hurricane zones, maybe near a major river?  Sleep tight, I’m sure this is all just a bad dream.