I’ve written about T-Shirts and Ruben’s Tubes, my disaster of the power supply, the victory of the fire. Now for random thoughts, in no particular order... and with apologies to my non-livejournal readers for the LJ specific markups (which may turn to dust when exposed to the true ‘net)....
The event all begins at the greeter’s station, where you get grilled in etiquette, rules, and preparedness, amid a flurry of lovely smiles and warm hugs from the brightly adorned ladies (in my case) doing the greeting. A nicer introduction could not be had.
Once on the main loop, Pyropolis drive, I searched in vain for my camp or camp-mates. I parked my laden truck just a little bit past the Zone 1 sign, where my camp was said to be, and wandered into that area up to the first group I saw. Is this Zone 1, I asked? They were not sure, but they did know they were the Beer and Darts camp. After going back to my truck, I looked at my map and saw that yes, they were right at the edge of Zone 1. There was a theory of road signs at all the dirt roads, but the practice seemed to have been diluted by torrential rains earlier.
As fate would have it, Beer and Darts were our immediate neighbors, though I did not know that at the time! Our camp was not where it was marked, since the site was unsuitable and a generous neighbor had instead given up some of their land so we could move. Of course, I had no idea what I was looking for. But still I looked.
I did what I always do and started walking, but I didn’t go far. Maybe I would have better luck with Zone 4, where some old e-mail had said the radio was going to be. I drove the truck around the road to Zone 4 and parked again. And walked.
After some wandering, I saw a radio tower and made a bee-line towards it. A drunken bee-line. Perhaps with a hangover. But I got to it and there was a shiny silver radio tower and an RV parked next to it. Had our bamboo erection somehow been transformed? What was this? I asked... and learned that it was a repeater for the Rangers. They did not know where the Devo radio was.
So I walked more. I toured the hill where the effigy was being built. I asked the help desk. I wandered around near the lower zones some more. I wandered some more, like a pilgrim in the desert (if the desert was soggy and filled with mud and prickly bushes). Eventually I heard my name... and I saw a person talking to me. Who was this? I peered closer in my daze and recognized... Silona! SHE would know! And so I was reunited with my family. As it turns out, the radio tower had not been erected yet, nor even the camp it would be sited at, which was NOT zone 4, but a tidy spot on the main area, inside the inner loop. Most excellent.
From the very beginning, and continuing all through the event, I was struck by how similar this group was to the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA, a medieval recreation group I had spent something like 20 years in). The friendliness of everyone I met and spoke to, the supportive nature of the camps freely giving information, aid, smiles; a place to rest, food, fire. There was that same sense of everyone working together to create something outside of the normal fabric of daily life, spinning a new reality for a long weekend out of nothing more than dreams and work performed in the time stolen from the daily grind.
On the other hand, it was also quite unlike the SCA. Not being limited to a 400-year span of history, not being limited in any way at all, Flipside was a riot of ideas and creativity; the only binding element seeming to be a fondness for bright colors, gaudy dress, and blinking lights. And fire. Of course, fire; a topic close to this old pyro’s heart. It was clearly a mix of many cultures, none of them of the suit-wearing variety; punk, rave, metal, goth, BDSM, any alternative imaginable was represented. Perhaps a blend of SCA, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a Rave Party.
There was a high level of skill and creativity at Flipside, more so than I had expected. In most after-hours groups, there is a mix of people; some with a high level of enthusiasm and energy, and others with great skill. This group came with higher levels of skill than most, buoyed by an enthusiasm for the event and for life that bordered on the manic.
Of course, there is also drama and politics around the event; I could sense them, smell them. My aunt was (and probably still is) the worlds foremost drama queen, and someday I may have to ferret out stories of her for the telling. But the result of it is, I can sense drama coming from far away. Of course, the SCA, or _any_ large group, has this. It can be managed, dealt with, passed by. It doesn’t bother me much.
I, myself, reverted to a watching, learning, more introverted form, as I always do when dipped into a new culture. I don’t leap into the pool with both feet, sinking up to my eyebrows in the experience, but instead put a toe in, a foot, wading around in it. I’m not shy anymore, not even the painful introvert I once was, but I still enter with caution. When I return, I will have internalized it, accepted myself as a Burner and a member of the community, and will explore with far more gusto. And yes, I’ll have to return; I already have a half-dozen plans and improvements floating around in my mind. This time, I have to bring
=== Missing Pieces
I had left the SCA when I divorced my first wife; she got it in the settlement, as it were, not a conscious decision but it happened that way. And ever since, I had pangs of missing it. The long weekends, the escape, the alternative reality, the creativity. A place to let my energy flare and burn out until I could actually relax, an uncommon event for me.
Even here in Austin, I had the thought to return to the SCA. And then this! Flipside fills that niche perfectly, perhaps even better.
And with the escape came the same pain and wrenching of the return to daily life. However, this time it won’t be 15 years before I return again, but a mere 12 months, and there is still Halloween to tend to.
On a more physical level, I realized as I was driving well beyond the limits of Austin, cataloguing the equipment I had brought for the third or fourth time, that I realized that I had forgotten my sleeping bag and pillow. And a hat. Oops. I then eyed all of the stores along the way, as I drove through Dripping Springs and Henly, with nothing looking very promising.
I was able to call my wife, barely, by standing on the right spot, facing the right direction, and thinking only pure thoughts, and let her know of this error. It took a few goings-round, but I left off with her looking for a family that was coming out to the event that wasn’t here yet, to transfer the supplies to them. Alas, she missed them. And by that point, I was not able to receive cell phone anymore.
I was standing in camp, then, that evening; between doing one thing and another, I don’t recall what, and I heard my name. Someone from the camp replied that I wasn’t there, but it was only that they had not seen me... I popped up and announced myself. A lovely lady was there on a tricycle with a large metal basket, within which was... a sleeping bag! And an air mattress! And a hat! My wife had somehow, magically, gotten them delivered to me deep within a sealed, private event. She had bought the hat and mattress, and brought our own sleeping bag and pillow, and set them into the willing hands of another burner who was just coming in. I didn’t know that at the time, and I wish I had something more than overwhelming gratitude to offer this anonymous lady who helped us out.
And that was when I missed her the most, I think, knowing she had gone through such an effort so that I might be comfortable there, far away from her. I don’t know if I’d ever felt so touched, actually, silly as that may seem here in raw text.
=== The Radio Station
One of the pivotal areas in our split camp was the Devo Radio station, a 40-watt transmitter with an antennae attached to the top of a roughly 40-foot high tower made of Moso bamboo. Yeah, I didn’t know what that was either. What it is, is fat, heavy, strong bamboo; five or six inches diameter at the base and tapering gently to just a couple inches at the top. It was split into two segments, which were fastened together with lengths of metal (aluminum, it felt like to me, though Jim figured it was steel) and hose clamps.
While lifting it into the air, the tower bent frightfully at the join, even making a cracking noise, as the lifters and guy-rope people tried to coordinate. Miraculously, it survived and got guyed into place, lasting the entire event.
As we were setting up the two tents, a 10’ by 20’ car park with walls, a lovely thing, and a 10’ by 10’ shade structure _without_ walls, a storm struck with fury and force. We dashed for the larger building and waited it out, as water dripped from the unsealed seams and flowed along the floor under our feet. It was then that we decided that the radio booth, destined for the smaller tent, would live inside this larger tent. In fact, we would move the small tent INSIDE this one, to provide drip protection. And thus was our radio station born, a tent within a tent, protected from all elements.
Protected from most breezes, too. Next year, I bring a fan or two.
Radio is the passion of Jim; and he believes in the power of communication between people. Not the corporations to the people; not big media blasting their commercial and propaganda messages afar; but people to people. Small radios filling in where the large ones fail. He has been involved in dozens of countries, and across as many years, promoting radio and the good it can do. He has worked with the FCC to try to budge them, and may even be having success, a miraculous thing given their entrenched nature! He worked after Katrina, to provide vital and timely communication to the people there, and he fought for and with the other radio-heads doing the same.
It was a wonderful thing, to see a man with a vision, as it gripped him and moved him, as he connected with like minds and with synergistic technologies (Max Solar leaps to mind). I do not come from a world of vision, of mission, or a sense of doing good in the world, of working to change it. So it was fascinating to see such a thing, and to sense the power it can have on the people around it.
As for my own role in the station,
I enjoyed, far more than I thought I would, playing my music on the air and doing announcements; blather sometimes, and warning of storms others. We kept our spirits up, imagining that a handful of listeners out there were enjoying our work, and kept a part of the event that they otherwise might have missed, as we simulcast various shows and whatnot from our neighbors at Smash Camp with the Glory Hole Theatre.
It turns out we _did_ have listeners, too! The station wasn’t well advertised to the populace, as the greater organization had a (rightful) skepticism as to our ability to pull it off. But we did it, and we did it moderately well! So next year should be wonderful.
There was one bit of magic and miracle that occurred, related to my time in the radio station on Sunday evening, before the big burn. I had built up a playlist that had evolved into a theme... a weather song theme, with these songs:
Little Fluffy Clouds (The Orb)
Sunshine In A Bag (Simian)
Only Happy When It Rains (Garbage)
Goodbye Blue Sky (Pink Floyd)
The Fog (Kate Bush)
and Ederlezi (Goran Bregovik, a song that makes me think of snow).
As the next song was coming on (Creeping Death by Apocalyptica), the sky grew dark and wind started rustling around the tent. Matt muttered that I should not have tempted fate by playing those songs, and he was right since rain soon pattered against the walls.
Soon after came the storm warnings from the Rangers, and people frantically watching the internet weather on their cell phone wifi. I played Mr. Blue Sky (by ELO) and entreated my listeners to think shiny, sunny thoughts, to no obvious effect.
Looking at the weather underground on a neighbors laptop, I could see a small but fierce storm to the north, and a large and even more ferocious storm to the south. It was as if the storm had split around our hill, carrying weather and grief to all sides of us but missing us itself.
The rest of the evening was beautiful, and the party and the burn proceeded without any further abuse.
=== Fire and More Fire
Fire is the central them of the event, and fire is reflected in much of the art and activity, even down to the magical fire of LEDs tamed and put to use in costumes and props, the cool liquid fire of glow sticks, and the ghostly shimmer of electroluminescent wire. Again, the perfect event for me. Shiny!
Along with my fire tubes (detailed earlier), there were a number of nifty fire gadgets that I will surely eventually mutate and incorporate into my own works. There were propane burn-off jets, of course, with bursts of flame.
I saw a version of what we use in haunts to make loud bangs -- the air cannon -- modified to work with propane, so it blasts a ball of flame into the air. A lovely idea!
Even more wild was this one fellow whose path I crossed one evening. He was busily pumping air into a U-shaped contraption of 4” PVC pipe. I asked a fellow nearby what was up, and he replied “Fools and fire, what else?” So I watched. After a bit, the PVC was appropriately compressed, and a lady came near with a long (15 foot?) metal pole with a large wad of fire burning on one end. The pump man then poured what looked to be the better part of a liter of clear fluid into one end of the U-shaped device. The pole teetered up into the air, he took aim, and whoosh! An enormous donut of fire erupts near the end of the pole and roils up into the dark sky trailing wisps of black smoke. The best fire burst yet!
Before the big burn we had a troupe of fire performers come out and surround the effigy. And there they danced, and twirled, and blew flame. Some fabulous fire breathers; fire poi; fire sticks and ropes. Fire whips, that cracked and blew flame out in a billow. And the graceful and elegant fingers of fire, weaving around the lithe dancers.
The burn itself took forever to light; the massive soaking of earlier clearing away much of the accelerant that was applied that afternoon. But once it did take hold, it grew rapidly into a fierce maelstrom of flames, the heat crisping our eyebrows where we sat at the very border of the safe zone. Some of us leaned back after a bit, to relieve the radiation pressure, but then sat up again to better see.
As parts of the structure began to fall in to itself, it would release huge swarms of sparks and embers that danced to their own patterns in the sky as they drifted... directly over us, falling into the crowd. But we watched out for each other, and nobody burst into flame.
Burst after burst of embers shot into the sky, huge chunks even, carried high up by the intense heat. Eddies of current in the sky, invisible turbulence, made them dance like living creatures in tight spirals and looping, weaving circles; as thick and varied as the great schools of fish you see in documentaries of the sea, only glowing red and winking far overhead. That, for me, was the most beautiful part of the burn, not the fire itself, but the patterns of spark it made against the night sky.
=== Random Bits
Spin Camp, where they had thirty or forty (or more!) gallons of methanol, some of it soaked with metallic salts, dispersed into an array of squeeze containers. They had built elaborate patterns and structures out of porous fire brick, and soaked bits of it in the methanol as night fell. And then the lit it, creating a backdrop of fire, on and in front of which they poured out more liquid flame in many colors, weaving patterns on the road and painting graceful swaths of color along the bricks. Brilliant, beautiful. A pity I only caught a small part of one show.
Giant Scary Bug. One morning, bleary and staggering, we walked into the radio station only to find the ugliest bug I’ve ever seen. It looked at us threateningly and sat there, intimidating, unwilling to budge an inch. Jim picked it up on some cardboard we were using for a sign and, after being unable to get anyone who could identify it, went around and chased girls with it. Or something. Before that, though, he took a picture, which my brilliant resident librarian was able to use to identify it as a Dobsonfly. Harmless, but hideous. And huge.
Ish Tranquiloungers. I felt really crappy pretty much all day Saturday, which probably acted to dampen my outgoing tendencies. But during that day, I finally found my way into Ish, and laid down briefly upon one of their Tranquiloungers. Ahhhh, it was wonderful. A lazy fuzzy surface, long like a bench but shaped in the natural curves of a lazy-boy recliner, it supported and relaxed the body. To enhance this natural perfection, they were fitted with Bass Shakers, so they vibrated and thumped rhythmically in time with the ever-present music.
Smash Camp, Glory Hole Theater, and Max Solar. The radio was set up next to Smash Camp. Inside the Smash dome was the Glory Hole Theatre. To the other side of us was Max Solar. Max Solar provided the (solar-sourced, of course) power to drive the radio transmitter and equipment related to that. Smash provided the power for the fire tubes and their equipment, plus sound feeds of music during the evening. Glory Hole Theatre provided even more content for the radio, with concerts, Karaoke Puppet Theatre (which was a hoot!), and even a rock opera. I don’t know the associations of everyone that performed on that stage, but it was delightful.
The rock opera deserves special mention; it was indescribable, but very well done, and an example where there was more skill brought into play than I would have expected.
Recognizing folks. I recognized more people as I wandered the event than I would have expected. Sure, most of them were people I only knew distantly, via the Friday crowd, but still. It lent the event an air of comfort and familiarity.
And this, I think, is all that I have to say about this event.
Posted by Edwin at May 30, 2007 08:39 PM