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September 03, 2006
To recap...
I'm a little behind on my blogging... so here is what has been happening.
We designed, built a city for 40,000. We lovingly built our Man, who we then blew up and burned last night. We met with the boss of Google Earth and molded a possible future of avatar interactivity through computers. Mapped and measured our city and art so that we can recreate it as a 3d digital model and worked on solutions to incorporate every camp, event and person into a serchable database. And we looked at a lot of near naked sexy girls... work, work, work.
The team that has been built around my project is awesome. Experts in GPS mapping, lead digital artists for Industrial Light and Magic, the legendary architect of Black Rock City, and a good chunk of Google Earth's mapping and research staff in Silicon Valley. See what happens, when you have a lame idea that finds roots with Burningman vision.
It has been a privilege to be involved with these people, and I have been accepted as family within "first camp", the sumptuous home of Burningmans staff. A village within a city of massive characters.
Last night was the burning of the Man. It was breathtaking.
I started working on the Man with Rod Garrett last October, and this was a crescendo of emotions. I was full of pride and excitement, but this was chilled with a empty space in my burn night. Barbara and Ursula were not with me for the first time, and Rod left Black Rock City on Thursday leaving me to walk the path of a true Jedi without my "Obewon".
Rod Garrett
Although they were far from the desert, I knew they were watching the minutes creeping toward the burn, and from the first spark of the Man, to his dive into the boiling fire, they were all with me in my heart, my mind reaching for them across the playa to draw them close in spirit.
After the burn, I hit a few parties, and ended up on the deck at first camp talking dreams with Larry Harvey, our faces lit by the still burning man. I then managed to take a little sleep before heading to the smoldering ashes of the man. As the first rays of the Sun broke over the playa, I played a lament for the Man on my pipes, something I have had the honor of doing every year since we first came to Burningman nine years ago.
From the deck at first camp.
I have come mark the day after the burn as my "New Year". It is a cathartic event that sets the future as a clean sheet. Last year was a year of huge challenges, that were met and overcome by my family. We surfaced to triumph and find ourselves endowed with the seeds of some amazing possible futures.
It looks like we are in for a blessed year.
Posted by Andrew at September 3, 2006 12:12 PM