Burning Man, part 10

aethyrflux

and I wandered off and had one of those magical Burning Man nights where you meander across the playa talking about mysticism and science, emergent consciousness and creativity.

We saw Swarm (I’d been looking for them for a few nights), four beautiful metallic robot spheres that changed color and emitted sound as they rolled around near each other, interacting with each other. The first one was amusing and off-putting: glowing pink, it murmured “I’m a bad girl” over and over as it crept closer to another sphere. Later, they appeared to be dancing with each other, singing deep Tibetan throat chanting in off-beat harmonies. Again, pictures coming as soon as someone posts decent ones. My photos turned out black.

We saw Crude Awakening, the enormous oil derrick with stairs all the way to the platform, worshipped by nine enormous figures crafted from recycled metals twisted into bodies, lifting burnt offerings in their hands, eyes blazing, unable to look upon their deed, having turned from worshipping the gods to worshipping oil. Stripped tree trunks stand abandoned nearby.

aethyrflux

says to me, “At first I hated the oil rig, but then I realized it’s the worshippers that are the problem.”

We go to the Temple and write on the walls. I write “I forgive my father” and I write something for Doug.

We wander across to the crazy monkeys and snakes swinging on the zoetrope tree, watch as it stills then as the cyclists start it rotating again, the monkeys appear to come alive, swinging from limb to limb as the snakes slither down towards them. (Awesome photo and description here)

At some point we decide to look for a chill space and I remember hearing about a place called Celestial Heavens or something like that, somewhere on 4 o’clock or 4.30. We find it but everyone has gone for the night and it’s dark. We head back to the 4.30 keyhole where we saw a place called Iron Rose and discover it playing reggae and we lie down and drink red wine and I dance occasionally.

After a while we head next door to the chai bar to have chai, discover they’ve run out and have mate instead, listen to a woman singing accompanied by someone’s beautifully played piano. We end up singing ourselves, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “the Rose” and many other tacky classics. As the sky began to lighten, we went back to camp.