parentheticals.com - Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 5—Center Camp and Handpan Jam, Foam Against the Machine, Love Bombs, Late Night Art Adventures and Temple

Friday I got up early and got to Center Camp by 8:30am. I checked in but didn’t go on til 9 so I spent a little time looking around at the art at Center Camp and chatting with the backstage crew. Josh and Mom and Mamadoody came to see me, which was very sweet. Josh even shot video for me to look at later. I think the performance went reasonably well again (especially because again I didn’t prepare anything, I just improvised), and I enjoyed it. Afterwards we got some drinks and headed on our leisurely way back to camp. We stopped by the Census camp on the way out of Center Camp and talked with them a little bit, but didn’t do much else that I can remember.

When we got back we did a little cleaning up around the yurt and hanging out around camp (I made an awesome necklace and bracelet at the “Pink Heart Beading Creation Station”) until it was time to go as a group over to the foam camp (this year it was called “Foam Against the Machine”) and get a group shower and pass out cookies. Once again it was awesome to get to skip the line and go get naked and clean as a group. I felt pretty comfortable with my scarred, modified body this year so I didn’t mind being naked, and I vastly enjoyed the feeling of finally being clean (it was my first shower of the week and my poor hair, long and super-curly on the ends this year, had pretty much solidified into two tangled almost-dreaded ponytails). It was fun handing out cookies to people afterwards too...just like with the ice cream service we do at camp, being able to gift people something they’re really happy about is such a pleasure.

After our time at Foam Against the Machine was done, we scattered and Josh and I along with our campmates Cookie (yes, the one who brought all the cookies we gifted) and House wandered back to camp. We once again stopped at the camp that was giving out snow cones (mmmm frozen sweet treats on playa...so good). I had a water bar shift with Mom at 4, but I mostly left Mom to do the water serving while I worked the line and gave out “love bomb” wooden heart necklaces to people. These were the same thing I’d invented last year for Radical Ritual (I had someone laser cut about 500 more of the heart pendants this year and I put them on necklaces). Like last year, I would gather up a group of people who were in line for water and ask if they wanted to do a little ritual with me. (They pretty much always said yes.) Then I’d give them each a heart and tell them that this was to help them learn how to enjoy gifting and giving out love like Pink Hearters do, and that they should write a few positive words on their heart and then go hang it up next to the beautiful mural on the side of camp that our campmate Legume had painted, for someone else to take. Then they could take one that someone else had made for them, and if they wanted to, they could come back and show me what they got (since I never get to see what people write). Lots of people took me up on it and enjoyed the ritual, and I enjoyed doing it with them. That lasted for about 2 hours. Then it was time for dinner (truly delicious “beyond” burgers which were made from vegan ingredients but tasted just like beef burgers—wow!) and watching the sunset from the patio. This time Mom and Mamadoody joined me on the Patio, and it was once again super nice.

At some point after that, Josh and I went on a little art adventure together, mostly just down the Esplanade towards 2 o’clock, and then went out to the Temple since Josh still hadn’t been there and he had a whole long letter to his dad that he wanted to leave there. I revisited my earlier writings to see how the space around them had been added to and generally looked around at what had been put at the Temple while Josh had his time, and then we left together. On the way back (I think...it could have been on the way there) we saw one of the big art pieces, two trains on the same track facing each other from a couple hundred yards away, get set on fire and sent careening towards each other to crash together in a giant explosion. Unfortunately, the explosion went off just a few moments *before* the flaming trains crashed into each other, which lessened the impact of the spectacle somewhat, but it was still pretty great and the kind of thing that for sure you only see at Burning Man. We also saw and interacted with a few more cool bits of art (including Bloom, a giant beautiful light up jellyfish that you could climb up the inside of, and the Hexatron, a truly gorgeous “forest” of tall light up LED poles with beautiful patterns cycling through them—yes, another hippy trap). We got back sometime early in the wee hours and went to bed.

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