Early Friday morning, Josh and I managed to get ourselves up and out again right before sunrise to go see Embrace burn. (They put this burn at sunrise when it would be less windy because they were concerned about the cinders and ashes being a danger to other art.) The sky was pinkening and the weather was perfect, if a little cool, as we biked across the playa to join the gathering crowd of people who wanted to see this beauty burn. We found a temporary bike parking area and left our bikes and then walked as close as we could get to find a viewing spot. There were a lot of people there so we really didn’t get too close. We wound up behind/next to a ring of art cars, which provided a big enough hole in the crowd so that we could get an unimpeded (albeit fairly far away) view. We waited and waited and amused ourselves looking around at the colorful crowd while the day grew lighter and started in earnest, and the dust and wind picked up enough so that we had to use our dust masks. And then finally, just as we were fearing that we wouldn’t be able to see or it would be so windy that they would call off the burn, the dust settled and the flames showed up and we all cheered and settled down to watch something huge catch on fire.
The burn was incredibly beautiful, and the first daylight burn I had ever seen. It was a whole different kind of dramatic than a night burn, but equally as gorgeous against a blue sky background. First the skin around the two figures caught flame and shot out the top of each head, creating twisting tornadoes of smoke and cinders that billowed out of the back of each figure’s head and lit up their eyes with flame. Eventually the skin all burned off and what was left standing was the sturdy towers that formed the frame inside each figure that had allowed all those people to climb up to view the playa from inside each head. Those towers burned and burned and eventually they drove a big crane up to one of the towers and poked at it, trying to bring it down (probably to reduce fire danger). That tower finally buckled and slumped into the other tower, and burned down until only one tower was left standing. Then after some deliberation with firefighters and whomever else was responsible for these decisions, the crane drove over to poke at that single remaining tower. It took several pokes from several different angles before finally that tower began to topple, and it toppled right towards the crane. The crane was hauling ass in reverse away from the toppling, flaming tower, and it just barely made it away safely as the whole thing came crashing down in a huge whoosh of flame and sparks. It was very dramatic and everyone who was left watching hooted and hollered and cheered with relief (because that really could have gone so horribly wrong).
After that dramatic moment, we decided to go. It was getting really stormy and dusty, the worst it had been up until that point. By the time we got back, we were covered in dust and exhausted, but happy. We cleaned up and had some food and hung out in our camp for a bit until it was time for a camp meeting, where we talked about strike and other end-of-week issues and then went out front to take our camp photo for the BRC yearbook.
Right after that it was time for my Fly Your Freak Flag High Workshop. I was still collecting up all my stuff and getting ready when someone came and told me that there were already people out front asking when the workshop was starting (that was actually cool...I liked knowing that people had come on purpose to do this with me, rather than just stumbling upon it.)
Like I had done at Pink Heart the previous year, I went casual and made it a sort of rolling art activity rather than a formal workshop. I didn’t really have any helpers (though I could have shanghaied some campmates if I had really needed them). I started by walking around in the Pink Lounge asking people if they’d like to come do an art activity with me, and when I collected enough people I stood them in a circle and explained the project and handed out flags and newspapers and the bags of sharpies and told people to go for it. As the first batch sat around on the floor and colored their flags, I stood out in front of camp with a handful of flags and invited more people to come join us. (“Hi beautiful burner! Want to come make a freak flag with us?”) Then I would explain what we were doing, give them a flag, and send them to find a spot on the floor somewhere.
I alternated between explaining the project and walking around checking on people and eventually, once people finished, I took pictures of each finished flag and its maker. I had a steady stream of people both coming in wanting to start and finishing up wanting to take a picture and go, so it got a bit hectic, but never unmanageable. My estimate is that over the course of nearly three hours, we made about 100 flags, and I got pictures of most of them. It was still blowing a lot of dust out on the playa so some of the pictures came out dustier or clearer than others, but fortunately my camera did not seem to mind the dust.
Although I didn’t get a chance to encourage people to interact with each other and share their freaky bits like I usually do, and I was running around so I wasn’t able to keep a close eye on people who were coloring, I am pretty sure that people did interact with others doing the project and actually get to know other people while doing the flags. (And if that’s true, that’s awesome.) I did get to interact with people when they came to get their picture taken, and I always asked them about their flag and why they’d drawn what they did and what the various things on their flags meant to them. I asked people to tell me a story about something on their flag, and many people did. So at least I hope I got them thinking about the project a little more, even if I didn’t structurally encourage it in more traditional workshop fashion. Many people thanked me and gave me little gifts, and overall it was another successful year.
By around 5 o’clock or so I was mostly cleaned up and hanging impatiently around the Pink Lounge waiting for the last few stragglers to finish their flags, and I was getting really, really tired. I was heading down into that limb-deadening energy crash that comes after putting out a sustained burst of enthusiasm and performance and crankily wishing that people would just finish up already when one of those perfect playa miracles happened. (They often happen right when you really need them, and this one was a true beautiful serendipitous moment.) There had been a woman with a massage table set up in the back of the Pink Lounge for the last hour or so, and I had been aware as I wandered around picking up sharpies and talking to flag-makers that she was giving Halcyon and a couple of other Pinkies massages. But then just as I was feeling at my crankiest, she finished up and said goodbye to someone she’d just massaged, and then looking around, she said, “does anyone else want a massage?”
I was sure she didn’t mean me, she must be asking all the important people, or friends of hers, or someone else who had been waiting for her to finish. But then I looked around us and...there was no one else within earshot. So before I could even worry about it, I said “me! I would soooooo love a massage. That is exactly and perfectly and totally what I need and want right now.” And she laughed and said “well ok, come on!” So I dropped my sharpies and shed some clothes and lay down on her table and what do you know, yes, it was in fact exactly and perfectly and totally what I needed right then. J I had already been talking earlier in the week about how I was tempted to go over to Sacred Spaces or Heebie Jeebie Healers or somewhere I could get a massage (I get massages regularly at home because I need them to stay healthy and keep going in my crazy busy life, and I knew I’d benefit from one even more on playa where the physical demands are even tougher to endure for a week), and here it had magically, perfectly come to me right when I really needed it. Serendipity win!
So after that beautiful massage I thanked Lauren profusely and stumbled back to camp, triumphant and exhausted. I saw Lauren again at dinner time (and got to thank her again) because it turned out that she was a friend of some of our camp mates, and was hanging out with us for dinner too. Josh and I hung out with our fellow Pinkies during dinner and for a bit afterwards, but we were so beat by then that despite plans for going out and dancing and exploring, we pretty much just crashed out in our dusty clothes and never got up again until the morning.