So I spent most of Friday working on a grant application for funds from the Black Rock Arts Foundation. BRAF, an arm or an outgrowth of the Burning Man organization. The BRAF seeks: to support and promote community-based interactive art and civic participation. For our purposes, interactive art means art that generates social participation. The process whereby this art is created, the means by which it is displayed and the character of the work itself should inspire immediate actions that connect people to one another in a larger communal context.
And what did I propose to do that would fit into the BRAF mission and values? Lead more ArtRides like the Tweed Ride scheduled for First Friday February 5–and for one of the rides to be an Aeolian Ride in 2010!
What’s an ArtRide? What’s an Aeolian Ride? And why should BRAF fund us? Come back soon for more on this topic!
Bike Art & Arches: Black Rock City & Beyond
What do these imaginative bicycle inspired temporary public artworks have in common–besides being near where I live–Black Rock City, Nevada and Ventura, California?
The same artist behind the wheel: Mark Grieve.
I wish the Wheel Arch in Ventura was still up so we could do one of First Friday ArtRides through it! But that’s the nature of temporary public art installations–enjoy them while you can.
In the meantime, I can go to Bici Centro in nearby Santa Barbara to see this beauty of a doorway arch on display.
See a slideshow of Mark Grieve’s sculptures.
| CAPTION: Double Rainbow over Bike Arch 2007 PHOTOGRAPHER: Tristan “Loupiote” Savatier URL: http://www.loupiote.com/burningman/ NOTES: Bike Rack (aka Bike Arch) by Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector
CAPTION: Bike Arch at night 2007 PHOTOGRAPHER: Tristan “Loupiote” Savatier
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Burning Man Tickets 2010: The Cost to Build The Metropolis
2010 Art Theme: Metropolis
Burning Man takes place in the Black Rock Desert outside Reno, Nevada over the Labor Day weekend. For many years, the theme was simply “Burning Man” but now a theme is carefully crafted; many art projects, camps, and crafts seek to reflect on the theme. Last year, the theme was “Evolution.”
In 2010, the theme is “The Metropolis” which they describe as “Tumult and change, churning cycles of invention and destruction – these forces generate the pulse of urban life. Great cities are organic, spontaneous, heterogeneous, and untidy hubs of social interaction. In 2010, we will inspect the daily course of city life and the future prospect of civilization.”
In the first two hours of 2010 Burning Man ticket sales yesterday January 13, Burning Man sold out the First Tier of ticket prices (9,000 tickets at $210 each) and moved onto the Second Tier (9,000 tickets at $240) selling about nearly $2 million worth of tickets by noon with another 6,000 people still in the queue. Assuming each person in line buys 1.5 tickets on average, that’s another $2mil. So, in just around five hours $4mil worth of tickets will have sold!
That’s about $18,000 in sales per minute.
People are shocked all the time when I tell them how much it costs to go to Burning Man. Most of them think ticket prices are too high: even at the lower tier prices of $210 and $240, they doubt that it could be worth it for even $200, and they wonder where all the money goes–50,000 x $300 per, they figure, is a lot of money going into someone’s pocket.
Others are shocked by how much you get for how little–a week long festival of art and music and camping and fun for only $300? In comparison, look how much Coachella costs for only one weekend. (And then you spend another fortune on food and drink! And you have to wear clothing, whereas at Burning Man you can wear costumes and as little or as much as you want! And you get to ride around night and day on bikes)
So here are some more figures: according to the 2008 Afterburn report at BurningMan.com, it costs over $14 million to make Burning Man happen for about 50,000 people. That cost breaks down to $282 per person.
For the 18,000 people who bought the lower tier tickets as soon as ticket sales went on-line yesterday, their tickets are subsidized Read more…
Eclipse 1/15/10 Sets Change in Motion
NASA’s APOD site features a different image or photograph each day, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. You too can discover the cosmos here! This image of an annular eclipse was photographed behind palm trees on 1992 January by Dennis L. Mammana (TWAN) and was published last year on January 25 with the Title “Annular Eclipse: The Ring of Fire.”
According to APOD: During some eclipses, “people may see a “ring of fire.” That’s a name for the central view of an annular eclipse of the Sun by the Moon. At the peak of this eclipse, the middle of the Sun will appear to be missing and the dark Moon will appear to be surrounded by the bright Sun. Remember to never look directly at the Sun even during an eclipse. An annular eclipse occurs instead of a total eclipse when the Moon is on the far part of its elliptical orbit around the Earth.
The next annular eclipse of the Sun will take place this Friday, January 15. It will be visible to those along its path in Africa, the Indian Ocean and Asia which means we won’t be seeing it around here on the west coast of North America.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t be feeling its energy no matter where we are! Astrology-wise, between Friday’s annular eclipse in Capricorn and Saturn going retrograde, what’s going on astrology-wise right now is “almost epic” according to Astrology.com and Elsa:
On the 13th, Saturn turns retrograde in Libra; two days later, there is an annual solar eclipse of the Sun at the new Moon of Capricorn. This eclipse is in conjunction with Venus, on the very same day Mercury turns direct after several weeks of retrograde motion. Globally, this transit should be beneficient and pleasurable, releasing built-up tension and leading toward a brand new beginning for the world. Read more…
Saturn Goes Retro Again: 1/13/10-5/31/10
No this is not some new age artist’s version of Saturn–this is an honest to goodness photograph from NASA’s APOD site which features a photo a day. This one happens to be the one posted on my birthday last year. We’re in the photo too! See there’s earth–the little blue dot on the edge of the ring on the left. Click on the photo to make it bigger and you’ll see better.
“In the Shadow of Saturn” was made by Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA. Here’s the official explanation from APOD: In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet’s shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn’s rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn’s E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.
Astrologically, Saturn goes retrograde tomorrow, January 13–just in time for this year’s Burning Man “Metropolis” tickets to go on sale! What retrograde means is that from our planetary bound perspective, Saturn appears to go backward. When planets like Saturn go retro, it’s a time to complete, pause and plan. According to Astrology.com: Read more…
Did you know that Larry Harvey (the guy who is credited with starting Burning Man) and I share a birthday? Yep, Larry Harvey and I were both born on January 11 aka 1/11–along with a lot of other Burners I’ve discovered!
Unfortunately, Larry hasn’t chosen to use his special dispensation to grant those of us who share his date of birth with tickets to his grand event that happens every late August out in the Black Rock desert.
So those of us special enough to share his birthday will be inline and online with the rest of you trying to get through and buy the cheapest tickets to Burning Man on Weds. Jan 13 at 10am. Why? Because the first tier of tickets is “only” $210 and there’s only 9,000 tickets available. The second tier is $240 and there’s another 9,000. You can only buy 2 tickets. I repeat: You can only buy 2 tickets. A human being examines every order to make sure you don’t get more than 2 tickets. (That human says please don’t f*&@ with me!)
Now for those of you who are really struggling (and I mean really really struggling) there ARE low-income tickets available at $160 as well as scholarship tickets. That means if you just can’t scrape together the bucks for your ticket by Wednesday, you can write up a little essay and answer their questions and send it in when they say you can–NOT NOW but starting January 25 and closing May 31–unless they run out!
What do you need to do to get a ticket on Wednesday? Well, read on!
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According to the Burning Man org, tickets go on sale Wednesday January 13 at 10am PST. In the past, the site has crashed and all kinds of frustrations have been vented and ugliness has abounded.
So, to prevent this being YOUR experience, Burning Man has once again pledged the SITE WILL NOT CRASH when every Burner in the world tries to buy their ticket at the same time on Weds. Jan. 13.
They say “All the info you need to know to prepare yourselves for that auspicious day of glory can be found on our ticketing page: http://tickets.burningman.com” and they recommend you study it steadily from now until Weds at 1oam so you will know how to prepare your computer, your web browser, your payment method, your psyche, and more … to GET READY for tickets to go on sale.
They’ve even got a TEST for your web browser to make sure it’s configured properly to purchase tickets through their system.
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While we’re all trying to get through to get our tickets, the Burning Man ticket team celebrates with PAJAMA DAY! That’s right, they sit around the office in their pajamas eating waffles to fuel them for the on-slaught. To find out even more intimate details of what’s going on, follow Burning Man on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/burningman or checkout the Facebook Discussion http://bit.ly/6gmZXB. Just so you know, here’s the Black Rock City Twitter Account http://www.twitter.com/blackrockcity
And there’s lots on flikr like this one: Burning Man 2009 KeyNote by Michael Christian, Oakland, CA 09 Originally uploaded by light_bloomOh, and Larry Harvey has a twitter account too and so does Danger Ranger and…yep, it’s all the rage. As you probably know by now, I even have one. Just wait until you see the iPhone app promised for last year which should be out for this year–if you can stand to have your phone out there with you and on.
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The photos in this post, except the one of Larry Harvey, came from the BURNING MAN 2009 PHOTO GALLERY FROM ALES PRIKRYL of the Documentation Team
http://www.flickr.com/photos/colorstream/sets/721576223639825
Want to keep up with what’s going on at Burning Man? Subscribe to Art Predator in the Sidebar! You’ll get lots of news here about Burning Man and a lot more. If you want ONLY Burning Man news, SUBSCRIBE here: bman-announce-subscribe@burningman.com
a birthday poem for Susan
Today is my birthday–almost 50–
and I’ve been thinking about Susan Mobley.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Susan lately.
We went to school together our whole lives,
and while we weren’t close, I remember
slumber parties at my house and hers at the
beach, celebrating birthdays together.
She looked like Skipper, Barbie’s little sister:
a sheet of thick straight hair, freckles dancing.
She was always tanned brown because she loved
the water–she could surf when we barely
could paddle her board out to sea. She was
always at the beach, with us on the sand
by the pier or in the waves, or at her
family’s Faria beach house near Rincon.
When we graduated from high school, I
lost track of her and she me: we weren’t
that close of friends. I don’t remember
one way or another whether she came
to any reunions I attended;
she probably did. College, family, homes
take us in separate directions from our
childhoods. We don’t miss people usually.
At Macy’s the other day, Tami Osborne told
me the news about Susan, how she
died trying to rescue her boys in a
boating accident: one she saved, one drowned
with her. Hard to believe, to hear–we hugged.
Today as I near 50, desperately
in love with my small, gifted, precious boy,
ambivalent about so much, I know
I would gladly give my life in that way.
I would gladly pass on my life to Susan
if she could then save herself and her son.
c. Gwendolyn Alley aka Art Predator 01/11/10
Originally uploaded by alan_sailer
Although it is dangerous to assume the speaker in a poem, the “I” is the author of the poem, in this case the “I” in the poem, is the author, is me. I really have been thinking about Susan and it really is my birthday today, and when I woke up this morning, I had to write this down. I post poetry at least every Monday on this blog, so there’s plenty all over this site, especially poetry from the 3:15 Experiment. You can find more poetry on the Train.
Put another candle on the birthday cake…
Gotta love Charles Phoenix, he of the collection of mid-century slides: Each week you too can get an image such as this in your in-box! Just go to “Slide of the Week” on his website.
This image is particularly timely–yes it’s my birthday! And the best gift you could give me would be to subscribe to the blog–there’s a few ways to do so all there on the sidebar!
How do you like to celebrate YOUR birthday? We’re in Big Bear, staying at the Northwoods, where we enjoyed the jacuzzi tub, we’ve got the fire going, and there’s wireless. Tomorrow we hit the slopes–free for me and 50 degrees! No comment about dinner in town which is a brief walk away: the place I wanted to go to was closed at 8:30pm…and the place we went, well, let’s just put it this way: they comped me my dinner.
Below is Charles’ description of this week’s image. I think I’ll stick to port and champagne instead of cocawine or pepsi…although my new glasses were almost cats-eyed like these; my doc, Beth Benz, convinced me otherwise… Read more…
Zooming Into The Future!
This is how we celebrated the birthdays of the Big Monkey and the Small Boy in 2009: at Disneyland because it was free on their birthdays. (By the way, the high score there went to Art Predator.) In 2010, it’s free when you give a day of service. Learn more here.
So for MY birthday, 01-11-10, we’re off to the slopes! Many downhill resorts offer birthday guys and gals a free ticket–this will be my third year of taking advantage of a ski day at Big Bear’s Snow Summit, which is just a few hours away. We haven’t quite figured out where we’re going to stay, but thanks to my nephew Kyle and my sister Laurie, we’re leaving the small boy at home!
What would I like for my birthday? Your subscription! You can subscribe by email notice (click on the sidebar) or to your reader or as an RSS feed! Thank you for subscribing and reading!
Spore Goes to Burning Man 2009 & Checks Out the Art Cars
This video by our neighbor at Kidsville, Campbell Fletcher, depicts the Gallactic Adventures of Spore at Burning Man, in particular, Spore meets the Art Cars at Burning Man! Campbell (who’s 13 as I recall) worked with images and memories of his favorite art cars from last year’s bur
ning to make this creative video. Here’s more about it on his dad’s blog. Here’s Campbell and Tony on one of Campbell’s favorite’s from last year–note they are both wearing Ganesha on a bike tie-dyed bandanas we made and gave them!
More posts on Kidsville, how Burning Man is “green” to come this week, and wine and Burning Man–because it’s that time of year again–time to break open your piggy bank and count your dimes, nickels and quarters to make sure you have at least $210– tickets go on sale next Wed. Jan 13! More on the 2010 theme and tickets in the previous post here. There’s lots more about my 17 years of experiences at Burning Man all over this blog–but especially in August and September 2009 if you check the archives (Tales and Trails) or if you look under the category (What I’m Talking About).
art predator 
