Perseid Meteor Shower 2011 Peaks Tonight!
Friday August 12, 2011
Ventura, CA 3:15am
When I climbed into bed tonight
at 1am with the waxing moon
the stars sparkled in the clear sky
and I wondered if I gazed out the window
with my glasses on whether I’d see
any of the Perseid meteors fly by.
But now a few hours later it’s just fog
fog and more fog covering the sky.
My Native American heritage
tells me the stars are our ancestors
shining on us reassuring us
guiding us reminding us
of our past our present our future.
My mom was born in 1937
on this day August 12. She died last year
July 30 days before her birthday.
Hey fog would you give me a break?
2010 was a tough year and I’m still
getting over it. I could really use
some clear skies and to feel the stars
shining on me.
Tonight the bright moon will dim so
me of the meteors in tonight’s Perseid shower which peaks early Saturday morning but it is still worthwhile going out to see, especially if you are an early morning person and you can look before dawn and after the full moon has set. The shower lasts for several weeks so you might see some before the moon rises in the coming days as the moon wanes.
We might even see some meteors during the new moon out at Burning Man! So folks while you’re waiting for the gates to open Sunday night, peek out your window and make a wish on shooting stars!
Photo of a shooting star by Alan Sailer; this image graces the cover of my book Middle of the Night Poems from Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son, now available from en theos press in print or ebook.
Each year around late August or early September, the birthday of Lord Ganesha is celebrated for many days in an event called Ganesh Chaturthi.
According to Wikipedia, the festival for Ganesh “is observed in the Hindu calendar month of Bhaadrapada, starting on the shuklachaturthi (fourth day of the waxing moon period). The date usually falls between 20 August and 15 September. The festival lasts for 10 or 12 days, ending on Anant Chaturdashi. This festival is observed in the lunar month of bhadrapada shukla paksha chathurthi madhyahana vyapini purvaviddha.[8]”
This year, according to a site with dates for Hindu Festivals, that day is Thursday September 1 in India and Weds. August 31 here in the United States. On those days, I’ll be at Burning Man in northern Nevada wearing a tied dyed dress with Ganesh silkscreened on it. Our camp in Kidsville will have two large banners with Ganesh on them and periodically I’ll get one of them onto my bicycle and we’ll ride around and, with a little help from my friend Steve McCarthy of NewRepublic Printing Company, give out Ganesh on a bicycle stickers with Burning Man 2011. In 2009, Steve made us stickers and silkscreened bandanas and other items also but I doubt if we’ll be doing any more Ganesh bandanas in 2011! That was a huge job and expense!)
I’m not sure yet exactly where we’ll be when that day, but I will post more details here.
And if you can’t get to Burning Man? And you’d like a sticker? Send us a snail mail request along with SASE and we’ll send you a sticker of Ganesh on a bike–complete with some playa dust! Here’s our address at Burning Man: Read more…
REO Speedwagon “Keeps on Rolling” Tonight at Ventura County Fair
Last night we had a picnic at the beach while we listened to the Beach Boys and enjoyed Silver Birch NZ Sauvignon Blanc (read on for the full story!)
Tonight after dinner we’re riding our bikes down to hear REO Speedwagon. While never one of my favorite “hair” bands, it’s fun, it’s free, it’s by the beach and I can sing along with all the lyrics of the songs that were on the radio when I was in high school. Looking at all these old videos is making me laugh so hard!
Come dance by the beach! It’s sunny! It’s fun! Join us!
via Wine Predator
The Ventura County Fair every year offers “free” Grandstand Entertainment with your $12 paid admission to the Fair!
But even better, if you’ve had your fill of the fair and you don’t want to pay $12 just for the “free” entertainment, you can ride your bike along the beach bike trail and find a spot where you can hear the concert and even watch it on the jumbotron which is what we’ll be doing tonight for The Beach Boys concert!
You are cordially invited to join us on the sand with our picnics and our kids and our shoes off and dancing and singing loud! The concert starts at 7:30 and goes until 9 or so; we’ll ride there on our bikes between 7 and 7:30pm. The fair fireworks go off at 10pm weeknights this year so you can hang out a little longer and see the ocean light up as the fireworks reflect on it.
Today also at 1pm you can catch The Four Tops. It’s wrist band day too which means for $25 you can go on all the rides you can stomach!
Here’s the line-up of entertainment for the rest of the Ventura County Fair:
REO Speedwagon: Wednesday, August 10th, 7:30pm
Lifehouse with Toy: Thursday, August 11th, 7:30pm
Trace Adkins: Friday, August 12th, 7:30pm
Saturday is either the rodeo or speedway…
Most Mondays I post poetry. Since it’s August, and it’s 3:15 Experiment time, I thought I’d post something from last year’s 3:15 Experiment (illustrated with photos by Shane Butler from last year’s Festival in Black Rock City) which ties in with this year’s Burning Man theme of “Rites of Passage:”
Our theme this year invites participants to join with others in creating rites of passage. The content of these rites may be as various as life itself. Whether such performances are ludicrous or solemn, their aim is to remove us from the context and the cares of daily life, confront us with our vital need to be, and then return us to the fellowship of a society.
Read more about this year’s Burning Man art projects which received honorarium.
Writing at 3:15am is a ritual certainly, one that seeks to take you out of the context of normal writing and normal experience.
The poem that follows can be found in my 3:15 experiment poetry collection Middle of the Night Poems from Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son, now available from en theos press in print or ebook; it’s also at Amazon.com, and in stores including The Best of VC Marketplace in Santa Paula. Middle of the Night traces my journey from being a daughter to becoming a mother to losing my mother from the perspective of poems written at 3:15am in August from 2002-2010 as part of the international 3:15am poetry writing experiment. Read more sample poems. Read a review of Middle of the Night Poems by Robert Peake. Read a review of Middle of the Night Poems by Danika Dinsmore.
Another ritual at Burning Man is gifting and I’ll be gifting copies of my poems and chapbooks out there.
Catch a ride on the Monday Poetry Train and see what other poets posted today.
And subscribe in the upper left hand corner for more Burning Man news and info from a veteran Burner! Yes, I will be posting from Burning Man this year! (More to come on how and why!)
via art predator
It’s hard to imagine how someone could make attending Burning Man a carbon neutral experience, but I’ll say one thing for sure: people use alternative transportation while there.
Mostly people get around Black Rock City on their own power: by bicycle and by foot. They also get around by hitching rides on motorized sofas and artcars and various other moving objects.
But mostly? People ride bicycles. Some are basic. Some are outlandish. My friend Maxwell’s plastic fern makes his beautiful yet essential playa accessory even more awesome.
Back at my first burn in 1992, bikes weren’t necessary. But by 95 they were convenient and by 97 they were a must have.
Almost all 60,000 attendees at this year’s sold out Burning Man event will traverse the playa at one time or another by bicycle. It’s the only way to fly when your car is permanently parked and blocked in, not to mention a dust creating lethal object! (And yes I do mean lethal–people have been killed by cars at Burning Man.)
All bikes at Burning Man need lights to get around at night–to see and be seen, this year more than ever because the moon is new the night the gates to Burning Man open. That means it’s a little teeny tiny sliver of itself that will be going down later and later each night of the event–but it will always be in bed by midnight which is long before you will be. Glow sticks in your spokes look cool but glow sticks are not cool–they’re unsustainable trash.
So if you have nothing else at Burning Man but your birthday suit, sunscreen and water, you need a bicycle with working head and tail lights. If you have lights that make your bicycle distinct, your friends will thank you for it–and you will be even safer out there on the playa. We love our Monkeylectric lights which are fun for Burning Man or on our monthly ArtRides! (pictured) They’re about $65.
What kind of bike do you want? NOT a fancy one! Pick up something used with FAT tires and a few gears, make sure it runs (take it to a bike shop if you have doubts or questions), then spray paint it, fur it, make it your own! Check this post out for more ideas including how to make your bike into a playafly. If you borrow a bike from someone in the default world, make sure the owner knows that it won’t be in the same condition when you return it…
A flag for your bike, even just a kid’s reflective flag, can help you be seen and found as well.
The recent issue of Jack Rabbit Speaks (Volume 15, Issue #26 BIKES) offers tips on where to acquire your bike and what to do with it when you’re done. Here are some highlights and occasional comments about bikes “the essential playa accessory.” Read more…
Santa & Mrs Claus ready to quit ArtRides?
In response to my recent blog post over on Bikergo Gal that Santa and Mrs Claus were ready to call it quits in organizing Ventura’s ArtRides, one reader responded:
There are people in this city who would miss your rides. People you don’t know about. People who sit in windows and smile for the first time all month as you ride by. People who look forward to seeing you ride by and the chance to smaile. People you talk to and don’t remember.People who CAN no longer ride themselves and whom YOU remind of happy days as children, riding their bikes to the neighborhood pool in summer, riding their bikes around the neighborhood on Halloween. You remind these people what it feels ike to have wind on their face and in their hair…what if there are only 10 or 20 riders? What if there ARE 10 or 15 people to whom your rides of 10 or 20 bring joy…remember WHY you started riding in the first place?? Was it to gain respect or popularity or to prove you could lead? I don’t think so…
Please don’t give up on us as you feel the others have given up on you! There are those of us watching from the shadows and behind windows and from balconies and in cars and as we walk our dogs who appreciate you!
A couple other people have chimed in and Zanna has volunteered to make next month’s “Back to School” flyer, so it looks like the rides will go on a bit longer. But it is up to YOU to make them happen! Santa helped us get these rides going for a number of reasons, but I’ll tell you it is really hard to put all the energy into making them happen, getting dressed, getting there, herding the ArtRiders, etc–and not have very many people show up to participate.
It’s a lot more fun to be in bicycle parade when there are more people, not just you dressed like a fool. So if you want them to continue, show up!
via Bikergo Gal
Tonight! Join us! Check at Aloha for Happy Hour, then we’ll go to the Artists Union Gallery, then we’ll ride along the bike path around the fairgrounds to Main, cruise Main with a stop here and there, hit WAV, Bell Arts, Project 643, and Art City all on the Westside, then book it to the Ventura County Fairgrounds to see Pat Benatar! She starts at 7:30pm; we’ll be at the fairgrounds about 8pm. If you’re not into Pat Benatar or the Fair ($12), go to Anacapa, have a beer, and join us for fair fireworks at the beach and the road closure at 10pm.
Be in the Ventura County Fair Parade! Meet us at 930am on Main between Chrisman and Hurst; we’re entry #65.
So Hit Us With Your Best Shot!
via Bikergo Gal
Fiesta “Burning Man” Bicycle Ride in Santa Barbara Tonight
To all those Burners out there who have gone to Black Rock City, will go, might go, want to go, have a ticket or don’t, Santa Barbara Bike Moves monthly First Thursday Bike Ride tonight will explore the theme of “Burning Man.”Fiesta is going on plus open galleries and studios so it should be a wild ride along State Street!
Read on for more details! And look for us! We’ll be there!
via Bikergo Gal
That’s right, it is once again time for that yearly ritual of writing when a bunch of crazy poets set their alarms and rouse every night during the month of August at 3:15am to write! Something! Anything!
In that hypnopompic/hypnogogic state between sleeps where the editor is asleep and the creative self can connect with the dream self creative self and write something and not remember writing the next day or at the end of the month…
You too can set your alarm and wake up with us! We invite you to register on facebook or online or just write with us! At the end of the month, you can publish your words from your between sleeps world online at the 315 Experiment website http://www.315experiment.com
Want to read some 3:15 poetry? Anyone can read what’s been posted over the years on the 3:15 website and you can find examples of my poems here.
There are also several books of 3:15 experiment poetry out there–Danika Dinsmore and I co-edited Between Sleeps in 2006 and this year I published a collection of my own 3:15 poems titled Middle of the Night Poems From Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son. Both books are available in print from en theos press; my book is also out as an ebook. Read sample poems from my book and reviews.
This year I will start the experiment on the road here in northern California and end it on the road at Burning Man! I’ll be writing at 3:15am and inviting people to share their middle of the night verse with us during the days from Monday August 29 – Thursday September 1 at 3:15 in the afternoon in Kidsville located at 5:30 and Divorce.
I’ll be camped along Divorce closer to 5:15. If you send me your 3:15 poems by snail mail to
gwendolyn alley aka art predator
5:15 Divorce
Kidsville
Black Rock City, NevadaI will read your poem at Burning Man! And if you send me a SASE, I will send YOU something back from BRC!
And stay tuned–I will be posting A LOT in the coming months about Burning Man and from Burning Man, giving you the perspective that only a long time Burner can give on all the latest news and views about this year’s Burning Man.
art predator 