Sep 2008
Hekter back in the Default
World
Sep/30/08 | back in the
default world |
permalink
Hhhmmnnnaah-
Instead of processing my playa time through sleep deprived saucy slang and freshly roasted thought pockets, I have found myself entangled in pure cordtitude - obsessed with alternative media and battling to just get the lil' digital tidbits tamed into their perspective corners. My digital realm has really become incredibly complicated, especially since dropping my computer on it's hard drive... now it's a special needs tablet and I'm fresh out of meds. Layers of cords for all types of electronic madness become vague in their functionality and mock me in my oneness. Perseverance will prevail and Hekter Vision will be born... even if I have to get cesarean section on it's ass.
Re-integration has been but a speed bump upon return this year, mainly just traffically confused. My habitat is clearly the side streets and back alleys. Spose' that I've been burning up for over a month now and the next chapter is the culmination of it all - Earth Dance! Possibly the final summer festival for Hekter as he prepares himself with fresh mitten-wear for the upcoming blizzards of joy.
Instead of processing my playa time through sleep deprived saucy slang and freshly roasted thought pockets, I have found myself entangled in pure cordtitude - obsessed with alternative media and battling to just get the lil' digital tidbits tamed into their perspective corners. My digital realm has really become incredibly complicated, especially since dropping my computer on it's hard drive... now it's a special needs tablet and I'm fresh out of meds. Layers of cords for all types of electronic madness become vague in their functionality and mock me in my oneness. Perseverance will prevail and Hekter Vision will be born... even if I have to get cesarean section on it's ass.
Re-integration has been but a speed bump upon return this year, mainly just traffically confused. My habitat is clearly the side streets and back alleys. Spose' that I've been burning up for over a month now and the next chapter is the culmination of it all - Earth Dance! Possibly the final summer festival for Hekter as he prepares himself with fresh mitten-wear for the upcoming blizzards of joy.
My path has never been clearer ier than
ever and I have the answer to the collection of past moments and
future events: Hekter Vision.
Time to take my pink wig,
dj earmuffs, Yovanda my mental secretary & a small camera crew
around the festivals of the world. Wild on E!! This shit will have
to be cable or movied because I don't think Hekter Vision can be
edited and still have an ounce of meaning. All of my writing,
photography, random travels and apparent self-imposed lunacy have
been leading me down this trail... now it's a smooth groove on the
move!
Glow fur rabbit ears with built in carrot cam... Yovanda mounted to a fleshy hand piercing loop. DJ's, Dancers, Drugs, Dilerium, Delectable, Discombobulated, Dillusional. Art cars, prayer flags and el-wire... trails of breadclumps, raver fishin', urinal confessionals, human living tips... Beautiful women belly-dancing, Moroccon misfits, disco in 10 languages....
I ain't talking no Fanny Packston bullshit here, this is the real dank - fresh and live - boogers and all. Johnny Buckskin up to his chaps in faux fur and fine ass.
Therefore the burn was just a catalyst for juicing my soul sauce & mental floss. Playa lies dormant deep within my pores awaiting the crucial moment for exuding the time release formula. I will certainly meet some producers at Earth Dance that will be thrilled on the "Vision".
Apparently, Earth Dance is one of 55 festivals that happen simultaneously around the world. Sunday, there will be a prayer for peace at each of these festivals. Afterwards, the war-makers will feel a global tang of mourning and the seed of absurdity will be recognized in their evolving minds. One of the main founders of the peace prayer chooses to participate at Earth Dance each year. I am blessed and grateful for the opportunity to share my spirit in new meadows.
Most of my new Yovanda field notes are from San Fran folks... who all are going to be at Earth Dance. Am I on the brink of yet another tribe... if I ever make time to visit the city will I be able to resist the nectarific fairy traps? Certainly not!! How will I channel my joy of abundance? Pressing questions with pulling answers.
I have finally attained Mayan time, mentally of course. I will prepare a Mayan return party in 2012 at Priest Lake with my fuckleberry mojitos and special blends of the Cali-fari. They have been busy giving Cassiopeia the couch dance of her life... now Orion awakes to an extra dingle to his dangle.
Back to Flickrin' my Google bar over at Your Space after I pull a 5 foot You Tube and chip my Bluetooth.
If "Evolution" is truly the theme of next year's burn then can someone figure out how to run electronics without 4 cords a piece. Bluetooth is on the verge but seriously, these cords are really starting to fuck with me!!
Neptune has been a blast but it's time to get serious and set up a yurt... I don't see my treehouse ideas blossoming to fruition.
I think my next trip is to Mercury in a metabolic landcruiser made out of moop and belly lint. I have a feeling that is where all my socks and pant strings have exiled to.
Maybe that is where Hekter left Scottee on the last hot lap?
hhmm
in care of:
Yovanda McHekerten
Hekter McElliot
PS- I've got DVD's full of crazy shit I want to get out to the whole P-cubed tribe yet as previously mentioned early, my special needs computer is about to be dropped kicked into the gutter. Anyone have a good DVD burner that would be willing to burn around 20 dvd's (they fit onto the 4GB dvd's... cheap) and make sure they get to the crew?? I'll have a few down at earthdance so let me know if I can get some Northern help.
You all rock, I'm still trying to figure it all out... but not too hard!
Glow fur rabbit ears with built in carrot cam... Yovanda mounted to a fleshy hand piercing loop. DJ's, Dancers, Drugs, Dilerium, Delectable, Discombobulated, Dillusional. Art cars, prayer flags and el-wire... trails of breadclumps, raver fishin', urinal confessionals, human living tips... Beautiful women belly-dancing, Moroccon misfits, disco in 10 languages....
I ain't talking no Fanny Packston bullshit here, this is the real dank - fresh and live - boogers and all. Johnny Buckskin up to his chaps in faux fur and fine ass.
Therefore the burn was just a catalyst for juicing my soul sauce & mental floss. Playa lies dormant deep within my pores awaiting the crucial moment for exuding the time release formula. I will certainly meet some producers at Earth Dance that will be thrilled on the "Vision".
Apparently, Earth Dance is one of 55 festivals that happen simultaneously around the world. Sunday, there will be a prayer for peace at each of these festivals. Afterwards, the war-makers will feel a global tang of mourning and the seed of absurdity will be recognized in their evolving minds. One of the main founders of the peace prayer chooses to participate at Earth Dance each year. I am blessed and grateful for the opportunity to share my spirit in new meadows.
Most of my new Yovanda field notes are from San Fran folks... who all are going to be at Earth Dance. Am I on the brink of yet another tribe... if I ever make time to visit the city will I be able to resist the nectarific fairy traps? Certainly not!! How will I channel my joy of abundance? Pressing questions with pulling answers.
I have finally attained Mayan time, mentally of course. I will prepare a Mayan return party in 2012 at Priest Lake with my fuckleberry mojitos and special blends of the Cali-fari. They have been busy giving Cassiopeia the couch dance of her life... now Orion awakes to an extra dingle to his dangle.
Back to Flickrin' my Google bar over at Your Space after I pull a 5 foot You Tube and chip my Bluetooth.
If "Evolution" is truly the theme of next year's burn then can someone figure out how to run electronics without 4 cords a piece. Bluetooth is on the verge but seriously, these cords are really starting to fuck with me!!
Neptune has been a blast but it's time to get serious and set up a yurt... I don't see my treehouse ideas blossoming to fruition.
I think my next trip is to Mercury in a metabolic landcruiser made out of moop and belly lint. I have a feeling that is where all my socks and pant strings have exiled to.
Maybe that is where Hekter left Scottee on the last hot lap?
hhmm
in care of:
Yovanda McHekerten
Hekter McElliot
PS- I've got DVD's full of crazy shit I want to get out to the whole P-cubed tribe yet as previously mentioned early, my special needs computer is about to be dropped kicked into the gutter. Anyone have a good DVD burner that would be willing to burn around 20 dvd's (they fit onto the 4GB dvd's... cheap) and make sure they get to the crew?? I'll have a few down at earthdance so let me know if I can get some Northern help.
You all rock, I'm still trying to figure it all out... but not too hard!
|
Burning Bookshelf: Books about
Burnign Man
Sep/30/08 | burner
culture | permalink
Reviews by moontroll
In less three weeks, the Man will burn. Over 45,000 revelers, seekers, artists and freaks will gather around an effigy on a remote, desolate, dry lake bed in a forgotten corner of Nevada to drum, dance with fire and lose their minds to the magic of the moment. The energy of Burning Man 2008 is growing in strength daily, and Burners the world over can feel the pull to the playa.
In 2007, I went to Burning Man with a large group of Bellinghamsters organized under the Boogie Collective umbrella. We built a 40-foot tall Boogie Pyramid, threw all-night dance parties and lived communally beneath a billowing green parachute for ten days. While it has long been obvious that I wouldn't be returning to participate in The Event in the Desert this year, I have to admit that with the arrival of August, Black Rock City's invisible, inevitable gravitational forces are agitating my soul. I have other projects I am dedicated to this year, but that doesn't negate my natural affinity for ritual and release, intentional gatherings, inward reorientation and creative pranksterism.
I might seek for a vicarious Burn instead, browsing the many different books about Burning Man published in recent years.
In less three weeks, the Man will burn. Over 45,000 revelers, seekers, artists and freaks will gather around an effigy on a remote, desolate, dry lake bed in a forgotten corner of Nevada to drum, dance with fire and lose their minds to the magic of the moment. The energy of Burning Man 2008 is growing in strength daily, and Burners the world over can feel the pull to the playa.
In 2007, I went to Burning Man with a large group of Bellinghamsters organized under the Boogie Collective umbrella. We built a 40-foot tall Boogie Pyramid, threw all-night dance parties and lived communally beneath a billowing green parachute for ten days. While it has long been obvious that I wouldn't be returning to participate in The Event in the Desert this year, I have to admit that with the arrival of August, Black Rock City's invisible, inevitable gravitational forces are agitating my soul. I have other projects I am dedicated to this year, but that doesn't negate my natural affinity for ritual and release, intentional gatherings, inward reorientation and creative pranksterism.
I might seek for a vicarious Burn instead, browsing the many different books about Burning Man published in recent years.
Jessica Bruder's "Burning Book: A
Visual History of Burning Man" (Simon Spotlight, 2007) is a
dizzying piece of artwork, a shuffle-play of favorite Burning Man
deliriums throughout the years, designed by the venerable collagist
Martin Vensezky. It features photo contributions from hundreds of
playa snapshooters and loads of playa ephemera, like reproductions
of tickets and maps from past Burns, stickers and buttons from
different theme camps and all the little trinkety stuff that are
gifted out and circulated throughout Black Rock City.
The trajectory of the book is shaped to represent the journey to and through Black Rock City, and thus early chapters include drives through Gerlach and the first burns in San Francisco before introducing you to playa legends like Thunderdome, Dr. Megavolt, Contessa and the Belgian Waffle. There are chapters on music, vehicles and costumes/identity before the reader is brought face to face with the Man and his many inflammations. The end of the ride lands softly with a retrospective of David Best's temples and closes with a look at the city's dissolution in the chapter "Leave No Trace."
Dale Pendell's "Inspired Madness: The Gifts of Burning Man" (Frog Ltd., 2006) is a loose interpretation of the tribal, post-pagan gathering told through short, abstract episodic vignettes and sketches, which could be hell to read if Pendell wasn't such a interesting storyteller wading up to his eyeballs in the spirit and joy of each moment.
"This is Burning Man" by Brian Dogherty (Benbella, 2004) is much less abstract and subjective, and less fun too. It seeks to tell the story of what BM is, where it came from and why it is what it is from a journalist's perspective, though Dogherty claims no impartiality: he has been burning for over a decade. Warning: knowing *too* much about the people pulling the levers behind the curtain can spoil the fun and dull the mystery. Mostly, Dogherty does a fine job of translating the untranslatable and he has a deeper grasp than most on what draws so many diverse people to the desert gathering year after year.
What happens when a bunch of academics go to the Burn, drop acid and start taking notes? You end up with the book "Afterburn: Reflections on a Burning Man" (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2005), offering essays like "Utopia, Social Sculpture and Burning Man" and "Fires of the Heart: Ritual, Pilgrimage and Transformation."
Finally, I love the exquisite collection of black & white photos presented in A. Leo Nash's "Burning Man: Art in the Desert" (Abrams, 2007.) Nash's is an unusual look at Burning Man – his colorless, arid photographs focus on the diversity of art that is brought to the party. His camera is trained on the sculptures, interactive installations, vehicles and structures that populate the empty playa on the outskirts of the city. Nash has a natural gift for composition and capturing detail, though it is unsettling to view these otherwordly, fantastical dreamworks frozen in time and outside of their original dusty context. Rich and mysterious.
If you are a Burner left behind this year, you might consider buying or borrowing something from this reading list to keep your soul in alignment in the dim days of the Default World.
The trajectory of the book is shaped to represent the journey to and through Black Rock City, and thus early chapters include drives through Gerlach and the first burns in San Francisco before introducing you to playa legends like Thunderdome, Dr. Megavolt, Contessa and the Belgian Waffle. There are chapters on music, vehicles and costumes/identity before the reader is brought face to face with the Man and his many inflammations. The end of the ride lands softly with a retrospective of David Best's temples and closes with a look at the city's dissolution in the chapter "Leave No Trace."
Dale Pendell's "Inspired Madness: The Gifts of Burning Man" (Frog Ltd., 2006) is a loose interpretation of the tribal, post-pagan gathering told through short, abstract episodic vignettes and sketches, which could be hell to read if Pendell wasn't such a interesting storyteller wading up to his eyeballs in the spirit and joy of each moment.
"This is Burning Man" by Brian Dogherty (Benbella, 2004) is much less abstract and subjective, and less fun too. It seeks to tell the story of what BM is, where it came from and why it is what it is from a journalist's perspective, though Dogherty claims no impartiality: he has been burning for over a decade. Warning: knowing *too* much about the people pulling the levers behind the curtain can spoil the fun and dull the mystery. Mostly, Dogherty does a fine job of translating the untranslatable and he has a deeper grasp than most on what draws so many diverse people to the desert gathering year after year.
What happens when a bunch of academics go to the Burn, drop acid and start taking notes? You end up with the book "Afterburn: Reflections on a Burning Man" (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2005), offering essays like "Utopia, Social Sculpture and Burning Man" and "Fires of the Heart: Ritual, Pilgrimage and Transformation."
Finally, I love the exquisite collection of black & white photos presented in A. Leo Nash's "Burning Man: Art in the Desert" (Abrams, 2007.) Nash's is an unusual look at Burning Man – his colorless, arid photographs focus on the diversity of art that is brought to the party. His camera is trained on the sculptures, interactive installations, vehicles and structures that populate the empty playa on the outskirts of the city. Nash has a natural gift for composition and capturing detail, though it is unsettling to view these otherwordly, fantastical dreamworks frozen in time and outside of their original dusty context. Rich and mysterious.
If you are a Burner left behind this year, you might consider buying or borrowing something from this reading list to keep your soul in alignment in the dim days of the Default World.
"but most of the time you went for
it, you decided to be genuine, and it came right back at you"
photo by Ramona Mayhem
It’s like a memory now,
isn’t it?
The dust is out of your hair and your clothes. You’ve been sleeping
in your own bed again, and maybe you’ve been out to eat. And you’ve
gone to the refrigerator in the middle of the night, and you’ve had
whatever you damn well pleased, because you could.
And isn’t it sad?
I saw the full moon coming up the other
night, and all I could think of was the LAST time it was full, and
it was rising over the desert hills, and someone was saying on the
radio, “Hey, you hippies, have you seen the moon?”
Everything was still ahead of us then — the light and the dust and the music and the art and the wonder.
I waited a week before getting the playa out of my car. It turns out that after all that time and all that wind and all that heat, I discovered on the long ride home that I really really loved the smell of the dust, and I wanted to hang onto it as long as possible. And when I washed the car, the last physical remnants of the experience would be washed away, too. And I wasn’t ready for that. Not at all.
I had thought, after more than three weeks out there, watching those amazing people build the city and install the art, that I’d be really ready to leave. But of course I wasn’t. When it came time to go, it turned out that I wanted to stay forever, or at least until I could help take the city down. Complete the cycle.
But I couldn’t stay, the default world was calling, and when I hit the road, it was a jolt.
I couldn’t believe what a rush people were in to get off the playa; granted, they wanted to beat the crush, but even late Saturday night, the exodus had begun. People were going fast, passing each other, not caring about kicking up the dust anymore. That brought me back to when I was a kid, in the back seat of the car as my parents left the church parking lot, and watching cars cut each other off, all the rudeness and impatience. And I thought, all that talk of love and peace inside the church, and look at you now. And I’ve always believed that those parking lot scenes were the beginning of my disaffection with organized religion.
But that’s another story, and that wasn’t the feeling that stayed with me as I hit the road to Gerlach, and then past Empire, and then into the darkest hours on Indian land. Because there was too much to remember, and too much to look forward to.
There was all that selfless work: the fence, the Man, the Temple, the Cafe and everything else; the trucks, the hauls, the digging and pounding, the sweating and grunting. And all of it done in that incredibly harsh desert.
And there were all those times that you got the feeling that people cared about you, and you found yourself caring about them, too, in the most fundamental ways. You getting any sleep? You drinking enough? Don’t worry, man, it’s cool, she’s gonna come back.
And there were all those people who wanted to know more about you, what you were about, and you felt like it was ok to talk from the heart, and for a change you didn’t worry about what they’d say or think later. You didn’t feel the cynicism creeping in the way it normally does, because it was a different scene. Yeah, you still made fun of funky hippies (How many hippies does it take to change a lightbulb? None. Hippies don’t change anything”), but most of the time you went for it, you decided to be genuine, and it came right back at you.
Alright, alright, maybe I still have a little dust in my eyes. But it felt that way more than it didn’t.
I’ll say this, though: It wasn’t the crazies and party hearty-ers on the playa after the Burn who made me want to stay. The bizarreness and randomness and kind of desperate revelry weren’t much of a lure. People were too weird, too out there, too nutsy. (And it seemed like the words “leave no trace” didn’t hold much weight that night; there was lots of crap being tossed around pretty casually.)
But we don’t want to be a scold. There was something raw going on, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. You don’t burn a 100-foot Man and dance around the embers and get caught up in the swirling mass of bodies and come away feeling centered and grounded. You feel amped and ramped, and you want to keep that primal feeling burning for awhile. I get it. I got it.
But even that crazy scene, that culmination, is getting stowed away with all the other crazy scenes, both good and bad. The list of incredible moments is way too long, and way too personal, to hold anybody’s interest but my own for long. Besides, you have your own memories, your own incredible moments, and they’re going to make you smile, or make you think, for months to come.
And by then you’ll begin to forget about the hardest stuff; the packing, the money, the dust, the heat, the cuts on your fingers, the cramps in your legs, the pounding in your head, the dizziness, the lonely moments in between. And then, when you begin to forget about the hard stuff, when the weather has turned wet and cold, and the warm sun is only a memory, you’ll start to get the longing again.
And you’ll remember something funny, like, when you showed somebody the fancy laminated card somebody gave you, the one with the structure of a molecule on it. You didn’t know what the molecule was, but SHE did. She looked at the card, and then at you, amazed. And then she pulled open her shirt and showed you the tattoo on her chest, and it was the same molecule. What are the chances of THAT happening at the coffee shop tomorrow morning?
And how many times did something strangely special like that happen to you?
And how is it possible that those kinds of things happen so often in that place?
It’s a mystery that bears further investigation.
Godspeed, and thanks for all your kind words, and see you around.
Curley
From the Burning Blog at www.burningman.com.
Everything was still ahead of us then — the light and the dust and the music and the art and the wonder.
I waited a week before getting the playa out of my car. It turns out that after all that time and all that wind and all that heat, I discovered on the long ride home that I really really loved the smell of the dust, and I wanted to hang onto it as long as possible. And when I washed the car, the last physical remnants of the experience would be washed away, too. And I wasn’t ready for that. Not at all.
I had thought, after more than three weeks out there, watching those amazing people build the city and install the art, that I’d be really ready to leave. But of course I wasn’t. When it came time to go, it turned out that I wanted to stay forever, or at least until I could help take the city down. Complete the cycle.
But I couldn’t stay, the default world was calling, and when I hit the road, it was a jolt.
I couldn’t believe what a rush people were in to get off the playa; granted, they wanted to beat the crush, but even late Saturday night, the exodus had begun. People were going fast, passing each other, not caring about kicking up the dust anymore. That brought me back to when I was a kid, in the back seat of the car as my parents left the church parking lot, and watching cars cut each other off, all the rudeness and impatience. And I thought, all that talk of love and peace inside the church, and look at you now. And I’ve always believed that those parking lot scenes were the beginning of my disaffection with organized religion.
But that’s another story, and that wasn’t the feeling that stayed with me as I hit the road to Gerlach, and then past Empire, and then into the darkest hours on Indian land. Because there was too much to remember, and too much to look forward to.
There was all that selfless work: the fence, the Man, the Temple, the Cafe and everything else; the trucks, the hauls, the digging and pounding, the sweating and grunting. And all of it done in that incredibly harsh desert.
And there were all those times that you got the feeling that people cared about you, and you found yourself caring about them, too, in the most fundamental ways. You getting any sleep? You drinking enough? Don’t worry, man, it’s cool, she’s gonna come back.
And there were all those people who wanted to know more about you, what you were about, and you felt like it was ok to talk from the heart, and for a change you didn’t worry about what they’d say or think later. You didn’t feel the cynicism creeping in the way it normally does, because it was a different scene. Yeah, you still made fun of funky hippies (How many hippies does it take to change a lightbulb? None. Hippies don’t change anything”), but most of the time you went for it, you decided to be genuine, and it came right back at you.
Alright, alright, maybe I still have a little dust in my eyes. But it felt that way more than it didn’t.
I’ll say this, though: It wasn’t the crazies and party hearty-ers on the playa after the Burn who made me want to stay. The bizarreness and randomness and kind of desperate revelry weren’t much of a lure. People were too weird, too out there, too nutsy. (And it seemed like the words “leave no trace” didn’t hold much weight that night; there was lots of crap being tossed around pretty casually.)
But we don’t want to be a scold. There was something raw going on, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. You don’t burn a 100-foot Man and dance around the embers and get caught up in the swirling mass of bodies and come away feeling centered and grounded. You feel amped and ramped, and you want to keep that primal feeling burning for awhile. I get it. I got it.
But even that crazy scene, that culmination, is getting stowed away with all the other crazy scenes, both good and bad. The list of incredible moments is way too long, and way too personal, to hold anybody’s interest but my own for long. Besides, you have your own memories, your own incredible moments, and they’re going to make you smile, or make you think, for months to come.
And by then you’ll begin to forget about the hardest stuff; the packing, the money, the dust, the heat, the cuts on your fingers, the cramps in your legs, the pounding in your head, the dizziness, the lonely moments in between. And then, when you begin to forget about the hard stuff, when the weather has turned wet and cold, and the warm sun is only a memory, you’ll start to get the longing again.
And you’ll remember something funny, like, when you showed somebody the fancy laminated card somebody gave you, the one with the structure of a molecule on it. You didn’t know what the molecule was, but SHE did. She looked at the card, and then at you, amazed. And then she pulled open her shirt and showed you the tattoo on her chest, and it was the same molecule. What are the chances of THAT happening at the coffee shop tomorrow morning?
And how many times did something strangely special like that happen to you?
And how is it possible that those kinds of things happen so often in that place?
It’s a mystery that bears further investigation.
Godspeed, and thanks for all your kind words, and see you around.
Curley
From the Burning Blog at www.burningman.com.
not just knee deep...
Sep/05/08 | back in the
default world |
permalink
Edubious and I are back from a week of
wandering Oregon backroads in search of hot springs, starry night
skies, riverside campsites and peace of mind -- we had our
alternative burn on Burn Night on the banks of the Metolious River.
Ramona Mayhem is back in Seattle from Black Rock City. Hekter
McElliott is back in Humboldt from Black Rock City. All is well.
Destination Burning Man awaits the stories, photos and videos of
Burning Man 2008 from Ms. Mayhem and Mr. McElliott and will post
them as they start floating in, so stay in touch.
In the meantime, we really like these photos from The Blight.
In the meantime, we really like these photos from The Blight.
