Check this out. This is an ice and snow festival that takes place in northern China. Kind of reminds me of Burning Man: Check it!
For everybody in New York, I'm having a party tonight (saturday). Drinkin' Drinkin' Drinkin' for all! 519 east 12th street, between aves A and B, #4F. Fun will be had.
So I was at a Burning Man-affiliated party tonight, and I ran into a few people I knew. I told them about our playground camp, and he started talking about how great it was last year....long story short, there's already a playground camp. I asked him how developed it was, and unfortunately he told me all about how amazing their monkey bars were. Apparantly it was a large ring-based monkeybar system that was custom built and rediculously cool.
This sucks. I'm pissed. We should talk. I haven't yet looked through the registry to see if that camp is there again this year (or to find their name, which I didn't get), but the way I see it, we should discuss the following options:
1) Try to compete with the other camp (not recommended).
2) Find a new theme, or at least another frame for the projects we'll be doing.
3) Screw it and pretend they're not there.
4) Find and email the other camp and talk to them personally about projects, location, and games. Maybe we could coordinate a playground 3:00 and 9:00, and such.
Let's get talking about this, guys. This is not a topic where only a handfull of comments will be enough. We need to have a completely democratic and thoughtful discussion to remain enthusiastic and excited about our theme, particularly after something like this.
Finally the long awaited update to Pavlik has been released in a new and improved version 2.1! Included with the annual upgrade is a ticket to the BURN complementary of Judy and friends. Haaayyooo!
First off, thanks to all you East Coast kids who have been planning and working on this for months... this website is very informative and the only thing that lets us West siders know what the hell is going on, while the theme for this year is simple yet extremly fun and easy to build on. Talking about building, if the theme is a play-ground I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned SWINGS. I was looking online and found a design that could probably be built for $200 - 300 with a trapeze attachment http://store.yahoo.com/backyardcity/settler.html .
Looking at the budget (awesome job btw) this is all adding up to alot of money but I believe I can recruit another 2 - 4 people to participate in our camp and diffuse our general costs.
Over And Out,
Pavlik Rujavlik
ps go santi cruz
Today i managed to get two small rugs/throws, one of which is a small soccer field! The other is really a soft purple blanketThey were only $2. I also got a nice variety of pillows; two large furry ones, a small red velevet and a blue velevt, a striped one, and a large fish-shaped one. These were only $20. It's hopeful they'll make it across the country on Reiss's exodus. If not, I'll find a way to get them to the playa. Also, I put an ad on craigslist saying that we needed pillows, rugs and blankets, and toys (and that we're broke bastards) and i've been getting responses. Just out of curiousity, how much is in the budget for this kind of stuff? Don't worry guys, I trust us all to spend moderately and wisely and/or figure out how the money situation will work. For now, it's part of my contribution. What's new on the couch front?
So this great idea was given to me that i think is fairly cheap 50 - 100 bucks maybe less. We construct a HopScotch thatlights up when you jump on it. Those unfamiliar with hopscotch can proceed to: http://www-cs.canisius.edu/~salley/Articles/hopscotch.html I am talking of the "American" variety. So the idea is this: We use big white plastic tiles for squares and line them with glowsticks or some other glowing wire. Then under the tiles we pless little pressure sensitive LED's so that when you jump on it the whole tile lights up we can make it deffirent colors and stuff... this would kind of look like those disco tiles in Saturday night fever, and other discos? so whats the consensus on that? It could be our Night time activity
Nothing to do with burning man. should you believe, as i do, that suicide bombers and those that sponser them should be tried for crimes against humanity, then you need to sign this petition.
We can do so much with this theme, i am so stoked we stumbled on it! Here are some ideas:
1. Make-your-own candy necklaces with fruit loops and licorice, kix and lifesavers, anything that can be strung on string. Obviously, people will eat as they make them. Should they melt on people's necks, they can ask others to lick it off for them potentially.
2. Cubbyholes for people to put their shoes in while hanging out in the chillout area or in the ball pen.
3. Finger-painting, most likely something i'll take on myself because it goes along with getting people to do art in my book. Can be combined with a body-painting station if someone's interested in that.
4. Sing-alongs (with guitar of course) and story-time with The Phantom Tollbooth or the Narnia books, you get the idea.
5. Organized Red-Rover, three-legged races, etc. to be listed in the published activity guide.
6. A board-game box with candyland and the like as well as coloring books which i bet we could get really cheap at salvation army.
7. Balls of all kinds, like wiffle ball, beach balls, etc.
8. Are we interested in silly games like spin the bottle, or are we leaning towards duck duck goose?
As you can probably tell, my brain-storming is beginning to fizzle out for this session. Let me know what you guys think!
This year's temple will look something like this: Awesome There are also other designs on the website, since this is a public yahoogroups. Check it out.
By the way, Monica and I received our BM tickets in the mail yesterday, and they are even more beautiful than last year. Maybe I'll scan them and post them on the site, to entice you to buy them early and be in the possession of this work of art.
This is something I always saw in skymall magazines and never thought of a good adult use for it until now. It's a configurable maze!
This also might be interesting... on the skymall home page, you can search for item number 0068465XAA (I couldn't get a good link). These are not, obviously, things for communal expense. If I make as much money as I hope this summer, I plan to get something like this and if anyone else is interested, let me know. This is gonna be so much fun!
I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, but our camp is going to be particulalry interactive...as in, VERY interactive (hell, we don't even have to be there for people ot have fun with it). In any case, we MAY be able to try to reserve a spot along the 9:00 circle, simply because people would come there for the more interactive theme camps. I know it's a lofty goal, but I think we have a chance. The question is whether we want that or not. It's busy territory and might be loud at night (though probably not much louder than anywhere else). I remember last year the 9:00 circle shut down at sundown (no clubs, anyway), which is akin to our camp. What do you think?
Thank you everybody who came over to Andrew's house on Thursday to discuss our camp and the various logistics and theme camp problems.
The following decisions were made:
a) We're going to rent a truck, preferrably the 22' one from Budget. The idea of buying a van was scratched due to the complexities of selling the vehicle.
b) We're going to register as a theme camp, which will give us the ability to choose a good location and an adequate amount of space.
c) Our theme camp will include: A lemonade stand called "Golden Showers"; a see-saw (Yura's lifelong dream come true); hopscotch; plastic ball pool for frolicking, and four-square, and whatever else that's related to recess.
d) Due to the various aspects of recess in our camp (see above), we've chosen to register and call the camp as: "Recess in Excess".
e) Helen will gather couches and rugs around San Francisco, and deposit them in an undisclosed location.
f) Bill will reserve scaffolding from a construction company in SF.
g) Due to the various aspects of running a camp, we've decided to assign committee chairs to execute various tasks (see below).
h) Probably we'll have about 15 people, and a budget of roughly $1500. Do the math. It's not bad at all.
Now on to the proceedings:
The following was discussed: (everything is actually intertwined, but I'll try to divide it up)
1) Budget (Estimates will be provided by Bill)
Given that the ticket to the event costs a considerable sum of money, we do not want to blow the camp budget out of proportions. The money will be spent on the following:
Shade structure: i.e. parachute, PVC Pipes, scaffolding to hold the center of the parachute.
Transportation: 22' Budget truck and gasoline expense.
Lemonade Stand: The wood for the stand, the lemonade mix, and the water (everybody contributes 10 gallons of water, that's not too much)
Various other expenses: See-saw, plastic balls, come lighting (tiki torches and magnet lights and el wire, 1-2 communal dinners.
All of this comes out to be about $1500. We need to decide how the expenses are going to be handled. Whether we set up a separate bank account, where everybody contributes their share and then we'll be able to pay out of it, one or two people having access to it, or should we just spend the money and then deal with getting it back? If you don't have a PayPal account, please get one. It's very easy and free. This will make transferring money between us very simple.
Also, if you buy anything for the camp, please save the receipt. Otherwise you can't be reimbursed.
The camp will need to have the following aspects to it:
Kitchen - Don't know
Shower/Graywater - Simon
Lemonade Stand - Ruth
Transportation - Andrew
Shelter - Bill
The names indicate the committee chairs. These people will make sure that these things are functioning. This does not mean that everybody else is not going to do anything else. You will help repsective committees in the execution of their tasks.
Also, if Burning Man is like DisneyLand for adults, we're a very appropriate camp. So if you have any other ideas about what kind of activities we can have for burning man community, you can propose them and we'll help you build them.
So, we still need to decide about the distribution of money or collection thereof, and other activities that might be fun to do.
I think this is going to be great, and there's not that much time left really. Rev it up.
Well, that meeting went really well. I know the details are going to be posted later. However, I thought of one thing we never finished discussion on, though we started it. How are we going to actually handle the communal money? Pay pal? One big account?
So I think thats the last big group descision, unless I'm forgetting something, which is always possible.
One little detail about our camp design: I am interested in having the door of the shelter face the corner instead of one of the streets. What do you guys think?
Two little details about picking a spot of land to make our own: where do we want to be and does the map that we can look at to choose from happen to show bathrooms, too? Last year's proximity to the line of porta-potties worked very well for our little camp, close enough to be very convient yet far enough away that the smell never reached us.
Again, these our details. We need to congratulate ourselves on the big issues we resolved last night. We fuckin rock and this is gonna be such an awesome camp! Huzzah!
I know this has nothing to do with burningman or our camp but i got to post this. Ten Years of Freedom is an independant film festival about a place I used to call home. Anyway check this out and go to the festival! I hope it opens your eyes to films, documentaries, and mama africa. Not to mention that if you come with me you might get to meet some cool people... like editors, directors, south africans...
Ahh! I'm so excited!
"On April 27, 2004 it will be ten years since Nelson Mandela was elected, restoring the political dignity of millions of South Africans.... From one of the most exciting and vibrant places on earth, Ten Years of Freedom will offer a distinct perspective of a dynamic society’s road to democracy. We will screen about forty films—documentaries, shorts, and fiction features-- made by the new generation of young and innovative South African directors. The festival films will provide an extraordinary glimpse into the lives of ordinary South Africans. These stories highlight the dynamism that characterized the liberation struggle and that is helping to build a society free of prejudice."
Ubuntu!
I've been thinking seriously about shelter. I've called around, done research, and here is the concept i've come up with that will provide the most shade and be the cheapest.
we rent scaffolding (about $50 a week for three sections, about 15 bucks a section plus a little bit for connectors and feet) . and then construct a tower out of it, about 20 feet high. (we could go even higher.... possibly 30 feet.) We secure the feet of the tower with re-bar, and then string heavy duty wire out from the tower to re-bar around the tower ( think of huge radio antennas and the wires used to secure them. ) we then put a huge parachute/tarp over the tower and tie that down around the tower. thus providing shade. cheap, effective and strong. We use 2 poles (made of anything) to form a door. and maybe poles around the periphery so that we have more headroom. If we have sails we could connect then to the tower and to the ground to make a very interesting design or front atrium.
Tarps
i don't know how big of a tarp we need. but they aren't too expensive, and we can get blue, brown or green.
Whaddaya say?
So we're meeting at 9:30 on THURSDAY at Andrew's house, and everyone knows where that is. If you can't make it then I guess you'll need to make your opinions known to someone who will. I tried my hardest to find a time that was both convient and optimal for all, and that didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Apparently, some of us have things that aren't necessarily important but take precedence over this meeting, and while that annoys the hell out of me, everyone is entitled to their own engagements. Anyways, despite wishing I didn't care, I do hope everyone can make it. Please, guys, try to prepare for this meeting by researching for whatever option you agree with. We'll be discussing shelter designs, truck rentals/ purchases, and a camp name. Seriously, I personally am tired of vagueness and want these specifics decided upon before I leave the city. It may still be months away, but those months will fly. The more prepared we are before the meeting, the more productive it will be. If anyone from California wants to particpate, Bill has offered to set up a live chat during the meeting. Get in touch with him either through this website, or his email. If you can't make that time, try posting your thoughts before the meeting on the website. Or, we'll just assume that you don't care enough and trust us to make descisions that will directly affect you without your input. Thats all for now. Hopefully we'll get enough done at the meeting and so not have to go through this again.
OK here we go. The more I've read up on the burningman web posts, the more they keep talking of horror stories in cleaning fees from the rental agencies assuming the company will even give you the truck. I have a better idea. How 'bout we BUY a truck. "Andrew's gone off the deep end here," right? Get this, if the Uhaul quotes for a truck are around a grand for a truck for the week, or at least 400 for a trailer, it hardly makes any sense if the trucks themselves cost only a few grand. I could do some looking around while I'm in SF and find a cheap one, hopefully for $1500 - $2000. Here's one on Ebay that closes in a day and is only around 1050 (will probably close at around 1300) Here's one on Ebay that closes in a day and is only around 1050 (will probably close at around 1300)
The truck we get will have gone through hell already, so I doubt anything we do to it will lower its resale value significantly. If we do a good enough job looking around, we should be able to buy one, use it (for as long as we want, mind you) and then resell it for what we got it for. Even if we get ripped off, it shouldn't cost us more than it would to get a trailer, or even a rental car for that matter. I'll be in SF for a few months afterward to sell it.
Don't underestimate the potential of this. If we can do this, we can stock the truck with as many friggin' 10 foot poles as we want (they're under a dollar each) and end up with a half dozen shade structures, and bring three and a half million gallons of water (in half as many bottles).
Since I have no way of knowing what the cali people think of all this discussion, I think the nyc people must meet, and preferably sooner rather than later. I propose we try to meet this week, maybe thursday or friday evening. I am going to try and contact all of you people but if you want to help me out, you can call me too. Thank god you all know my number as I'm not so keen on posting that!! Anyway, this meeting should be about finalizing the structure designs and nailing down a name for ourselves. After that we can register as a theme camp and get ourselves a location. Food planning is also something I feel we should discuss and end the vagueness. So I look forward to meeting with y'all and can't wait to hear what anyone not living in the nyc area has to say. Peace, love, and blue skies.
News from Jack Rabbit Speaks:
Pre-registration for mutant vihicles is available and mandatory for those inverested in operating an art car on the Playa. Information on pre-registration can be found here .
In other news, "Large Scale Sound Art" has been banned at BM, this refers to the large sound stages/clubs located at 2 and 10 o'clock. Some of you will be bummed out. I don't know why they banned it, but an explanation will follow from the Rabbit.
this is the full "how-to." He says the full thing should be 12' tall, which probably ends up about as wide in diameter. This is NOT BIG. In fact, it's pretty damn small, and probably not big enough to put our tents under. However, it will make for a nice chillout space, especially if we build two, and then we can find a way to drape a sail over our tents separately. Alternatively we should look into building a larger dome. Here's a site for buying them
and another site for building them
well lets not forget there's always my garage. Considering we'll be on a tight budget we shouldn't waste money on storage space. Also, I have heard of people on craigslist who offer their vans for the day (and themselves) to move shit around for a fee (like 40 bucks). I could probably organize a few craigslisters to give me their couches on the same day and then run by and pick them all up, or even look for a van myself. In any case, if the couches aren't the problem, the towing space will. I really, really don't think 4*4*8 will be enough for nearly all the stuff we might end up with. Nevertheless we should gather whatever we can first to decide if we need more space or not.
...which brings me to....SAILS. How are they coming? I've been looking around and, sails or not, we should be able to put up some rudimentary structures for next to free.
Here's an example
Maybe instead of trying for an overwhelmingly huge structure we can make a series of these and cover them with sails (or tarps if we can't get sails).
If we register as a theme camp, space will be no issue. I personally like the idea of Hydration Station (or perhaps Hydration Station #9, or #3, etc based on location), unless everybody wants to actually organize into a coherent theme (remember Green Penus camp last year, and how the entire camp was green). Since it looks like our group is going to be more individually based than that, I feel like Hydration Station is a good answer to the ever-present question, "so what camp are you affiliated with?" A camp like that should get a good location and all we would have to commit to it is work out "shifts" of having to tend bar (and build the place, which isn't really considered work). We could have a few structures similar to the one in the link above, and then somehow find a way to hang a sail or two over the tents.
Those are my two cents. lets get yours.
Claudia, thanks for the kitchen information. I think it's very helpful. Also, it was great to meet most of you, even though the state wasn't all that sober or organized. We'll have to meet up in the future without a party on the side.
But the reason I'm writing this is to discuss the question of couches for our chill area as well as the storage thereof. I talked with my friend Helen, a.k.a. Alyona, who resides in San Jose, but spends a lot of her time in San Francisco. Since she's basically the only one who is in San Francisco relatively full-time, and since San Francisco will be our launching pad for Burning Man, she is in a unique position to gather materials prior to the rest of us arriving in that beautiful city on the bay.
Helen said that first of all there are free couches/futons all over San Francisco all the time, and that we can actually get free couches/futons on Craig's list. I checked this out, and it was true. Craig's list does indeed list free couches on a daily basis, in San Francisco and its environs. The supply is there, but the transportation of it and the storage is problematic.
There is a solution to the problem. Given that we're A) planning on renting a trailer to attach to a car to transport various big items, which will be about 4x4x8 size, we could rent storage space in San Francisco starting whenever, (which is about $35/month for that size), where we would be able to store the couches and all other things. Renting such a space would also enable us to verify that we will fit all our stuff in that trailer. In addition, if we had a space, we could coordinate to find a truck/SUV somewhere for a day to pick-up couches/futons around San Francisco, and haul them to the storage space for safe-keeping.
What do you guys think of this? Does this sound like another crackhead idea coming to my mind?