Welcome to Phoenix’s world-changing Salon

I return the wheel chair to BWB. I don’t want to mess up my leg but at the same time, I really want to climb the Steam­punk Tree­House and this is my chance. It was amaz­ing. In fact, all of the incred­ible steam­punk themed art this year was beau­ti­ful, a haunting…

The same chaos reigns over at Crude Awaken­ing. I have been hear­ing stor­ies all week from Mills about her con­cerns with the safety of this pro­ject, so I am a little wary of stand­ing too close. Yes­ter­day, they were having trouble get­ting pres­sure into the 500 feet of…

I want to make sure we get out to the Man before the crazi­ness starts, so we decide to leave. JJ and B and Karen come with us. I’m hoping for an art car but they’re all full.We tromp the dis­tance to the Man and see the arms raise as we get closer. He’s been rebuilt in…

The park is much more fun with a crowd. We are all sleepy from the late night before and lie on the grass mas­sa­ging each other’s backs and strok­ing each other’s arms. I want to go to the swim­ming pool again and every­one seems keen but they are lan­guor­ous in the heat…

I got a ride on a weirdly tall bicycle up 2 to Inter­tidal. Someone gave me an ice-cold grape Otter Pop.The swim­ming pool was glor­i­ously cold, one of those child’s inflat­able pools that was just large enough to sit in up to my neck. I was alone there for a while, and…

On my way to a swim­ming pool aethyrflux had told me about at 2 and Inter­tidal, I saw that the queue for the ”Talk to God” phone box was quite short. I picked up the phone.”Hi God.””Hi. Before we start,” said the voice, ”This is my male incarn­a­tion. As you know, I…

aethyrflux and I wandered off and had one of those magical Burn­ing Man nights where you meander across the playa talk­ing about mys­ti­cism and sci­ence, emer­gent con­scious­ness and cre­ativ­ity. We saw Swarm (I’d been look­ing for them for a few nights), four beautiful…

Back to Media Mecca around 2.30 to make it to the media art tour. There was another insane dust storm, so they plied us with liquor until the storm passed and then a grand golden dragon named Abraxas pulled up out­side the tent com­plete with war­ri­ors in Eastern-style…

Sig­ni­fier found out where the steam bath was, so I headed over there. Oh wow. Inside a dome, they’d built a low wooden bench around the edges and the floor had wooden floor­boards in a hexagonal pat­tern with gaps between. There was a keg of water that was boiling,…

I went to media cock­tails and we got hit by a wind­storm. This one wasn’t too bad and it was nice to hang out at the media space and sip my bour­bon and mango-pas­sion­fruit Rock­star energy drink (it actu­ally tasted pretty good…)Back to camp for dinner and a change of…

Spent the morn­ing read­ing a book on Burn­ing Man by signifier’s friend Jess Bruder. It’s bril­liant, one of the most com­pre­hens­ive and coher­ent com­pen­di­ums on Burn­ing Man that I’ve seen, filled with photos of art and stick­ers and the detritus of the cul­ture. Her…

I head into Centre Camp for coffee with Karen from the Flam­ing Lotus Girls. There is a man there hold­ing a sign. It says: I know some­thing about you​.So we walk up to him and ask him.”You think you’re normal,” he says to me. I laugh. Normal is about the last thing I…

I head back to camp, change my clothes and decide to wander around the playa. I figure I’ll jump on an art car and just let it take me wherever it feels like going. I find the Surly Bird only a few blocks away, a red delight play­ing just my sort of trance and we’re…