JRS VOLUME #13; ISSUE #17
Burning Man Update: The Jack Rabbit Speaks
Volume 13, Issue #17
April 17, 2009
Hi all, we’re right back at ya with another chock-a-block full rendition of the Jack Rabbit Speaks. As we approach May here (hard to believe), we at BMHQ are in the midst of a huge move of our entire office to a) storage, and b) a smaller, temporary space that will host our core administrative team, while the rest of us work from home until we find our ideal space. It’s gonna be odd until we’re all back together again, but hey, whaddya gonna do when your lease is up, right? Never a dull moment.
Oh! If you snoozed, you loozed! Burning Man tickets at the $260 level are now sold out! But if you are still in need of cheap tix, our ticket mavens have info (and urgings) about scholarship and low income tickets, below.
Beyond that, we’re really seeing things shaping up nicely for the playa this year, with a resounding number of art installations under construction (our list of honorarium art projects will be coming in the next JRS), theme camps revving up for interactivity, mutant vehicles rolling up, and people getting ready with their very own personal projects. Our city’s gonna be back at the 2007 size, the playa surface has seen some good moisture this winter, and things are looking good all around.
In this issue, we have the usual eclectic collection: from a Piss Clear anthology, an amazing poster featuring a hi-resolution aerial image of Black Rock City, Kill Da Wabbit (you’ll see), Nox Non Familea (you’ll see), an Earth Guardians Leave No Trace training camping trip, to the latest from Friends of Black Rock, and info on Nowhere! It’s all over the place, this issue is. Enjoy, and see you next time.
-Will
(Associate Rabbit)
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LATEST NEWS:
+ LOW INCOME & SCHOLARSHIP TICKET APPLICANTS: QUIT DRAGGING YOUR HEELS!
+ FRIENDS OF BLACK ROCK UPDATE
+ SWARM ART GROUP HELPS KEEP YOUR ROBOTS RUNNING ON THE PLAYA
+ AMAZING POSTER: HI-RES AERIAL SURVEY OF BLACK ROCK CITY 2008
+ PISS CLEAR BOOK IS OUT — 13 YEARS OF BURNING MAN HISTORY
+ KILL DA WABBIT
PARTICIPATE:
+ THE BURNING BAND IS STILL SEARCHING…
+ NOX NON FAMILEA
EVENTS & HAPPENINGS:
+ EARTH GUARDIANS LNT TRAIN THE TRAINER CAMPING EVENT – MAY 30/31 GRASS VALLEY, CA
+ NOWHERE NEEDS YOU! – JULY 8-12, SPAIN
PHOTOS & IMAGES:
+ LENNY JONES & CLAUDIA’S BURNING MAN VIDEOS
ADMINISTERRATA:
+ Want to unsubscribe from the JRS? Srsly? OK, here’s how: http://tinyurl.com/2rwqzx
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LOW INCOME & SCHOLARSHIP TICKET APPLICANTS: QUIT DRAGGING YOUR HEELS!
If you were thinking of applying for either of our Low Income or Scholarship ticket programs, you’re well advised to do it sooner than later. The deadline for applications isn’t too far off (May 30), and last year we did award all of the tickets before the deadline. So don’t risk being turned away, or us loving you a little less, because you waited until the last minute to apply. Giving careful consideration to all of your applications is a lot of hard work, and there are just two of us that review them all, so please go easy on us and don’t all apply the week before the deadline. Help us help you.
Full information on these two ticket programs can be found here:
http://tickets.burningman.com/#lowincome
Also please note: tickets at the $260 level are now sold out!
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FRIENDS OF BLACK ROCK UPDATE
**Black Rock Rendezvous**
Memorial Day Weekend, May 22-25
Mark your calendars now for the Black Rock Rendezvous – THE celebration of ALL things Black Rock! Experience a weekend of desert education with rock art, hot springs tours, cowboy and emigrant lore, rocket launches, fire, live music and more. It’s a leave no trace camping event with some meals provided. Don’t miss this one-of-a kind event. Limited tickets go on sale soon. Watch the schedule evolve at http://www.blackrockrendezvous.com
**On The Road Again**
This month Friends will be on the road to Earth Day events in Tahoe & Reno. Check our calendar if you’re going to be in the area.
http://www.blackrockdesert.org/calendar/
Come on out and celebrate the fact that we still have a planet to live on.
Volunteer in the Black Rock Desert! The BLM visitor trailer is now open in Gerlach. Come up for a weekend and help provide information to visitors – it’s fun, easy and yes, you’re trainable! Use the opportunity to camp on the playa without 50,000 of your best friends. Visit http://blackrockdesert.org/ volunteer for more info. While you’re there check out the new PLAYA CAM. It’s a straight shot towards BRC.
We hope you will support our efforts to preserve the unique character of the Black Rock Desert region by becoming member– join today at
http://blackrockdesert.org/support.
See you in the dust.
FBRHR
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SWARM ART GROUP HELPS KEEP YOUR ROBOTS RUNNING ON THE PLAYA
Are you building anything robotic for the playa? Learn from the experts. The Swarm crew writes:
“‘How do you keep all those robots from breaking down in the harsh desert?’ That’s a very good question! The SWARM art group had to overcome a lot of challenges to let their 6 high tech robots roam free on the Black Rock Desert. Planning a mechatronic project for adverse conditions takes a special effort and some planning. If you’re building robots for the playa, here are some hints on keeping them running!
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AMAZING POSTER: HI-RES AERIAL SURVEY OF BLACK ROCK CITY 2008
As part of its annual effort to map Black Rock City, the Burning Man Earth Project team (http://bmanearth.burningman.com) creates a very hi- resolution aerial survey of Black Rock City. The resulting image is a 2gig uncompressed TIFF approaching 9′ at native resolution (translation: it’s very detailed)!
In order to raise money for this ongoing project, Burning Man and Burning Man Earth are selling limited edition, museum quality 23″ X 36″ prints of this incredible image for $18 each. This is the only image taken at Burning Man that everyone is in, and at this resolution it is possible to find your own camp, representing the ultimate visual record of BRC 2008.
Get yours here:
You can also check out this same image as a tiled shot in the gigapan browser. (Note: You may have to download a plugin.) While there, check out Rich Gibson’s other shots he did for our project (search for “burning man earth”).
Thanks for supporting this project!
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PISS CLEAR BOOK IS OUT — 13 YEARS OF BURNING MAN HISTORY
Adrian Roberts writes to tell us of a newly-published anthology of the most excellent alternative playa newspaper, Piss Clear. Here’s Adrian:
“This month, RE/Search Publications published ‘Burning Man Live: 13 Years of Piss Clear, Black Rock City’s alternative newspaper,’ a 320- page anthology of PISS CLEAR, the playa’s favorite newspaper!
From 1995 to 2007, the alternative newspaper PISS CLEAR was a fixture at Nevada’s annual Burning Man arts festival, its cheeky name deriving from the Black Rock Desert’s #1 survival tip: ‘drink enough water so that you piss clear.’ For 13 years, editor and publisher Adrian Roberts and his staff of writers wrote about the colorful culture of Black Rock City, and their snarky and sarcastic tone earned PISS CLEAR its well-earned reputation as the “Vice magazine of the playa.”
Having started off as a sort-of sassy survival guide, PISS CLEAR quickly evolved into Burning Man’s snarky reality check, chock full of hard-hitting articles, acerbic rants, witty commentaries, and funny lists. Along the way, it ended up documenting – as it was happening – the growing evolution of the Burning Man event.
‘Burning Man Live’ compiles all 34 issue of PISS CLEAR, and includes a brand-new essay from longtime columnist Malderor, as well as an introduction from Brian Doherty, author of ‘This Is Burning Man.’ There are also yearly chapter introductions from Adrian Roberts. Telling it like it was, this is the alternative – and yes, opinionated – history of Burning Man.
Look for it in alternative, independent bookstores, or order it direct from RE/Search here: http://tinyurl.com/capoyq
Adrian Roberts, Editor”
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KILL DA WABBIT
Further proof there’s no need to be ON the playa to experience a little slice of Burning Man. William Cole writes to tell us his story:
“My name is William Cole and I am from Syracuse, NY. This past weekend, a group of folks all participated in an event that I felt obligated to inform you about. We call it ‘Kill Da Wabbit’.
Quick summary: My friends, family, and I built a 35 foot tall wooden rabbit structure in the back yard over the course of the past few weekends. This past Saturday/Sunday (the 28th/29th), we torched it at 12:00 Midnight to the strains of Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. The rabbit was lit via multiple flaming arrows. Fireworks of all types were involved. It was inspirational. It was a relatively well- documented event, with many pictures and videos taken by all sorts of volunteering friends and family. The first video has been posted online here: http://tinyurl.com/d5aq6p, and I will be spending time this week to edit the piles of raw photo and video files I have available.
I’d certainly see the value in you all sharing this video link with the Burning Man community. Explanation: I was recently visiting San Francisco to see some friends that now live in California, but have their roots ‘Out East’ and we watched a DVD called ‘Step Into Liquid’ all about surfers and surfing and the mentality of surfing in general. One scene in particular that spoke to me was about a small but dedicated group of people who surf on Lake Michigan. These guys aren’t in Santa Cruz, or even California, but they know they love to surf, and they enjoy hanging out together doing what they love. Like these Lake Michigan surfers, there are in fact people from Upstate New York that enjoy a good burn-related celebration in the theme of Burning Man, even if we don’t (can’t?) all make it out to Black Rock City every year. We’d still like to be part of the Burning Man Family!
Yer Pal, Will”
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THE BURNING BAND IS STILL SEARCHING…
For you, you loyal musician, one dedicated to playing melodic or atonal sounds on your instrument of fate. The Burning Band, a playa fixture since the early days of Burning Man, is always eager to meet new musicians and play with them while stumbling around randomly in search of good bars and less appropriate places to play. Do you enjoy providing random musical assaults? How about horning in on other people’s gigs? Throw in an occasional wedding, a few strange parades, and maybe a church service, and you’ve got a whole week of eccentric and erratic musical experience. So dust off your trumpet, sax, flute, snare drum, djembe, harmonica, lyre, bagpipes, bassoon or whatever and play with us! We especially would like you to join our camp, so that you will ‘always’ be available…in a playa sense, anyway. Contact the Burning Band’s Ostensible Leader, Carbon Buildup, at meezllz (at) gmail (dot) com, or the band’s high-pitched (piccolo) voice SINdy at flossyrabbit (at) earthlink (dot) net for more information.
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NOX NON FAMILEA
Hey, we thought this was a pretty cool idea, and thought we’d pass it along. That is all. Admiral Painjoy writes in:
“Hello JRS staff and readers!
Admiral Painjoy here from Spanky’s Village & Wine Bar. An idea came to me a couple weeks ago, and it’s sparked enough curiousity and support from the members of my village that I thought I should share the idea with the entire Burningman community. Most of the members of Spanky’s Village and Wine Bar are going to participate in an experiment this year… here it is:
It’s called NOX NON FAMILEA
(pronounced ‘knocks non famee-lee-yay’)
Roughly translated – ‘A night without family’
Nox Non Familea is an experiment in social interaction… A way to break free of the bounds of your comfort zone… A catalyst of new friendships… A commitment that you make, to yourself… A mission.
Here’s how it works.
You (or you and your significant other) pick one night at Burning Man to leave your camp and your friends. On that night, you seek out a new group. This group could be another camp in your village, a camp outside your village, or even a group of people walking down the esplanade.
But (this is important) it should be a group that in some way is slightly different from the burners that you would normally hang out with. For example, if you are young, find an older group… if you are extraverted, find a quiet group… if you are scientific, find an artistic group… etc
When you have found a group/camp, introduce yourself and let them know that you are participating in ‘Nox Non Familea’ and give them a short explanation. (Stop by Spanky’s Wine Bar if you want a flyer that you can show groups that you approach). Then ask them if it would be OK if you spent a few hours hanging out with them tonight.
You could hang out in their camp. You could go out and explore the playa with them. You could help them with their project. You could just party with them… whatever. But spend the time trying to learn about them (and from them). And tell your tale as well. Experience their vibe. Try to embrace their differences.
Some groups might not want to participate, and that’s fine. If that’s the case, just move on to another group. But I have a hunch that most burners would welcome you.
And at the end of the night, you will surely have a good story or two to share with your ‘familea’… and perhaps have some new friends… maybe even some new perceptions.
Life is short!
Break free of your boundaries!
Meet new people!
Share your life!
Learn from others!
Life is for the living!
Because, after all… “Omnus Una Manet Nox”
~Admiral Painjoy~”
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EARTH GUARDIANS LNT TRAIN THE TRAINER CAMPING EVENT – MAY 30/31 GRASS VALLEY, CA
On May 30/31 Earth Guardians will host our annual Leave No Trace (LNT) camping trip. If you are interested in learning more about why Burning Man is the largest LNT event in the world and how you can help contribute by teaching LNT, this is the trip for you. We will also discuss ways to green Burning Man with past participants who come each year to reconnect and reinvigorate.
If you come, you will become a certified LNT trainer, meet other active Burners, visit the beautiful Sierra foothills and have FUN at the same time. There is no charge for this training – it is sponsored by Burning Man.
The trip involves traveling to Grass Valley and “camping” at a private home in the country. We will conduct the class out doors. Each of you will be teaching a principle of LNT with an emphasis on how it pertains to Burning Man and the desert environment.
Please sign up for the course only when you are sure you will attend. This will help coordinate the assignments given to the participants for the seven principles of LNT.
On completion of this class you will receive a certificate as a LNT trainer from the National LNT organization. Your mission, upon completion, will be to teach your fellow residents of Black Rock City how to Leave No Trace and Green Their Burn as well as spreading LNT ethics throughout your community and beyond. Registration will close on May 9th. If you are interested, send an email to: lnt (at) burningman (dot) com
For more information on the trip: http://www.earthguardians.net
Contact: Canyon (aka: Catherine O’Riley) LNT Master Educator
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NOWHERE NEEDS YOU! – JULY 8-12, SPAIN
Nowhere is held in Spain from 8-12 July 2009. The European Regional Burning Man event, Nowhere is an empty space waiting to be filled by your imagination. A fuse to inspire creativity and participation, the extreme conditions and harsh beauty of the Spanish desert provide a blank canvas for people like you to make something out of nothing.
The diverse Nowhere community is made up of Burners and non-Burners alike, with people coming from across Europe, from the UK, from the States and as far afield as New Zealand… Still in its early years, with around 400 participants and 21 nationalities, you can make a big difference – we need artists, performers, builders, participants – in short, we need you!
Like Burning Man, Nowhere is built on the key principles of: – Self-expression: The freedom to be in a creative and liberating space – Radical self-reliance: You are responsible for yourself – No commerce: Bring all you need because you can’t buy it there – Leave no trace: Create something from nothing, and leave nothing behind – Participation: Get involved – this is not an event for spectators
Nowhere is held in a stunning location in the desert near Zaragoza, in Spain, although we keep the exact location secret until just before the event.
For more information, to buy a ticket, chat to the Nowhere community and to get involved, go to http://www.goingnowhere.org
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LENNY JONES & CLAUDIA’S BURNING MAN VIDEOS
We finally finished up our 2008 Burning Man Videos. It runs about 58 minutes in 6 clips, all shot in HD.
http://lennyjones.net/burn2008/burn08video/burn08videomain.html
{====================================================} ==============ADMIN ON AND OFF THE JRS============== {====================================================}
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Soundtrack for this JRS: Grizzly Bear
In Memoriam: RIP Tom Kennedy, Caleb “Shooter” Schaber