7th of October 2007: Decompression
I crash in Deidre and Brian's hotel room, and wake feeling a little battered and ill but not too bad considering we did get round quite a few bars last night. Deidre and Brian are still asleep, so I slip out the door and take a fast bus to the guesthouse to pick up my gear and come back.
When I return Deidre is up and about and fairly chipper, but Brian looks to be on the brink of death and is staying in bed - his flight leaves in the early evening anyway. We split a huge room service sandwich and salad, commiserate with Brian then gear up for Decompression. In my case this process takes about fifteen minutes, in Deidre's case somewhere around two hours. To be fair I dress fairly simply in my kilt and t-shirt and a set of rings with little jingling bells which I picked up in Reno, while Deidre has a beautiful indonesian outfit, elaborate hair arrangement covered with little gems and clips and a multilayered makeup job with amazing inch-long stick-on lashes.
We finally make it out to the taxi and it's about a half-hour ride across town to the street which is being closed to host Decompression. We're looking for Burner-sign all the way, and finally we spot signs for "Decom Parking" shortly followed by a group of people in furs, glitter, masks and huge puffy boots, who can only be going to a Burning Man-related event.
The line to enter is still short when we arrive, and we join a crowd which to most people would be bizarre, to us is incredibly welcoming. We hug everyone in sight and compare dust experiences as we work our way to the entrance booth and pay a paltry $10.00 to get our tickets and hand-stamps, and then we're in. At the entrance we're passed by gothic stiltwalkers, hugged again by a guy dressed entirely in gold and targeted by wandering drummers. We're home.
Before moving on to see the rest of the event we meet up with Cody, who I last saw back during Exodus back on the playa - I was going to get chai at centre camp, she was in a car very slowly moving toward the exit and as is the way of things in Black Rock City we became friends in the space of about five minutes just through going in the same direction at the same time.
She's darkhaired and statuesque, with dark eyes that snap with lifeforce and like Deidre she's a first-timer but a natural Burner - she just rides the love and good energy here and shares it around. She's actually here with her mum, who's all set to do Burning Man next year on Cody's enthusiastic recommendation. They split off to explore the street for themselves while we head towards the nearest dance music from the Space Cowboys stage.
The day is, to put it simply, amazing. There is an entire street closed off for the purpose of Decompression, with around ten stages at intervals along its length playing all kinds of excellent music, and crowds are already gathering and dancing even at two in the afternoon. We work the length of the street, following the movement of the crowd, drawn into each group of dancers and spilled out again when we're tired, soaking up the atmosphere and riding the buzz.
There's plenty to see, too, apart from the extraordinary costumes and performances (all the poi and staff spinners, hula hoopers, acrobats and other performers are out in force, seeding every dance floor and moving through the spaces in between). The little park on one side of the street is full of sculpture which survived the playa, and between the stages are numerous interactive installations, many of which I missed the first time round and am overjoyed to have a second chance to see.
There are displays of photographs along the fences, numerous art cars (mostly rather battered from heavy use - and sometimes scorched), and several theme camps have re-assembled themselves, including the Liquid Latex Lounge (who will cover any body part you select in latex), Camp Collage (who assemble images of BRC into extraordinary digital collages which conjure up very strange atmospheres), The Hydrogen Economy (who give participants the chance to burst rising bubbles of hydrogen gas with a blowtorch, creating goodsized fireballs) and many more.
We get to try the Unfortunate Monkey Experiment, a climb into a blackened replica space capsule in which an animatronic chimp sits by a series of displays - we have to answer questions and hit buttons in a pre-defined sequence in order to reactivate the capsule and launch it into space (with excellent light effects, a powerful vibration and launch views on the screens making a very effective feeling of liftoff). The queue is organised and motivated by an energetic geeky nutter in a spacesuit who offers us cups of orangeade (declaring in a dramatic voice "Would you like some Tang....IN SPACE?").
As the sun goes down we get to the serious business of dancing like maniacs - the Space Cowboys' DJs are consistently excellent but Opulent Temple and the Deep End have joined forces to create a great string of sets too. The crowd is a riot of LEDs, glowsticks, flames and luminous paint, a constantly moving, glowing tapestry of light, and the energy is incredible.
Once it gets a little later we move to Cafe Cocomo which will be open after the other stages close. We catch The Zoopy Show on the patio, a bizarre rock/electronica band with giant monster masks reminiscent of The Maxx, gothic/punk cheerleader dancing girls and a demented puppet sidekick, then move inside where Doctor Booty is wrapping up and about to be replaced by the extraordinary DMT Labs, a mixture of dance music, guerilla theatre and comedy performance art.
We go right through till after midnight, and stumble out of the street exhausted but utterly joyful in the early hours, ears ringing, to fall into a taxi. All this without a drink all day.
When I return Deidre is up and about and fairly chipper, but Brian looks to be on the brink of death and is staying in bed - his flight leaves in the early evening anyway. We split a huge room service sandwich and salad, commiserate with Brian then gear up for Decompression. In my case this process takes about fifteen minutes, in Deidre's case somewhere around two hours. To be fair I dress fairly simply in my kilt and t-shirt and a set of rings with little jingling bells which I picked up in Reno, while Deidre has a beautiful indonesian outfit, elaborate hair arrangement covered with little gems and clips and a multilayered makeup job with amazing inch-long stick-on lashes.
We finally make it out to the taxi and it's about a half-hour ride across town to the street which is being closed to host Decompression. We're looking for Burner-sign all the way, and finally we spot signs for "Decom Parking" shortly followed by a group of people in furs, glitter, masks and huge puffy boots, who can only be going to a Burning Man-related event.
The line to enter is still short when we arrive, and we join a crowd which to most people would be bizarre, to us is incredibly welcoming. We hug everyone in sight and compare dust experiences as we work our way to the entrance booth and pay a paltry $10.00 to get our tickets and hand-stamps, and then we're in. At the entrance we're passed by gothic stiltwalkers, hugged again by a guy dressed entirely in gold and targeted by wandering drummers. We're home.
Before moving on to see the rest of the event we meet up with Cody, who I last saw back during Exodus back on the playa - I was going to get chai at centre camp, she was in a car very slowly moving toward the exit and as is the way of things in Black Rock City we became friends in the space of about five minutes just through going in the same direction at the same time.
She's darkhaired and statuesque, with dark eyes that snap with lifeforce and like Deidre she's a first-timer but a natural Burner - she just rides the love and good energy here and shares it around. She's actually here with her mum, who's all set to do Burning Man next year on Cody's enthusiastic recommendation. They split off to explore the street for themselves while we head towards the nearest dance music from the Space Cowboys stage.
The day is, to put it simply, amazing. There is an entire street closed off for the purpose of Decompression, with around ten stages at intervals along its length playing all kinds of excellent music, and crowds are already gathering and dancing even at two in the afternoon. We work the length of the street, following the movement of the crowd, drawn into each group of dancers and spilled out again when we're tired, soaking up the atmosphere and riding the buzz.
There's plenty to see, too, apart from the extraordinary costumes and performances (all the poi and staff spinners, hula hoopers, acrobats and other performers are out in force, seeding every dance floor and moving through the spaces in between). The little park on one side of the street is full of sculpture which survived the playa, and between the stages are numerous interactive installations, many of which I missed the first time round and am overjoyed to have a second chance to see.
There are displays of photographs along the fences, numerous art cars (mostly rather battered from heavy use - and sometimes scorched), and several theme camps have re-assembled themselves, including the Liquid Latex Lounge (who will cover any body part you select in latex), Camp Collage (who assemble images of BRC into extraordinary digital collages which conjure up very strange atmospheres), The Hydrogen Economy (who give participants the chance to burst rising bubbles of hydrogen gas with a blowtorch, creating goodsized fireballs) and many more.
We get to try the Unfortunate Monkey Experiment, a climb into a blackened replica space capsule in which an animatronic chimp sits by a series of displays - we have to answer questions and hit buttons in a pre-defined sequence in order to reactivate the capsule and launch it into space (with excellent light effects, a powerful vibration and launch views on the screens making a very effective feeling of liftoff). The queue is organised and motivated by an energetic geeky nutter in a spacesuit who offers us cups of orangeade (declaring in a dramatic voice "Would you like some Tang....IN SPACE?").
As the sun goes down we get to the serious business of dancing like maniacs - the Space Cowboys' DJs are consistently excellent but Opulent Temple and the Deep End have joined forces to create a great string of sets too. The crowd is a riot of LEDs, glowsticks, flames and luminous paint, a constantly moving, glowing tapestry of light, and the energy is incredible.
Once it gets a little later we move to Cafe Cocomo which will be open after the other stages close. We catch The Zoopy Show on the patio, a bizarre rock/electronica band with giant monster masks reminiscent of The Maxx, gothic/punk cheerleader dancing girls and a demented puppet sidekick, then move inside where Doctor Booty is wrapping up and about to be replaced by the extraordinary DMT Labs, a mixture of dance music, guerilla theatre and comedy performance art.
We go right through till after midnight, and stumble out of the street exhausted but utterly joyful in the early hours, ears ringing, to fall into a taxi. All this without a drink all day.
Labels: Burning Man, decompression, dmt labs, Hydrogen Economy, San Francisco, Space Cowboys
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