9.09.2005
Atlantis
Funny thing about Black Rock City - it meets my definition of a city. That is, it can simultaneously exist for many people in many ways without losing a real sense of itself. Hippies, gear heads, old guys, young girls, the dirty and the clean - we were all there, and the city was with all of us.
Funny thing number 2: deserts are like oceans somehow. Because, like the ocean, in the desert you must actively work to protect yourself, or die. The dimensions are huge and the directions nature gives you - with wind and sun - are of unusual importance. And finally.. just the look of it. In BRC, the art cars swimming through the deep playa, curve of the horizon, the flat land spread around for miles - The Contessa, a mobile pirate ship, seemed in perfect harmony with the land.
Final funny thing about BRC: it goes up and comes down in short order. Every sunrise was one frame in a really jerky film of a trippy city being created, until Friday, when everything had been completed, and then we waited and watched and saw whether the machine would hold during the onslaught of people - sweaty, dirty, hysterical, high, tens of thousands of them.
And while I was out there, news trickled in of another city coming undone, of people who didn't protect hard enough or soon enough, of the strain of tens of thousands of people arriving dirty, sweaty, hysterical; little communities coming together and falling apart. The news came peacemeal everytime a new burner arrived. There was no news jingle intro, no commercial close, and without framing, listening to New Orleans drown was fucking awful.
Now that I'm back in my happy suburban crunk bling city of a town, reading Wonkette and TPM and listening to Air America, the loss of NOLA seems like (Write it!) like no disaster.
Funny thing number 2: deserts are like oceans somehow. Because, like the ocean, in the desert you must actively work to protect yourself, or die. The dimensions are huge and the directions nature gives you - with wind and sun - are of unusual importance. And finally.. just the look of it. In BRC, the art cars swimming through the deep playa, curve of the horizon, the flat land spread around for miles - The Contessa, a mobile pirate ship, seemed in perfect harmony with the land.
Final funny thing about BRC: it goes up and comes down in short order. Every sunrise was one frame in a really jerky film of a trippy city being created, until Friday, when everything had been completed, and then we waited and watched and saw whether the machine would hold during the onslaught of people - sweaty, dirty, hysterical, high, tens of thousands of them.
And while I was out there, news trickled in of another city coming undone, of people who didn't protect hard enough or soon enough, of the strain of tens of thousands of people arriving dirty, sweaty, hysterical; little communities coming together and falling apart. The news came peacemeal everytime a new burner arrived. There was no news jingle intro, no commercial close, and without framing, listening to New Orleans drown was fucking awful.
Now that I'm back in my happy suburban crunk bling city of a town, reading Wonkette and TPM and listening to Air America, the loss of NOLA seems like (Write it!) like no disaster.
