Lee.org

My friend Warren’s movie, Pony Trouble has just made it into the Netflix catalog. Groovy!

http://flowtoys.com/

I’ve got a   Flow Wand :-)

I had forgotten about this gem. Check it out. http://sodaplay.com/

Last night I went to the opening of the Ocean Beach Fire Pits. Rbca and Yasi’s fire pit was ready and burning. There was another one there as well. :-) This is a huge thing. Public, utilitarian, (mostly privately) funded art made by my friends :-)

Sorry I don’t have photos but here’s some extra info…

Ocean Beach Fire Pits – Burners without Borders

Last year, the National Park Service almost banned fires on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, due to consistent problems with trash and debris. Since then they have received thousands of letter and are considering designs for permanent fire pits to be installed April 14.

But just making the designs isn’t enough–we need your help! Namely, we need to raise money to pay for this art. Although the Park Service could only offer $3,000 for the project, we’ve already been able to raise $27,000 of the $42,000 needed.

What you can do: check out these designs, and then go to our donate page and make a contribution. You can contribute directly to BWB via PayPal

Continue reading ‘Ocean Beach Fire Pits’ »

Leonardo is the Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. It is put out by MIT Press. It isn’t the largest publication, but it is fairly prestigious.

The Serpent Mother is going to be on the cover of Volume 40, Number 4, due out in August, 2007.

Download large version of this image

Read some previous articles in Leonardo about Burning Man.

This is dumb. Don’t read it.

Continue reading ‘Stupid Optical Illusion’ »

This in from BMORG. Every one of these projects is worthy of appreciation.

We’ve just completed our biggest and most challenging grant cycle yet, with 240 proposals to review, up from 170 last year – a 35% increase.
The competition was intense, and our community has generated more intriguing projects than ever before.

We’ve awarded 30 grants for playa installations. We thank everyone for your interesting ideas, your creativity and your energy – and we look forward to another year of amazing art on the playa. Grant committee members are: Larry Harvey, LadyBee, Crimson Rose, Beth “Bettie June”
Scarborough, and Mark Van Proyen.

Please note that additional grants are being given for projects in the Pavilion and the ManGrove that surrounds the Man, and those will be announced in the near future.

The funded projects are:

Acavallo: Quill Hyde of Brooklyn, NY
http://www.acavallo.org
Note: Acavallo is a mobile venue for acoustic music and performance on the playa. If you want to perform, please contact Quill via his website.

Ant Mischief by Ben Shearn and Tim Kirwan of Colorado Springs, CO http://shearn.net/ant/ant.html

Apocalypse Stagecoach by the Ren Jinn Bao Puppet Theater of Thailand, Mexico, Indonesia, Taiwan and the Bay Area http://www.apocalypsestagecoach.com/

Big Rig Jig by Mike Ross of Brooklyn, NY http://www.bigrigjig.com

Black Rock Glacier by Ehron Asher of Centennial, Colorado http://www.serendipityarts.com

Burninator X by Bill Codding of San Francisco, CA http://www.4bc.org/burninator/burninator_x.html

Celtic Forest by Laura Kimpton, Bob Hofmann and Jeff Schomberg, Bay Area http://www.celticforest.net

Cone by Hans Sachs and Manuel Kretzer of Karlsruhe,Germany http://www.burning-man.eu
Note: These German architecture students are looking for a few American crew members. Please contact them via their website.

Cornucopic Contraptions by Charlie Smith and Jaime Ladet of Atlanta, GA http://www.howhowhow.com/contraptionsburn07.html

Crude Awakening by Dan Das Mann, Karen Cusolito, Black Rock FX, Mark Perez, Pyrokinetics, Nate Smith and MonkeyBoy, Bay Area http://www.headlesspoint.com/crude_awakening/

Cubatron Cone by Mark Lottor of Menlo Park, CA http://nw.com/nw/projects/cone/

Dragon Smelter by Dan Macciarini of San Francisco, CA The Dragon will again turn aluminum cans into art:
http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2006/06_art_funded.html#dragon

Green Glass Man by Rodman Miller and Gina Karaba of Seattle, WA http://theamazingmillers.com/greenglassman2007.html

Green Shoes by Dadoc of Oakland, CA
http://www.dr-seano.com/greenshoes

Guardian of Eden by Kate Raudenbush of New York, NY http://www.kateraudenbush.com/ click on New: Guardian of Eden

Fata Morgana by Orion Fredericks of Oakland, CA http://www.orionfredericks.net/newsFataMorgana.htm

Homouroboros by Peter Hudson of San Francisco, CA http://www.hudzo.com/homouroboros
(NOTE: link is direct to a PDF download. While he did receive a grant, Peter still seeks help to complete the project – check out the PDF or contact peter isat hudzo.com)

Kinetic Steam Works by KSW of Oakland, CA http://www.kineticsteamworks.org/KSWBMGRANT07/

Koilos by Michael Christian of Berkeley, CA http://xianspace.com/bm2007/

Mechabolic: Cyborg Speculations in Machine Metabolism by Jim Mason, Chicken John, Dann Davis and Michael Christian http://www.whatiamupto.com/mechabolic/index.html

Museum de Materiel Retrouve by Trieops Treyfid of Los Angeles, CA
http://treiops.com/bm2007

NeverWas Haul by Shannon O’Hare and Kathy Tucker of Orinda, CA http://www.xlounge.com/neverwas/neverwas_proposal.html

Samhein: Into Her Dreaming by Paul Bagley of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma http://web.mac.com/paulbagley/iWeb/site/Welcome.html

Steampunk TreeHouse by Sean Orlando of Oakland, CA
http://www.infinityeight.net/TREEHOUSE07

Swarm by Michael Prados of San Francisco, CA http://www.orbswarm.com

Tall Grass by Glenn Easley of Vashon, Washington http://tall.grass.spire.googlepages.com/

Tasseograph: The Trash TeaHouse Temple by Shrine and TukTuk of Pasadena CA and Portland, Oregon http://pdxdiversion.org/tasseograph.html

Temple of Forgiveness by David Best & Tim Dawson, Petaluma and Stinson Beach, CA http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thetemplecrew

U-ME by Rex Norman and Damian Janssen of Carson City and Sparks, Nevada http://www.MutantVehicle.com/u-me.htm

A friend asked me for some career advice lately. Here’s what I wrote:

I’ve been at it for almost 40 years and I still don’t know what to do when I grow up.

Find something you love and do it. Hope it makes you enough money to live. If not, find something you like so you can do the things you love.   Or turn it on it’s head and do something you can make a lot of money at that won’t kill you or turn you into a zombie (hard to do) and then do the things you love. If you find a break or a sweet spot, take it. Rinse. Repeat. Die happy.

Be genuine.
Read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
Read “Blink” and “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell.
Charlotte strongly recommends reading “Pathfinder” by Nicholas Lore

Has pretty pictures of what FLG has worked on :-)

View the FLG Press Pack

(I forget exactly which week I did this… but the date is close…)

Friday – went to Tech Shop. Learned (pretty much) how to use a CNC plasma cutter. Saw their 3d printer and laser etcher. Met a cool film guy who is making his own camera lenses. We’re gonna hook him up with our neighbor’s friend who makes films like Oh Saigon. Also met some guys who said they had to buy all black T-Shirts because “we never knew when we’d be on camera on Mythbusters”

Saturday – Went to the Ferry Building Farmers market and got the bestest “walk into my mouth!!!” chicken and foccacia. Then we went and made a playground! Well, we actually planted bushes in front of a local school and filled planters for the childrens’ gardens :-). And we met a lady who works for the YMCA who asked us “do you know anyone who knows anything about robots? I’m trying to motivate my robot team” Oh boy, do we! Wee!

Then Starfish
Sunday

Baked bread. Box Shop. Lunch w/ Jeff. More with the box shop