Wednesday, September 05, 2007

I've been away to Burning Man




A SERIES OF TREES.



A TREE SAW


A YARN TREE




BONE TREE


A GEOMA-TREE


CORN PORN TREE



Okay no, This is the YARN TREE

Stevie liked this tree a lot. I like it with her leaning on it. No seriously the tree had a nice Ronald Searle feel to it.

THIS WAS THE FIRST WE HAD SEEN OF THE MAN SINCE HIS PREMATURE LIGHTING.

They had erected him earlier in the day, all except his head.

Okay, I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan. But who could say no to a light saber battle with a thousand people? Well I certainly couldn't.

Yes complete with a chariots!

It's hard to capture the full scope of the battle.



After a bit people formed groups and ran screaming through other groups smitting there foes left and right.


The best quote from the battle? "Come over to the Dark Side and get laid!"


That prompted several defections.

Oy! A true skewering!





Me deflecting a thrust from a Jedi Princess.

An Out of focus shot of my Honey. I didn't get any good pictures of her kicking ass, but you can bet that she was indeed kicking major ass.



Later Preparing for a night on the town.


The beautiful Claudia, Kelly, Nicole and Stevie.



Now the boys.
Yours Truly, Andy, Lenny, Kaz, and Eric.








This is the club The Deep End, People danced shoulder to shoulder no matter the heat each and every day we rode past.
It was only open during the day.
This is one of the hundreds of Art cars on the Playa. You can jump on anyone of them that has room and ride to were ever its going. As you'll see after I post all the photos, they come in all shapes and sizes. The only real constant is that they are all fun.


This cute little art car would squirt a long stream of water out of his mouth. Always popular on hot sunny day on the Playa.

This is day one as my honey and I walked around. You can tell it's day one because niether of us are covered in dust yet.
My Zulu pith helmet was the perfect hat for the Playa.




My Beautiful lady in front of another Art Car. I never saw this one rolling around. But the Playa is a very large place.



A bicycle is the best way to explore the Place.


Unless you have a Zebra Art Car! So much Art, so little time to see it all.

Kind of a MA & Pa Kettle with a maratime theme.



At Burning Man the weather may shift from a beautiful sunny day to a complete white out (Dust strom) in 5 minutes.



As these pictures will demonstrate. What they don't show are the winds that go along with the dust.This whiteout came up so quickly that Stevie and I didn't have time to make it back to homecamp, or even to Center Camp.
So we sought refuge in Astor Place Imagined. A replica of NYC's Astor Place Station.


This is the actual Station in NY. In my haste to seek shelter I neglected to take a picture of the exterior on the replica. But the only real difference was that the replica's windows were translucent rather than transparent.


We were hunkered down waiting for the dust to blow over when who should stumble in but Mr.Lusty Lemon. Who had until minutes before had been serving Lusty Lemon Drops as gifts to those lucky enough to walk past his drink cart.


Once he was ensconced within the safety of the station, Mr.Lemon was kind enough to continue serving his delicious brew.
I won't tell you his recipe, but I will tell you it is the only way a lemon drop should be served.

The picture below details how thick the dust became during the blow.




As the dust subsided a large dragon rolled on to the scene.

Than twenty minutes later the dust blows past. A small dose of rain, and we are treated to a lovely rainbow.


Meet The Mayor of our little camp known as Sun Valley.



This is Lenny and his lovely wife and fellow documentor of Burning Man Claudia. They not only make the scene, they record as much the art and excitment of the happenings on the Playa as they physically can. Racing around the side by side recumbent bike/Gazebo.



Without Lenny and Claudia our Burning Man experience would not have been nearly as grand and magical as it was.




The Rainbow arrives!



Eric and his beautiful bride to be Kelly bask in the arc of the rainbow



Eric on top of the Sun Valley look out/sign post







Lenny shot Stevie and I under the rainbow

























































This is one of my favorite installations on the playa. Somehow I forgot to shoot a picture of the exterior. It was a space capsule on it's side, complete with colapsed parachute, and monkey astronaut in side. There was a computer game that you play against the unfortunate Monkey. But by the time I found him it had ceases to operate.

As side note if anyone knows this lady posing with the monkey, please let her know the picture is posted here. I was supposed to send her a copy but have lost her address.




http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5988312213578163311

Go to the address above and marvel at Zoetrope of swinging Obos.



these guys were each about four feet tall and seeing them swing above your head was truly fun, and at least for that little part of your brain that is monkey, it was a bit scary seeing what looked like 19 or 20 chimps swinging around in the night.



Hey a Telephone booth with a direct line to God. She was very friendly.
But right after I talked to her these guys in the art car below rolled up and took the booth apart. Something I said? Maybe.


More Explainations and lots more pictures to come later. I must prepare for another yellow porous day.














These verdant fields were on the way home from Burning Man,




Thanks everyone for stopping by and for your kind words.
My Honey and I were away to Burning Man.
More Photos and descriptions to come.

That's me on my bike in front of a bus with a full band playing on top, while two beautiful half naked girls on stilts dance around the worlds longest stripper pole.

This is the same bus in National Geographic type lighting.
href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_h35cbTlaaVs/Rt-KtH7RpDI/AAAAAAAAAQo/XQ9Bu-afW4o/s1600-h/Burning+Man.jpg">

24 comments:

diego cumplido said...

Hey Vincent. Thanks for the answer. I was anxious about it. It sounds like quite a nice project. I'm interested on it.

"I think I posted them I'll have to look through the archive."

Don't Worry, I looked through the archive and didn't find them (I believe that you didn't post them at least on this blog). Anyway, there's a nice "On the road" concept drawing of yours in the asifa animation archive.

I'll be glad to see more of those drawings around. Thanks Vincent.

diego cumplido said...

(I really didn't understand those photos)

Kenny P. said...

Welcome back, hippie ;)

I missed you!

Bobo said...

I'm sure Vincent Waller can afford to take luxurious 5 star holidays while he works as a bigshot on the biggest cashcow in animation, while his former out of work spumco buddies beg readers to make donations and sell their prized drawings over the net. Can't you just spare your friends some cash?

Vincent Waller said...

Yes BoBo (By the way I had a dog named BoBo. Great dog, but he ate my friends monkey) most of the merchandising money from the lovely little cash cow you speak of goes straight into my pocket. Why you ask? Well sir, because I am worth it.

Thanks Kenny, it's good to be back.

Corbett Vanoni said...

Welcome back, indeed!
Towering, colossal strippers make a great photo, but
there also appears to be some penilage behind you.
I expect you to rectify that in future photos.

Oh! And I saw Stevie on LA Ink the other night.
Very Hollywood.

- Corbett

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Wow! Great pictures! Any more?

Vincent Waller said...

Corbett, I'll try and photoshop all the cocks out.
Eddie
Yes about three hundred more. I'll try and put them up this week end

Bobo said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Corbett Vanoni said...

Well then - I'd like to believe that the gigantic teeter totter cock was posted for my benefit. :)

Thanks for the report, Vincent!
A truly bizarre but artistically gratifying experience, I'm sure.

- C

Kali Fontecchio said...

I saw a weinie!

murrayb said...

wow. burning man looks incredible!


this kinda looks like that station too!
casper BG
maybe they were translucent in the 50s? (better to silhouette your fedora and roscoe as you ascend the stairs.)

Marc Deckter said...

Wow! What a wild event! The polar bear in the middle of the desert is fantastic.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

WOOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!! What an interesting event! Why aren't vehicles like that cruising around my neighborhood?

Do you really have more pictures? I'd be interested to see anything you have.

Can I borrow a a few pictures to post on Theory Corner?

Jenny Lerew said...

So you are a burner, Vincent? Well, shoot! Nice pictures and a swell report(especially liked the white out shots--evocative!).
I didn't know squat about BM until 6 or 7 years ago when I stumbled across the blog of an old wild Catholic high school buddy of mine who'd written and posted all about it...I thought then What. The. Hell. and now--it's at least a little better known, but still plenty hard core...I don't think I'll ever manage the trip for various reasons, but that makes living vicariously through other people's photos all the sweeter. Thanks for putting them up.

And hey! you look spiffy with the cropped hair!

Bobo said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sean Worsham said...

WHOOAAAA, WHOOAAA, WHOOAAAA! I'm just impressed! You just had my dream vacation and I'm definitely going to be planning ahead for the next one to Burning Man. Finally a vacation where artists can commune, be creative and just have fun overall! I tried Amsterdam and Zwolle last year, but the pics to this already beats my vacation last year hands down.

Bobo said...

I hope to visit Burning Man one day. Is it free?

Vincent Waller said...

It works out to about $35 a day for 7 days. But you need to bring your own food and water.

Marlo said...

Thank you for sharing! everyone told me to take a look, and i am glad I did! SH*T!@

Vincent Waller said...

I'm glad you enjoyed them.Still more to come.
but I barely touched them over the weekend.

Unknown said...

Looks so beautiful and magical!!!

lquidstarzzz said...

Was this both you and Stevie's first trip to Burning Man?

I liked that you shot a lot of photos and shared a lot of photos.

I especially like the shot of both of you , holding each other, your backs to us - facing toward the rainbow.

Thanks.
P.S. You certainly have aged gracefully. :)

Vincent Waller said...

Hi Liquid Starzz
Thanks.
The rainbow picture is our favorite as well.
I think those moments are always best if you have no idea the camera is around.
I should point out that the shot was taken by Lenny Jones our camp Mayor and Burning Man documentor extraordinaire.