I do hope you can forgive my untimely manner as there's been much newness, and loads of this and that taking place, and yet I always manage to return to my sanctuary and respite of sorts here in the aethers of the otherweb.
It seems that while deep in the throes of 'undusting' myself, I flurried right past my ongoing ritual of taking script to screen.
Following another 'playa con dios' sojourn into the sun-bleached desert at the annual
Burning Man Art Festival, I've returned to a rather humdrummy place of commonplace other'isms. I've quite the game of catch up for the weeks of having neglected my rat-a-tat typeboard.
I've got a golden chance to make my way...
Not having abandoned writing altogether, I did complete round two of authoring the Playa Gourmet column with the Black Rock Beacon.
A task I take very seriously.
www.blackrockbeacon.org
Burning Man was visual and aural wonder. The weeklong white-powdered outing lent to a floodstorm of scintillating spectacles. I did my best to make use of as much of the available resources while out there in the howling wilderness.
The art'ing
The desert sightseeing...
The mayhem and trifled bits of insanity...
By day, a dusty metropolis.
By night, an intensely-hued, kaleidoscopic dreamscape in shimmering technicolor.
Nothing to see here, move right along.
The sort of sparkled place where you can bumble into mechanisms such as this here fire tornado, a human-made device which would swarm into a blazing whirlwind with just the mere push of a button.
...and the otherwise delicate dance between all the nose-to-the-grindstoning, the boundary-crossing, the ooh'ing, the awe'ing and the joys of requited love.
...while always leaving room for a cheese board or three, and delighting in the dusty-topped, desert offerings required from pounding the playa as a foodie 'Burnalist'.
Hailing from afar, the Kreme Burners camp came to the sugartoothed rescue. These fine humans took to the arduous task of bringing frozen-whipped, egg custard goodness, perfectly nestled into ramikins.
With lacings of almond and amaretto, the sweetstuff stood at attention in their respective chambers. Anyone who was fortunate enough to enjoy a proper tastybite was subject to an episode of sweet tooth vertigo.
Additional eats included a hot soup and sake operation, greasy-spooned, Quebec delicacies, S'moregasms, and NASA scientists serving up intergalactic stacks of melted, grilled cheese sandwiches beneath the waxing moon.
Photo Credit (c) 2013 Gayle Early
It's the sort of place where one is forced to brave a blustery gale trail just to eat with abandon.
Of course, no desert escapade would be complete without a Burning Man Petite Sirah. Only it wasn't petite at all, but rather a bold and dense, meaty blockbuster vying to be paired with a steak dinner (and it was, thanks Cameron!).
The week soon drew to a close and we faced Saturday eve knowing well that we had a man to burn, but not before we took to one hell of a performance before the man himself.
We dressed our ranks as 'band geeks' at full attention, yielding proper auxiliary uniforms from our shakos down to our Civil War striped boots to take to the earth's largest fire stage and collective of blazing performers.
Photo by Marc Leglise
The 'freaks' did will to dazzle the crowd with stupefying feats of cirque acrobatics.
Our performance was followed by the explosive delight of pyrotechnics of the highest caliber.
What a sandstormy spectacle of rapid oxidation, dust devils and ashes!
...and although I waited patiently for the savage twister to give birth to a wildly, cycling house set to land on an unsuspecting Wicked Witch of the East, it never did come into fruition.
Instead, we got exactly what we came for, and together, we watched silently as the man burned into cindery embers.
Photo Credit (c) 2013 Jonathan Altburn
Such a smoldering spectacle to behold, and now back to normalcy, into the ho-hum'ish place of normality where the braless are frowned upon, the hustle and bustle of juggling work, family, and dust-free play.
What a magnificent week of love, eats, furious writing, beautiful humans, and marvelous spectacles. Time now for my head to stop spinning, hot showers, rest, discipline, and to 'undust' back into the default world, if that is even within the realm of possibility.
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