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Well, damn, lazy me didn't write an entry for Thursday. That's mostly because things are getting going real crazy out here, and the last thing I felt like doing was open up the old puuter to bang out an entry. But I suppose it really isn't that much work, even out here on the playa, so here goes my reluctant entry for Friday. Here around CyberBuss camp we chide one another for not getting out of the camp enough. We're like chicks slowly making our way from the nest. And no one is chided more than me. Every time I leave our camp, I'll get maybe 100 yards before turning back thinking of some new project or something else that needs to be done. For example, two people were setting up a 5 phone network, just 5 phones connected by 1000 feet of phone wire, placed around the city, operated like any other phone except that you press a little buzzer to get people's attention. Playa Phone. So: why not broadcast the conversations over the air? So now Radio Free Wrybread is also home to the Playa Phone, which during evening and night hours is a non-stop bantering that is almost always incredibly interesting. I blend it with the music we play. The quality of the banter is a tremendous comment on the type of people who are here: super intelligent, unself-conscious, all of it like very good theater improvizaiton. Some people out here might look less than flashy (even if they're in some crazy costume), but most are super intelligent and all that. This is a far cry from the infantile burnout Rainbow Gathering crowd. So now the full title of the radio station is "Radio Free Wrybread, Functioning In Conjunction With Radio Free CyberBuss, Home of the Playa Phone Lounge." I have most of the calls on tape, and when I get back to the land of the civil I'll post them to Strange Noises. As far as the Burning Mann experience beyond my little corner of it, it's clearly thriving. Every time I go for a walk I get lost, because all the points of reference change so quickly. Things are happening everywhere. There's lots of little processions following this or that mobile statue, making noise and activity. There's the piano bike, which is a piano driven by like 5 bikes, pounded on by all. There's some humungous flailing styrofoam monster called the Nebulous Entity, with long narrow styrofoam arms that flail like an octapusses, and from within is played backwards music. There's lots and lots of stuff like that. If I had to evaluate the art of Burning Mann, I'd say most of it is just goofs, probably born in offices by coffee klatches of subversives, but some of it is stellar. Like the life-size copper tree that spouts cold water from it's branches, under which is a constant mass of naked bodies. There's lots of other neat little things, and I'll try and get into those later. This is, I suppose, a journal of Burning Mann to me, and so far those have nothing to do with my experience here, for good or for bad. And if that doesn't change I'll be kicking myself in the ass for years probably. Anyway, Black Rock City is thriving now, really feels like a city. And the citizens are, from what I've noticed, totally dedicated to their citizendom: one of the mottoes out here is "Leave No Trace", and I have yet to see anyone so much as leave a cigarette butt on the ground. One area where most people are remiss, however, is when it comes to handling their piss. There are many portapoties here, but they're in concentrations of like 20, and most people are a good walk from the nearest potty. So, when you're hanging around camp drinking a few beers, and when the alcohol jettisons all that water you've been drinking all day, those frequent long walks to the porta potty get a little grueling. And there are so so many empty gallon water jugs lying around...... I just heard one story of someone in our camp with 5 full "piss jugs" in his car, and he and his girlfriend mistook one for water, and each took a swig before noticing their error. He said it tasted like vitamins. I won't comment on my pissing habits, but if you're curious, I'll refer you here. Well, it's Friday night, and lots is happening here in CyberBuss Camp, and I want to shower the playa off me to feel just a smidgen clean. I'd describe more, but my puuter battery is dying.
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