Sketchbook Page 19: Trippy characters

Green Cartoon

Water Spirit Painting

This creature emerged from a water stain that marked this large piece of board. 

Water Spirit
24" x 24"
Acrylics on board.

Sketchbook Page 18: Caveman Creature

Burning Man Stories: Lamplighters 2009

The Lamplighters are a theme camp and public works project on the playa.  Every year they erect hundreds of tall, stable wooden lampposts along the main roads of the city, and every night of the event, they light them with oil-burning lanterns.  These glowing beacons really help the festival-goers at night to orient themselves, and they provide light and a beautiful ambiance to the city. 

In 2008 (or was it 07?...), I was passing by the Center Camp Cafe in the early evening, when a young brunette woman approached me and invited me to volunteer to be one of the Lamplighters.  I asked her "what it involved", and was told it involved cleaning and filling lanterns, and then walking through the city hanging the lit lanterns on the posts.  I was obliged to decline, as I was tripping on mushrooms at the time, and I told her I was just too high for that right then.  She seemed disappointed but understanding, and I saw her rally others nearby who were more receptive.  I felt a bit sad that I was not able to help when I was asked, but I knew I could make up for it by volunteering at future time.

In 2009, I put that plan into practice, heading over to the Lamplighters Village.  The recruiter who approached me out in front of the entrance was surprised at my exuberance to join up.  I'm guessing not all are so glad to participate. 

Once in the village, I was given a uniform and assigned to a group.  The uniform consists of a long white robe with a flame design around the bottom, and a matching head scarf.  A barrel of cloth robe ties in all colors gave participants a chance to customize their outfit, and I chose a blue tie to tie around my waist, pulling in the robe.  I chose to be a "bearer" or some such title, as opposed to a "lifter."  This meant that I would carry a long pole on my back, weighted on both sides evenly with 12 total lanterns.  The lifters would come up behind the bearers and, at the same time, lift off one lantern from each side using a pole with a hook, and then lift it and place it on the post. 

When all were ready, the leader gave a little invocation, declaring our intention to light the city.

My group was assigned to the 9:00 spoke from the Man, which meant we got to ride on the top of the Lamplighters' "art car", really a very utilitarian-looking stripped down truck with a top deck, and painted all red.  This was my first really good ride on an art car.  Standing ten feet off the ground, riding all the way from center camp to the Man, (about a half-mile), I got a great view of the inner playa with all its many art pieces and festive crowds. 

At the Man, we disembarked and lined up, and we were given the poles we were to carry.  The burden was not heavy, but we had to walk slowly to keep the lanterns from jostling too much.  The routine went like clockwork, having been done countless times, and coordinated by the "helpers" who were more experienced and able to relieve anyone that was having trouble. 

Along the way, the citizens of Black Rock City poured out their love upon us, mostly in the form of shouted thankyou's, as hugs and handshakes were not practical in this situation.  Some bestowed gifts, or performed for us in various ways as we passed.  It felt great to be so appreciated, as I myself have always appreciated the work of the tireless Lamplighters. 

Afterwards, the leader of our group, or "Luminary," invited us to look back at the avenue we just lit up, and indeed it was a beautiful and rewarding sight.  Then we were given medallions for our participation, a new one of which they design each year.  We were also invited to party that night at their large camp, and in effect, be part of them.  The option to camp with them was left open.

This was a great time and a moving experience which I recommend to anyone who goes to Burning Man. 

"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own."  ~Ben Sweetland

Condoleeza Rice caricature

Condoleeza "Vampire Whore" Rice

Uma Thurman portrait / caricature

Actress Uma Thurman

George Carlin portrait / caricature

The late comic legend, George Carlin.

I now practice Compassionate Non-Violent Communication.

My experiences have left me with one central dictum: to commit violence is the worst thing I can do, firstly because it always comes back to me.  Also, because I feel we are all one, so doing violence to others is doing it to myself.  I recently encountered an established method of living this ideal.  I read a book about NVC, a form of communication that seeks to eliminate violent judgements and dominating language.  It instead focuses on the beautiful and universal needs that belong to all beings, and on the feelings that accompany the fulfillment or frustration of those needs. 

I am part of a group that meets weekly to practice this and learn more.  We first check in with how we are feeling and what needs are active for us (either being met or not met), and then as individuals, we bring up issues or challenges that we'd like to work on, and our facilitator, James Prieto, helps guide us through it in the format of NVC. 

People are generally able to see other people's needs as valid and important.  We tend to get into conflicts when our strategies to meet those needs bump into other peoples' strategies for meeting their needs.  So, in those situations, rather than judge and attempt to dominate the other person, we return to the level of feelings and needs to restore the human connection.  When both sides have had their needs heard, then a new strategy can be found that seeks to meet both party's needs. 

The core of the communication is as follows: observations, feelings, needs, requests.  Evaluations, or judgements tend to break the connection between people, and are not brought into the conversation, except to break them down into the core feelings and needs they are attempting to express.  Observations, on the other hand, are unbiased statements about what is happening.  So the format for a typical interpersonal problem would be: "I observe that you ____ (did something that made life less than wonderful for me).  This makes me feel ____ (a negative emotion like sad, angry, scared, etc), because I have a need for ____(some primal need like safety, support, love, respect, etc.) .  Would you be willing to ____ (clear, positive request)?"  Demands engender resentment, as they are a form of violence, implying a punishment if the demand is not met.  Requests are open to discussion and refusal, but make clear to the other person what need of yours they can meet to make life more wonderful for you. 

I highly recommend this method of communication to all, as it can make your relationships stronger, and make you stronger as a person.

Abstract Cartoon

Burning Man Stories: 2007 Dust storm with parachute

In 2007, we launched the Cartoon Commune theme camp. 

Part of our setup included an art wall made from discarded chalkboards which we erected in a fan-fold formation for stability.  Guests were invited to use chalk on the chalkboards and markers on the backs of the chalkboards.  The art wall was a hit and no less a person than Vincent "Nipples" Waller, a lead animator on Ren and Stimpy, and Spongebob Squarepants, stopped by to visit, giving us an inside look at his animation company, and drawing a quick Stimpy toon.

Over the top of our camp, we slung a parachute that was to act as shade for the communal area.  This proved to be a mistake.

We had been told not to use parachutes for shade structures, but we had successfully used it the prior two years as a second cover for our large dome.  Having the wood and steel to anchor it down was a stable arrangement, but this year (07) we only had rope and two EZ-up's (store-bought shade structure), plus our domes and the art wall to anchor this parachute.  A 12 foot pole held up the parachute in the middle, and it gave us a pretty nice shady central area.

Mid-week, the wind picked up and soon, our parachute was buffeting this way and that.  It was lifting the EZ-ups off the ground and threatening to tear up our whole camp.  Apparently, parachutes are made to catch the wind, and that's just what it did, catching what must have been 50+ mph winds.  We who were in camp did our best to hold the parachute down, at first by holding the edges in place.  Some of our neighbors came over to help us get control of our cover, and we all stood there for quite awhile holding the parachute with our arms above our heads.  Soon this became tiring and I found a way to bundle the parachute under me and lay down on it.  We didn't know how long this windstorm would last, and some others grabbed chairs to wait it out.  Well, that lasted for about two hours.  We finally decided to take down the parachute, since we didn't know if the wind would blow all day or stop.  We untied it and folded it up.  The severe flapping of the parachute had wrecked both EZ-ups, bending the aluminum bars out of shape, but the rest of our camp was still intact. 

We learned that year not to use a parachute as shade cloth, without some seriously stable structure beneath it.  There is clearly a right and a wrong way of building a shelter at Burning Man, and over the years.  We gradually learned to work with the wind, and let it pass through the structure rather than trying to block and overcome it.

San Francicso Burning Man Decompression 2012: photos

It was my privilege to attend the San Francisco Decompression event last year.  This is a big party to unwind from and celebrate Burning Man.  Some photo highlights:

Cardboard robot

Puppet Theatre

Black Rock Roller Disco on the street

free radical with a robot

Tesla Coil

How to Remember Dreams

I've been interested in dreams for a long time.  Remembering them is an important first step in studying ones own dreams.

The best way is to keep paper and pencil, or a recording device by the bed so that when you wake up in the night you can record a quick impression of what you were dreaming about.  Later, the details can be filled in as you recall them, cued by your notes.  Dream-journaling can be fun and rewarding, and I have filled pages with long descriptions of dreams. At other times, it seems a written description can't quite capture the feelings and utterly outlandish happenings in the dreamworld. 

Not wanting to interrupt my sleep for long writing sessions, I found a way to incorporate mnemonic devices into my dream-recalling strategy.  I would just remember one element of part of a dream and repeat it over and over to myself.  Later, on waking up again with a new dream in my mind, I will select an element from that and add it to the first one which I can usually still recall.  In this way, I build a list of smaller elements, each of which triggers the memory of the dream that contained it.

When a dream is just beyond recall, I find the best way to remember it is to try to go into the feeling of emotion that was associated with the dream.  If I can feel that feeling from the dream again, sometimes I can remember the whole dream.

John C. Reilly (Dr. Steve Brule): Caricature

Dr. Steven Brule is a fictitious doctor on a parody TV news show, played by John C. Reilly, a talented but under-recognized actor.  See his hilarious antics on YouTube.

John C. Reilly as Dr. Steven Brule from the Adult Swim Network TV shows Tim and Eric's Awesome Show Great Job, and Check it Out! with Dr. Steven Brule

Beautiful Laguna Sunsets: Photos

I'll say it again: I am privileged to live in this beautiful place, Laguna Beach, California.

Sketchbook Page 17: Mandala

Mandala

I draw and give away caricatures of people on the beach!

Look for me at Main Beach, Laguna Beach on the weekends, along the boardwalk around the lifeguard tower and the playground.
In the Summer, I will be going out to draw almost every day.
Tips are grudgingly accepted!

Laguna Beach, California's Main Beach: Sketches

The Main Beach Boardwalk, Bird Rock, Catalina

Northern end of Main beach, Old Man Rock (the cliff resembling a man's profile)

Burning Man Stories: The Belgian Waffle or "Uchronia" 2006

This was my third year, and the event was still fresh for me.  Having an expanding theme camp meant a lot of time in camp building and setting up, and I didn't really get out to the open playa for a few days.  At night, over the skyline of camps on our street a brightly colored light shone up from some distant point on the playa.  It looked to be from a very wide light source, and pulsated and changed colors.  A campmate came back saying it was a huge structure located way out past the temple, which was surprising: it was extremely bright for being that far away.

Soon after, I found myself walking across the playa in the daytime.  In that spot on the horizon, there was indeed what looked like an incredibly massive amorphous structure.  Getting closer to it, it started to take on the shape of a polar bear walking on all fours, colored similar to the playa, a beige-tan.  It just kept getting bigger and bigger as I approached, until it seemed to loom like a 7-story building, and I could then discern the lattice-work of its walls.  It was made entirely of identical 20-foot long 2X3's that were interlaced in cross-hatching networks forming a lattice work that curved like an organic shape, forming a large shaded cave-like interior and three wide open entrances.  The wind could blow right through the structure, as the surface was not solid.  I later learned that the construction team had started with three reclaimed telephone poles mounted vertically in the ground, and then nailed plank after plank in place to form the sweeping lattice.

It was just stupendous.  Inside, it gave the feeling of a cathedral of sorts, with the high soaring ceiling and vast floorspace.  No furniture or other features decorated this room: the focus seemed to be only on the beauty of the structure itself, except I did notice a small platform tucked into the latticework at the level of a stage, or DJ booth.  It was shady, from the several layers of latticed wood beams overhead, and there was some shielding from the wind, but the dust, when it picked up blew right in with no impediment. 

As spectacular as it had been during the day, it shone brilliantly at night.  The sides of the structure were lit up with colored floodlights, which explained the bright spot on the horizon.  Walking out to it at night with members of my camp, the music was a distant thump at first, but booming techno when we arrived, only to find the place packed wall-to wall with exuberant dancing people.  There was hardly room to maneuver in there and the scene was a bit too much for some.  This was a perfect slice of rave culture: dancing in a giant wooden latticework in the middle of the high desert at night, with a thousand or so other fabulously-garbed people.  Other nights they played other types of music, including Latin.  It was definitely a big highlight of that year.

When I'd first seen it, I had started calling it the Polar Bear, and some others adopted that name for it too.  The name for it that really seemed to stick was "the Belgian Waffle," and everyone called it that, since the team that built it was from Belgium, and the latticework resembled a waffle.  The actual name for it was "Uchronia: Message out of the Future." 

In later years, other teams have adopted this technique of building a structure from a composite of small beams.

"Ascension Dance" Sketch

The rhythmic drumming and chanting, and the raging bonfire spur the dancer as she waves her heart banner, calling forth the ladder of souls, beckoning all to ascend to the highest level of consciousness.

"Change Dancer" Sketch

The Change Dancer
The youth dances his passion, breathing joyous life energy into the stultifying system of domination and routine.

Dreams and Dreaming

What are Dreams?

Some possible answers:

Crash-Test Laboratory:
One purpose for the dream-state is as a kind of crash test laboratory in our minds. We can test out any scenario that we are likely to encounter in life, or a symbolic version of it, to see what we might do, and how the result will play out.  We can repeat this as many times as necessary to find the course we will most likely take.

Virtual Playroom:
Where we can do, say and be anything we want to in a consequence-free context.  Though we usually don't know it's a dream, our subconscious gets to play with all the component elements of our waking, conscious life: people, places, events. All of these focus our emotion. 

Training for the Afterlife
Is there a connection between the dream state and that which we experience after the death of our physical bodies?  Is the fluid physics-less world of dreams analogous to a body-less journey into the void that our souls will presumably embark upon?  Dreams may be a kind of "practice" for the real thing, a gymnasium for us to stretch and build our spirit-bodies for what lies ahead.  Or it may just be a reconnecting with where we were before birth.


Dreams are real...

They are very real in that they affect us.  A dream can confer a feeling that stays with us the whole day, even a whole lifetime.  They can empower or disempower us.  These effects exist in the real world, and in this sense, the dreamworld invades into the waking one.

Dreams are inexplicable...

Can anyone fathom or explain how we all lie down and have the most amazing, wondrous, impossible and barely-intelligible experiences, and then wake up and go about our day as if nothing happened?  What happens in dreams so often defies description.  Things so strange that they cannot be put into words seem perfectly normal in the dream-state. 

Dreams are important...

What would waking life be without the knowledge of this other, truly bizarre state of consciousness?  We need some respite from a world where the laws of physics are unyielding, a place to relive, or pre-live any experience we like, from our lives or anyone else's.  It is one place where we are unbounded, infinite, and able to connect with the divine.  This must be a source of hope and comfort.

Italy trip photos and stories

Soon after arriving, I took a little stroll around the grounds of the villa in which I was staying.

The local restaurant was I'Giuggolo, a pizzeria, and an osteria (tavern).  My first meal there was not the best, as I could not understand the menu, and I was not expecting their style of pizza, which is very thin and with not much sauce.  After that, I used google translate to decipher the menu, and had only good meals thereafter.  The translation was fair but left something to be desired.  For instance, "mixed sheep" referred to cheese, not meat.  Similarly, "nuts buffalo", was not what it sounded like, but rather, small pieces of buffalo cheese.  Some of the best meals here were the sausage and onion pizza, pappardella pasta with wild boar, double-buttered bacon cheese ravioli, and fried bread balls with cured ham and soft cheese. 

 

Posters seen at the newsstand on the corner near my local bus stop.

My first experience walking around a Piazza, or plaza.  This is at Piazza Savanarola, named after the infamous instigator of the Bonfire of the Vanities.  Just a quiet city park, surrounded by typical Florentine architecture.

The train station at Santa Maria Novella, church and plaza, near the Piazza della Italia Unite.

Decided to take a stroll downtown, the 3 miles or so from the villa.  Captured a number of sights on the way: the Soccer stadium, a footbridge over the train tracks, a distant cathedral-like structure, and so many beautiful buildings, alleyways, and street scenes so typical of this place.

Piazza San Croce

Bernini Palace

Palazzo Vecchio, the old palace.

Piazza della Signoria

Sculptures in the Loggia dei Lanzi

Inside the Palazzo Vecchio.

A villa in Fiesole, outside of Florence.

Pages from a book on Grotesques at the Uffizi bookstore.

Boboli Gardens at Pitti Palace

The Porcelain Museum at the end of Boboli Gardens.

Bardini Gardens, next to Boboli Gardens

Pitti Palace

Basilica of San Lorenzo

Il Duomo di Firenze

Inside the Duomo

From the roof of the Uffizi

That's it!  I love Florence!