A while back I read an article by Harmon Leon in which he tracks down and interviews several of his ex-girlfriends about… himself. I thought it was kind of cruel and kind of brilliant simultaneously and it gave rise to a similarly brilliant/cruel idea of my own. Okay a totally derivative idea, but taking it to the next level. What if I put together a survey/report card on my sexual performance and submitted it to all the girls I’ve slept with for completion?

I think the fact that I’m now seriously considering it is a testament to my maturity – clearly I no longer foster any foolish dreams of getting back together with any of them, nor to I particularly care if it changes their opinion of me. On the other hand maybe its incredibly immature and shows that I really do care what they think. In either case it’d be an interesting exercise and potential learning experience.

I think I’ll set it up using a service like SurveyMonkey as an anonymous survey so they feel more secure in being honest and so that I don’t traumatize myself with specifics.

Any suggestions for questions/ratings systems?

Last night I serentypically found myself at Draw and Amira’s for a potluck. As entertainment Amira produced a jigsaw puzzle, a photomosaic of a Van Gogh self-portrait. For those unfamiliar (and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to find a good photo anywhere on the net) a photomosaic is one of those images that consists of thousands of smaller images that when combined and viewed from a distance come together to create one large complete image. So, each puzzle piece had one, or fragments of several tiny photographs, making completing the 1000 piece puzzle that much more challenging.

Great, thrilling I hear you say. You’re on the edge of your seats. Or not. But let me tell you what working on this puzzle taught me about being human and happy.

Several of us sat down around the table to work on this puzzle together, and everyone had a slightly different technique. Stella began by collecting all the red pieces and assembling them, others started working on assembling the edges and corners. Both proved to be pretty effective techniques, though both also eventually plateaued in terms of effectiveness. As for myself I started collecting all the pieces with pictures of airplanes and helicopters on them which proved to be pretty inefficient.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most people would assume that the lesson I learned had to do with the most efficient way of tackling this problem of completing the puzzle, but its not. No the lesson I learned had very little to do with finishing the puzzle project. What I observed was that solving the puzzle wasn’t really the most important thing. What was important was deriving pleasure from the exercise. No I didn’t find a lot of interlocking pieces that went together, but I did enjoy collecting together and looking at all of the aircraft photographs. That’s it. Simple really. I enjoyed what I was doing, regardless of whether or not it was the most efficient route to the ultimate “goal” of the game. I was just having fun.

For someone who has historically gotten very uptight about goals and efficiency and “doing things right” this is a pretty profound thing, and what’s more I didn’t even think about it until now, a day later upon reflection. Wow. I was playing. Really playing. Without consideration for right or wrong, winning or losing. That’s pretty cool.

…you’re really obligated to take it and run. So it goes with this next idea. Well, just look at the photo I saw;

Its an album cover – of course! It also perfectly fits as an opposite and opposing force to the Cloudburst Artcar. Yes an umbrella that makes it rain on you. What an awesome costume! Probably also easier to make – though a huge pain in the ass to carry around – water ain’t light.

So nicely surreal.

A piece of the puzzle may have just clinked into place. Yesterday I found out about an idyllic fruit farm in B.C. that’s run by an older couple that bring in seasonal help for the fruit harvest. I could harvest cherries for two to four weeks. A working vacation! In a lush valley of trees, mountains and lakes. There could be worse things.

Maybe I could even get into some trouble with the B.C. burners and make that beat poetry film I wanted to make with Shayne Avec I Grec. Not a bad month. That sounds like a contract to me, a contract of my own making. I don’t even know what month this is I’m looking at… looks like usually late July, early August – thanks Google.

Mind you that’s prime wedding video season, but who wants to shoot wedding videos all summer? Not I. Maybe a few.

But the virtual house tours seem like the way to go. I just want to wander around mansions in Westmount and get paid for it – I’ll admit it.

Oh, put up a screen in the living room. We’re ready for winter now.

Except maybe that beach party…

Gotta get on with Cirque du Boudoir for that one. Also feelin’ a real yearning for some circusy fun.

Back to the wonderful life. Bye bye Internetland.

Just started painting the table base I found on Notre Dame earlier this summer, after brushing and scraping the heck out of it. JoJo pointed out the hearts in the pattern and suggested red, and that’d be awesome, but. I have orange paint that I found on the street, and orange is cool, like red but less serious, more chill. Saftey man, safety.

So I painted it. I think its housepaint. No biggie. Sometimes I painted in big swaths, sometimes little strokes. Sometimes I globbed the pain on, other times I was more judicious. The paint was free. Fuck it. Time to play. Experiment. Just have fun. The end result really isn’t important because I didn’t spend a cent on it. I told myself as I worked – “Maybe I’ll have to strip it – cool. I’ve never stripped metal before, bring it on! I want to learn every different thing about this process. This doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, but it might teach me to make one.”

Wow. Nice one baby.

Its exactly the perspective I need to have to achieve the things I want to achieve. And it happened when it started to rain and I thought – fuck it, I’m having fun. I’m staying outside and painting. Which works up to a point, and then you need to stop.

Every year when I leave Burning Man I have a list in my head of things to do the next year to make my experience better. And every year I forgot 90% of those things by the time Burning Man swung around again. So, this year I’m going to put some of this stuff down on… well not paper. Paper is oldskool. Anyways…

These are things I wrote, miserable and grumpy, hot and tired in my tent Sunday before they opened the gates. One of my tent poles was snapped and the mesh in my tent only helped to granulate the dust into a near mist.

• Be Comfortable: That means taking care of myself. Have good food, good footwear, chapstick, vinegar, moisturizer, a nice chair, a nice tent, etc. Nobody will take care of you but you, so do a good job of it.
• Be Over-Prepared: Bring more than you think you’ll need. Then there’s no stress. Have backups, bring things that you *might* need. Remember that things will get lost, gifted away, broken, etc.
• Make it Easy: Its hot, chances are good I’m not sleeping enough, if things aren’t easy they won’t get done. Workflows and spaces should be streamlined and simplified so that tasks require next to no effort.
• Don’t be Cheap: This goes with being over-prepared. That tent or those shoes are no use if they break halfway through the week. Likewise, this is a vacation, buy the expensive wine, at least one.
• Trust Your Gut – Even if it Means Conflict: If my brain says that this guy shouldn’t climb this tower, then I should say so. If my brain thinks that tarp is totally going to blow away and take our car shelter with it, I should say so.

Those are the big line items, and so many little things fit into them. For instance putting a big 2ft x 3ft poster of the playa map up in the kitchen with a whiteboard underneath to write down names and addresses would help everyone keep shit clear in their heads. Just simple design decisions like where to place things can make a HUGE difference.

Okay, I was going to write more but I have to pack for Boston. One more road trip adventure before this burn is truly over. Here we go again.

I’m awake and I have a Robin Hood hat on. What more do you want? I have somehow managed to complete, well one of my 5-list tasks without even leaving the house today so whoopie for that.

There is a vague scent of natural gas in the kitchen ever since I cooked up some bacon. I’m not sure whether or not this should be a cause for concern. I could leave a note for my roommates not to light any matches or lighters, but that seems like jumping the gun.

So I’m heading out for my daily… what did I call it? Paces. What the fuck does that mean? Well it sounds more meditative and sophisticated than walk, and as came up in conversation today words are like magic so choose yours wisely. I just try to use them in unusual contexts and coax out those that don’t get used enough. Shed some pixie dust when you take them out of the ‘ol box right? Exactly. Its the only damn thing I’m good at, but when you realise how much you can do with ‘em, well, words are pretty damned cool. Which is just a lazy way of saying fantabularistic. You all got that right? See. Magic.

Well the breeze is calling through my open window, along with the honeybee drone of a hedge trimmer somewhere.

Off to Boston tonight so not much time, a quick walk, some inhaling of paint fumes, hasty packing of whatever will fit my frame and we’re off. Hours of driving, like a video game but with a declining gas gauge instead of a mounting scorecard. Alas. Off to paces.

That’s me, Idea Man. At Burning Man I was once called an instigator and another time told “You always have great ideas.” Now I’m starting to learn how to implement them, part of which is just editing. I have too many ideas and it takes deciding which ones to flesh out and actually go after to get anywhere. So… I thought I’d do an idea dump for next year’s Burn for which I’m already geysering schemes.

1. Shoot my Dust to Dust documentary on the building and dismantling of Black Rock City. I wasn’t planning on doing this for a couple more years, but the 2010 theme of The Metropolis is just about as perfect as they come for this project. I’d like to do it big, but I’m going to have to be adaptable and do whatever ends up being possible. It may well mean two or more months in the desert. I’m okay with that. Why? Because DPW chicks are hot. You ladies know who you are. Raaaaawr!
2. Cloudburst art car. Probably not a 2010 project. It doesn’t particularly fit the theme and its going to take a lot of friggin’ work, which is why its worth starting to think about now even if its a ways off. The idea? Similar to the Hope and Fear flowers by the Do Lab only instead of turning cranes into giant flowers turning a crane platform into a giant floating cloud capable of dumping rain on participants and throwing lightning bolts at night. So yeah, like I said, lots of money and work, but totally possible and totally cool.
3. BRC manholes. Pretty simple. Create and install manholes in BRC. Designing covers would be fun and putting things underneath them could make for fun surprises. Again kind of hard though, forging metal and all. Heavy shit too. Fits the theme though.
4. An urban exploration exhibit. Ideally I’d like to create a drain simulator, but I think that’s hella ambitious. Instead it’d be much easier to throw up some big backlit urbex photographs, maybe some videos on old TVs and some writeups and reflections on the unseen and abandoned city. I think this one could be fun, combining two of my favourite things – definitely not a solo project.
5. Rampage. Just like the video game of ages past. Build a city out of say foam and let people rampage through it wreaking massive urban destruction. Fun.

So yeah, there’s a few, and I just found out about the theme a couple of days ago. God help me as the year goes on and my brain churns more and more.

Light as a feather – that’s how I feel. Light and loose. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so relaxed.

This year’s Burn was an affirmation, of… well just about everything. The human spirit, the desert, love, compassion, intuition, energy, direction, brilliance… I could go on forever. So brilliant a manifestation of the human spirit its hard to even think about anything else. I am a creatre dedicated to play.

Coming back to work hasn’t even dampened my spirits. How could it when so much is right in the world? How could it when I’m soon to strike out on my own, powered by the wings of my own genius (the mythical interpretation of the word, not the Einstein sense, though perhaps that as well).

I can do anything, be anything, desire anything and recieve anything. Its all there to be had and more importantly to give. The gifts, the giving, so much of it. Who’d ever have thought that giving out poutine, a heart attack in a bowl would be such a profound and fulfilling experience? Certainly not I.

There will be stories and photographs, but for right now I’m just relaxed and content. Light as a cloud and ready for whatever is meant to be.

From Midnight Poutine’s San Francisco office. The place is a mess. Not our mess mind you. The mess of a genius google employee who plays with lasers in her spare time. She’s moving, we’re sleeping on the floor, the futon, wherever aren’t boxes and books and other junk that spurts and foams from every conceivable place when you’re moving. Not sure where it all comes from, but there it is.

Buying things for the Burn. Only the Burn. What the hell is the point? Its strange to follow the path set down in what seems like a previous life. My intentions and values today aren’t exactly what I had in mind when I created this freight train, but with the momentum of a whole camp of people its impossible to sop, even if that’s what I wanted – and it isn’t really. Its just that I probably would never have conceived of something like this in my current incarnation, my new life, meNOW. Midnight Poutine is resource intensive, large scale, certainly not the poster of small simplicity that I’m striving for now. In that sense its a living relic, but what a relic.

I’m excited. This is going to be epic, but parts of it are hard to resolve with who I’ve become. I mean no matter what we do its going to be expensive and there’s going to be waste. Arrrrrrrgh! I need to accept that this is how these things roll. You have to break eggs to make cookies (omlettes don’t suit my palette). Still, I find myself asking what justifies it all sometimes. Beh. It doesn’t matter really. “Because its cool.” is the mantra of the Burn and that’s good enough for this year. I’m just making sure I’m aware that it might not be in the future.

Burning Man. I actually cringe a bit when I hear the word. I notice that I don’t use it much. I talk about “going to the desert” and being “on the playa” a lot more than I say “I’m going to Burning Man.” The very utterance of the words just conjures up the fabric of branding for me, of elitism, the cult. The goddamn desert cult. You go to Burning Man? That’s great. Nobody cares. You are not a special and unique snowflake just because you go and choke on prehistoric fish feces – I’m sorry.

This is not to say that I don’t like Burners or Burning Man. It is the more magical community I have ever found. I love it, but…

I suppose we are most critical of those people and things that we love the most. We see their potential and expect them to be that at all times when really, that’s impossible. So it is with Burning Man and all that goes with it. I am becoming a Cynical Old Burner – a COB. Well fine. That’s okay.

No, cynical isn’t right, perhaps a realist. I still love it and expect the best from it, but I’m not surprised or offended when it doesn’t deliver, and I’m willing to look at the parts that aren’t ideal. I think the main thing is simply this; Burning Man isn’t special. You aren’t special for going there. The art there isn’t special because its there. Its just a week in the desert, no more, no less. The magic that you may or may not experience there also exists in countless other corners of the globe at all times of the year. That is if you take the principles and ideas you find there with you. Hell, we all know people we’d call Burners who have never even been to the event. What more proof do you need that it really isn’t that special?

I would like to see the magic in more times and places. Gifting water at Burning Man – not so extraordinary. Gifting water in Parc Lafontaine on a hot summer day – kind of extraordinary. That’s what excites me these days. Burning Man is a model, a testing ground, a training centre, but its not in an of itself a terribly important place, what’s important about it is what happens when the world of the Burn intersects with the real world. If the energy that went into the Burn were instead directed outwards from the desert into other communities, cities and towns. That’s when the real, tangible, lasting magic starts to take place.

Its easy to create magic in a place where magic is acknowledged to exist. Its a much greater feat to create magic in a place that has forgotten or even suppressed what magic is. This then is the greater triumph and the greater quest.

So go the Burning Man. Dress like rabbits. Ride on rocket ships. Shoot flamethrowers. Do crazy drugs and have crazy sex. Just remember that its only a dress rehersal. The true spirit of it. The spirit not of Burning Man, not even of art, but the spirit of Life. That has to exist 52 weeks a year.