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Halloween
Last weekend, we worked on Ghost Ship, a huge Halloween party on Treasure Island. It was in an old hangar. Different Burning Man party crews had decorated various rooms of it, there were art cars and installations, tons of DJs.
We showed up around 2 in the afternoon to help the Hookahdome group. I got pleasantly intimate with a staple gun, artfully draping fabric over the walls and tables. We hung lights and giant fake spiders.
A cool thing: the room we were in had one big plywood wall in an otherwise sheet rock warehouse space. There was a door in the wall. Opening the door revealed a scene out of Indiana Jones. The floor was covered in large chunks of broken cement that showed relief and blue paint on some sides, and towards the back were several large sculptures. There was a chain link fence surrounding it, with a sign saying it was pieces of a fountain that was destroyed a long time ago. Apparently it has been sitting in the back room of this hangar for 60 years.
In the middle of the afternoon, we realized that since we were setting up, we could set ourselves up too. I made a Safeway run and stopped by the house, and brought back a totally full cooler and case of bottled water to stash. Just this on its own has made me inclined to set up for as many epic parties as possible. Not spending half the evening waiting in line to spend a lot of money on little tiny drinks was awesome.
As the party got started, we went on an epic goose chase to try to figure out how to turn off the overhead fluorescent lights. There were light switches, but they did not work and apparently controlled the old set of no longer functional overhead lights. The newer lights - installed and mounted on the ceiling, mind you - were apparently on a very long extension cord that ran into a PVC pipe that went *through the wall* and plugged into an outlet on the other side.
I really enjoyed the crowd at this event. While less interested in my own costume, the sea of people in all these different outfits really made the party constantly amusing. The little clusters of people talking who would otherwise never be in the same room - Cleopatra and vampire and go-go dander and Indian. I saw a woman dressed as Alice who had tripped and was very angry at her companions, flipping them off with both hands. It was hard not to laugh; it looked like perhaps someone had upended her teacup.
Near our homebase was an art installation that was amazing, and disturbing. There were numerous objects of furniture that had been scrambled and painted white, with tiny tiny writing all over them. There were blackboards describing ideas and connections. There was a cork board covered in yellowing Polaroids and note cards carefully pinned and connected with golden thread. I didn't hear it make a sound, but it might as well have been creepily whispering "...this is how you go crazy...."
Later in the evening I ran into a friend who said the artist has camped with her at Burning Man. Apparently we were right - that *is* how you go crazy. This guy had gotten so obsessed with the art that this was his final showing of it and that he was trying to sell or give all of it away. It's art that he has to be in recovery from.
Every fancier of Cthulhu, Malkavians, tortured artists and obsessed souls should check this out. The artist has a very detailed page of all the art, including photos and videos.
http://www.rolandsmart.com/room-installation/
We showed up around 2 in the afternoon to help the Hookahdome group. I got pleasantly intimate with a staple gun, artfully draping fabric over the walls and tables. We hung lights and giant fake spiders.
A cool thing: the room we were in had one big plywood wall in an otherwise sheet rock warehouse space. There was a door in the wall. Opening the door revealed a scene out of Indiana Jones. The floor was covered in large chunks of broken cement that showed relief and blue paint on some sides, and towards the back were several large sculptures. There was a chain link fence surrounding it, with a sign saying it was pieces of a fountain that was destroyed a long time ago. Apparently it has been sitting in the back room of this hangar for 60 years.
In the middle of the afternoon, we realized that since we were setting up, we could set ourselves up too. I made a Safeway run and stopped by the house, and brought back a totally full cooler and case of bottled water to stash. Just this on its own has made me inclined to set up for as many epic parties as possible. Not spending half the evening waiting in line to spend a lot of money on little tiny drinks was awesome.
As the party got started, we went on an epic goose chase to try to figure out how to turn off the overhead fluorescent lights. There were light switches, but they did not work and apparently controlled the old set of no longer functional overhead lights. The newer lights - installed and mounted on the ceiling, mind you - were apparently on a very long extension cord that ran into a PVC pipe that went *through the wall* and plugged into an outlet on the other side.
I really enjoyed the crowd at this event. While less interested in my own costume, the sea of people in all these different outfits really made the party constantly amusing. The little clusters of people talking who would otherwise never be in the same room - Cleopatra and vampire and go-go dander and Indian. I saw a woman dressed as Alice who had tripped and was very angry at her companions, flipping them off with both hands. It was hard not to laugh; it looked like perhaps someone had upended her teacup.
Near our homebase was an art installation that was amazing, and disturbing. There were numerous objects of furniture that had been scrambled and painted white, with tiny tiny writing all over them. There were blackboards describing ideas and connections. There was a cork board covered in yellowing Polaroids and note cards carefully pinned and connected with golden thread. I didn't hear it make a sound, but it might as well have been creepily whispering "...this is how you go crazy...."
Later in the evening I ran into a friend who said the artist has camped with her at Burning Man. Apparently we were right - that *is* how you go crazy. This guy had gotten so obsessed with the art that this was his final showing of it and that he was trying to sell or give all of it away. It's art that he has to be in recovery from.
Every fancier of Cthulhu, Malkavians, tortured artists and obsessed souls should check this out. The artist has a very detailed page of all the art, including photos and videos.
http://www.rolandsmart.com/room-installation/