Alan Lodge's Blog

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for art reasons …… ……. …… !

While the Countryside March is in town on September 22nd ? new ‘Digger’ Events.

some discussion of ‘doing a digger’, while the countryside alliance are in town. Thought you might like to see, some of my work from the Digger anniversay bash at St Georges hill on Saturday the 3rd of April 1999, to commenerate Gerard Winnstanley and the 350th Anniversary of the Diggers (1st April 1649). http://tash.gn.apc.org/diggers_350.htm

Adding to discussion on the Yahoo ‘Counter-Culture’ Group.

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/CountaCultureUK/message/206

You may be aware that the so-called ‘Countryside March’ is due to take place in London on September 22nd. I hear a group of folks are planning a response to this invasion of the land snatchers in the form of a piece of direct action aimed at one of the Countryside Alliance’s prime movers. It is intend to move onto his estate on the same day he and his toff chums are stomping through London. Once there, to establish an autonomous community in the spirit of Winstanley and the Diggers.

As well as providing the politically appropriate moment to make such a gesture, the occasion of the march gives us a unique window of opportunity; i.e., while the toffs and their army of vassals, gamekeepers and forelock-tuggers are away, we can play!

Had initially assumed that we were the only ones to have this brilliant idea. It now seems that we were somewhat misguided in this conceit. Without being specific, it has come to our notice that other activist groups have also decided to take advantage of the enemy’s absence by organising a number of independent actions aimed at reoccupying our stolen common treasury.

Anyway, all of this has got us thinking and here’s our latest brilliant idea: why not take the May-Day Monopoly concept and apply it to the entire country? Multiple independent actions carried out in a variety of locations across the country by unconnected affinity groups are likely to be easier and far more effective than they ever were within the heavily policed confines of London. The vast (and empty) acres of the countryside on Sept 22nd will provide a fertile environment for autonomous action.

So if you really want to stop the Alliance, don’t go to London to yah-boo them, they’ll be expecting that and they’ll have their police to protect them anyway; no, get out into the countryside and hit them where it really hurts -in their own back yard! If you’re not already involved in something, why not get together with your friends and form your own local action group? After all, you’re not likely to have to travel very far. A huge percentage of the UK is still ‘owned’ by these parasites, there’s bound to be some of them near you.

When planning your demo it is imperative that you avoid falling into the trap of making a generalised attack on the countryside and country folk. To do so would be to do the Alliance’s work for them. Their whole strategy is based on maximising the division between town and country and thus obscuring their real objectives (the maintenance of privilege and land enclosure) by mixing and confusing them with other issues over which many ordinary country dwellers feel real and justified anger. Rather, your action should be aimed at highlighting how the class interests of this minority are opposed to the rest of society. Regardless of whether you’re a farm labourer or an urban factory worker, you have nothing in common with someone who is a millionaire because his ancestors stole his wealth and position for him for him. Small farmers are struggling because of the monopolistic practices of supermarkets, the concentration of subsidies into large farms and the imposition of vile systems of animal husbandry that have led to the catastrophes we are all familiar with. Such people don’t have common interests with the toff who takes the rent. The breaking of this false alliance should be should be the main thrust of our action and should inform everything we do.

A Parrot in the Pepper Tree

Chris Stewart’s A Parrot in the Pepper Tree follows the lives of Chris, Ana and their daughter, Chloe, on their farm, as they get to grips with a misanthropic parrot who joins their home, Spainish school life, neighbours in love, journalists beating a path to their door…and the shock that their beloved valley might once more be under threat of being engulfed by a dam. It’s also looks back on Chris Stewart’s former life – the hard times shearing in midwinter Sweden (and driving across the frozen sea to reach island farms); his first taste of Spain, learning flamenco guitar as a 20-year old; and his illustrious music career, drumming for his school band Genesis (sacked at 17, he never quite became Phil Collins), and then for Sir Robert Fossett’s circus.

A Parrot in the Pepper Tree is the BBC Radio 4 ‘ Book of the Week ‘, this week.

Episodes 1 – 5 [ Real Player required ]

1 2 3 4 5

These links available for you to listen to whenever you like: the reading will be available here for seven days after broadcast.

Well, gosh, hello. It’s me, friendly Chris, the bloke who wrote that book about moving to Spain. It did so well, you know, that my publisher reckoned I should have another go.

So what can I tell you this time, then? Not so long ago I went up to do some sheep shearing in northern Sweden and my car broke down. I could have frozen to death, but luckily I didn’t as a mechanic was able to fix it.

Domingo, my neighbour in the valley, married a Swedish sculptress and he has turned out to be a pretty good artist himself. Not bad for a shepherd, eh?

It’s weird, you know, the more I get into this writing lark the less I feel like doing chores around the farm. I even paid Manolo to help out, and I felt terribly guilty when he’d been slaving for four hours and all I’d done was type a chapter heading.

A couple of years ago, we all got telephones in the valley for the first time, and it felt really strange to be able to talk to people back home without seeing them. The telephone also caused loads of hilarious misunderstandings at first.

“There’s a man calling,” shouted Ana, my wife. “Says his name is Leaf of the Male.” It turned out that it was actually William Leith, one of the Mail on Sunday’s top reporters, who wanted to interview me about my first book. What a hoot!

Leith turned up several hours late and drank all my beer, but he turned out to be a good bloke and asked some really searching questions. “What’s your name?” he slurred. “How many times have you been burgled here? And what’s all this about you playing for Genesis?”

Yes, it’s true. I was the original drummer for Peter Gabriel’s band at Charterhouse. I got kicked out before they became famous and Peter gave me £300 not to make a fuss. What a nice bloke. I later went on to play the drums for Bob Fossett’s circus.

How am I doing? Ah, you’re still awake, but don’t worry, not long to go now. I went to Spain to study flamenco when I was young and I’m still very keen on it.

One winter it rained a lot and we didn’t have much money but we were still very happy. By the way, we’ve got frogs in our swimming pool. Chris Stewart

Can buy it from Amazon: A Parrot in the Pepper Tree

Dave Gorman’s Important Astrology Experiment

Dave Gorman [he of ‘My Name is Dave Gorman’ fame], is returning for a new series. I went off about this chap in my blog, month or so ago now. He is one of the funniest man have seen in a long while. Timing and delivary, splendid!

New series starts this Sunday on BBC2 at 10.40pm and runs for 6 weeks

Short Preview on BBC: ‘Improvisation, lets you dance away from trouble’.

From Dave Gorman

I trust this finds you all well and happy. I’ve just returned from a brief trip to Edinburgh. From the e-mails I’ve received, it seems many of you were there too.

But this is just a reminder that the new series – Dave Gormans Important Astrology Experiment – starts this Sunday at 10.40pm and runs for 6 weeks.

The advance reaction seems to be really good with Time Out making it the cover of their TV section, a Critic’s Choice and giving the show a very flattering listing while Heat have given it 5 stars and says, “As stale formulas increasingly govern the schedules, it’s a delight to see something so fresh”. Basically, the mood in the camp is good.

There’s a page of information about the show on my website at: http://www.davegorman.com/dgiaep2.html and there’s some more on the BBC’s webpages, including a short clip from one of the shows at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/previews/

I need some sleep now.

cheers,

Dave http://www.davegorman.com

Dave Gorman’s Webcam

Burning Man Calendar of Events

To remind, the dates are: August 26 – September 2, 2002

This pages, gives an idea of what they’re up to on a daily basis:

http://www.burningman.com/calendar/playa/day.php

Time Lapse of the Burning Man Events

A Timewave Panorama of Burning Man 2002 Showing the Rise and Fall of Black Rock City

Folding-Time http://www.folding-time.com/ making preparation for a time-lapse series of photography of the event.

Installation and Technology: Technology Link Burning Man Time Navigators have installed a highly sophisticated yet ruggedized computer controlled, time-lapse photography system to capture the rolling waves of growth and destruction that are the essence of Black Rock City. Four different views capture a significant portion of citizen activity of every hour of every day for up to four weeks.

Folding-Time Video: Once recorded and edited, we will see within one hour the civilization organism emerge, grow and teem with inhabitants, and then disappear without a trace. We will see the sun and the darkness, buildings and events, storms and dust, night lights, fires and The Burn.

Folding-Time will provide spectacular and moving footage for future media use as well as an interactive artistic component that would allow Black Rock citizens the opportunity to interact and participate in Folding-Time.

With the chap doing the panoramas, I think I’m inspired! http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/#80690505

Black Rock Arts Foundation

This is an organisation that supports some of the Art, that get created and exhibited at the Burning Man Event

This new, national, non-profit arts organization will furnish artists with direct financial aid for the production and display of interactive artworks in communities and venues across the United States and around the globe.

We hope that you will read and consider the information on our site and decide to play a leaing role in this unique foundation. By contributing valuable resources and introducing the Foundation to important contacts in new communities, our founding members and contributors will help promote a revival of art’s culture-bearing and connective function by removing art from its context in the marketplace and reintegrating it into communal settings.

In many cases, this will be art that is designed to be touched, handled, played with, and moved through in a public arena. It is art that solicits a collaborative response from its audience, even as it encourages collaboration between artists. It deliberately blurs the distinction between audience and art form, professional and amateur, spectator and participant. It is art that is generated by a way of life, and it seeks, in its broadest aims, to reclaim the realms of nature, history, ritual and myth for the practice of art.

We are pleased to announce The Black Rock Arts Foundation held its first Awards Ceremony and Cocktail Reception at San Francisco’s SOMARTS gallery on Saturday, April 6th. The event brought together arts patrons and participants from the collaborative and community-based San Francisco arts scene to meet the grant recipients and the members of the foundation’s board of directors.

Thanks to the many people who made the event an outstanding success: artists, volunteers, gift donors, and the members and supporters of the Black Rock Arts Foundation.

Mission Statement

The mission of the Black Rock Arts Foundation is to support and promote community-based interactive art. For our purposes, interactive art means art that generates social participation. The process whereby this art is created, the means by which it is displayed and the character of the work itself should inspire immediate actions that connect people to one another in a larger communal context.

Our programs and goals in pursuit of this mission are fivefold:

Artist Grants: Furnish artists with direct financial aid for the production and display of interactive art works, with particular emphasis on those artists whose goals and projects exist beyond the institutional mainstream.

Community Development: Assist these artists to develop communal networks by facilitating contact with public institutions that can supply them with material resources, technical assistance, volunteer services and financial aid.

Exhibitions: Identify and support sites of public presentation for the display of interactive artwork, with special focus on venues that emphasize the civic function of such works.

Educational Outreach: Educate a larger public concerning the spiritual value and social relevance of interactive art.

Career Development: Assist artists in documenting and representing their work in public media and to other institutions. Artistic Direction.

In a larger context, it is the mission of the Black Rock Arts Foundation to promote a revival of art’s culture-bearing and connective function by removing art from its context in the marketplace and reintegrating it into communal settings. In many cases, this will be artthat is designed to be touched, handled, played with, and moved through in a public arena. It is art that solicits a collaborative response from its audience, even as it encourages collaboration between artists. It deliberately blurs the distinction between audience and art form, professional and amateur, spectator and participant. It is art that’s generated by a way of life, and it seeks, in its broadest aims, to reclaim the realms of nature, history, ritual and myth for the practice of art.

http://www.blackrockarts.org/

For more info please contact: info@blackrockarts.org

or write:

1900 3rd St., 2nd Floor,

San Francisco, CA, 94107

phone: 415-626-1248

Palestinian Group Warns Journalists

Gaza Strip (AP) – The Palestinian journalists union declared on Monday that news photographers are “absolutely forbidden” from taking pictures of Palestinian children carrying weapons or taking part in activities by militant groups, saying that the pictures harm the Palestinian cause.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate also called on Palestinian factions and their military wings to stop using children in their activities.

The Foreign Press Association, representing news media working in Israel and the Palestinian territories, called on the organization to withdraw the directive, saying it limited coverage of news. Palestinian Authority ( news – web sites) officials had no immediate comment.

Children carrying weapons or dressed up as suicide bombers have been frequently seen at rallies and marches in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip ( news – web sites) during nearly two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence. Israel has charged that Palestinians are misusing children as pawns in the conflict. The Palestinians counter that Israeli forces target children with gunfire during riots.

Tawfik Abu Khousa, deputy chairman of the syndicate, said such pictures harmed the image of the Palestinian people and the credibility of Palestinian journalists.

The order extends to Palestinian journalists who work for local and foreign new agencies. It requires Palestinians who work for foreign news media to make sure that foreign photographers follow the ban. Free-lancers were also expected to abide by the order.

Journalists who failed to adhere to the ban would face disciplinary procedures, the statement said without elaborating. Previously, Palestinian journalists who ran afoul of the authorities had their credentials lifted, limiting their access to official events.

“We have decided to forbid taking any footage of armed children, because we consider that as a clear violation of the rights of children and for negative effects these pictures have on the Palestinian people,” he said.

The statement said footage of armed children served “the interests of Israel and its propaganda against the Palestinian people.”

The union also threatened to boycott militant groups who use children and masked men in their activities.

Palestinian photographers have told of attempts by Palestinian officials and militias to keep them from taking pictures considered unfavorable, sometimes using threats and coercion. The Palestinian Information Ministry has issued statements denouncing the threats.

Most foreign news agencies make extensive use of local Palestinian photographers in the Gaza Strip for both print and television pictures.

Journalists were also banned from photographing masked men.

In a statement, the Foreign Press Association expressed “deep concern” over the decision by the syndicate and its threats of sanctions against journalists, local and foreign, who disregard the ban.

“While we share the expressed desire to defend the rights of children, limiting coverage of legitimate news events and elements of stories is not the proper way to achieve this goal,” it said. IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer



This looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, just don’t take a picture and call it a duck.

The duck is simply called censorship!

BBC held a poll earlier in the year. The objective, to find the 100 greatest Britons.

The top 100, in alphabetical order

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2209468.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,778652,00.html

And another one, wants to leave this country ……….

I was just surfing and at last I remembered to check out “New Age Travellers”.

I am hoping to leave this shithole life behind but I need to save up some more before I do so I was just wondering if you have tips on where to travel in the EU or further. I have computer skills and just want to leave the rat race.

Anything and everyting you could tell me would be apprecited – I am also quite experienced ar growing weed.

l8r and cheers, andy

Where there are people like us?

This is a question, I commonly ask myself. Most proper travellers have been forced abroad, to continue the lifestyle. Some are hiding! Some forced into sub-standard housing. Some in jail. I got this very interesting email from these folks, who seem to be ‘right on it’! I wish them well and hope we can find some suitable companions for them………

Dear Tash,

Have just been looking at your website. Very interesting, but my main reason for writing to you is to find out where there are people like us?

My husband and I are 49 and 40 respectively and decided to get out of the rat-race 4 years ago. We bought an 10 year old ex-British Rail canteen van and converted it to a camper and drove 22,366 miles all the way to Kathmandu and back in 12mths. It was our honeymoon. If you would like to read about some of it, you can go to David Icke’s website, swallow the first red pill, then click on latest posting/news and scroll down to an article, “Bush and Blair want to find bin Laden, yeah sure they do, a British couple’s story….” I think you might find it most interesting. David is also putting it in his next book, “Alice in Wonderland and the WTC.”

We are strongly against errosion of civil liberties and ID cards, chipping etc, but until more people wake up and make a stand against it all there isn’t a lot we can do to stop it.

The reason for my e-mail is that we have been on the road now for 4 yrs and would love to meet others like us and travel with them. There’s loads of ‘Blue Wrinse Brigade’ members. Those who live in a very expensive motorhome and live on their pensions, and there are a few who have loads of money for one reason or another, but there seems to be few who have to live by ther wits and WORK for their money. they are the type we would like to me. Could you pass some info my way, or alternately pass my e-mail/address/phone no. onto them?

We basically work for agencies for the Summer, then head South out of the UK for the whole Winter. We don’t live in our Sherpa any more, we now have a larger ex-Council Omni minibus, converted for our next trip to Morocco. My husband Alan is a mechanic, so is a very useful person to have around.

Do you know anyone who would like to join us to Morocco. We leave UK 1st week in November. We spent the Winter in Spain last year.

I also supplement our income with some freelance journalism, mainly about our travels. I have had a number of articles published now.

Our address is c/o “Notchett” Bucknall Road, Horsington, Woodhall Spa,

Lincoln, LN10 5ET tel; 0775-2696673 e-mail theproject1998@hotmail.com

Would welcome ANY contacts.

Regards Cindy

Brad Templeton’s Panoramic Photography:

And……. yet more from the Burning Man Festival. While searching around to see how the Americans do it, I came across this mans work.

http://pic.templetons.com/brad/pano/burn.html

I think that these paroramas of the event are particularly wonderful. All shot from towers, erected for the purpose and using a Canon EOS D30 digital camera.

Completly wicked work!! Here, the chap goes into the technical details: http://pic.templetons.com/brad/pano/about.html

Brad Templeton’s Panoramic Photography:

And……. yet more from the Burning Man Festival. While searching around to see how the Americans do it, I came across this mans work.

http://pic.templetons.com/brad/pano/burn.html

I think that these paroramas of the event are particularly wonderful. All shot from towers, erected for the purpose and using a Canon EOS D30 digital camera.

Completly wicked work!! Here, the chap goes into the technical details: http://pic.templetons.com/brad/pano/about.html

GammaBlaBlog Cyberbuss

Cyberbuss camp will be located at or around 250 Degrees and Abyss.

We plan to set up radio Free Wrybread/Ccyberbuss at 88.3 and play lots of music and noise we plan to introduce the Barnacle – Black rock city’s smallest, simplest and laziest art car.

also there will be plenty of Olympic style games and competitions.

For virtual trippers we plan to be in comunicato via satellite phone with gametone who will post a daily C y b e r sAM One Sentence Summary (and maybe a photo or two) at da gammablog.

http://wrybread.com/gammablablog/index.shtml

You are all welcome to join/camp with uss on da buss

KEEP dA FIRE BURNING,

CYBERBUSS.

The Cyberbuss promises to strive daily to uplink the Cyberbuss One-Sentence Burning Man Summary of the Day, to the GammaBlaBlog. They are camped by a lake tonight, and arrive tomorrow. But what’s their plan? “No Plan!”

The Cyberbuss goes solar when out on the Playa. They’re able to keeps the music, lights and radio broadcasting going, and still leave enough power in the batteries to start up and go home. All without running the engine to charge their bank of ten batteries, like all the RVs do.

Their camp is made from junkyard finds. That’s how to do it right, in that harsh alkali lake bed. Anything new you bring to this festival will be old by the time the wind, dust and heat, or mud, rain and cold get to your gear. This way, you bring trash with a little life left to it, use it up completely, and then throw it back where it came from. A fairly benign form of consumerism, I think.

This years participants come from:England, Israel, Italy, Germany, Canada, Australia, Colorado, Harbin Hot Springs, San Francisco and Point Arena. I’ve invited them all to send in reports, but will feel lucky if a few KB’s makes it to me now and then. The bandwidth and power needed to keep the uplink is precious, and could just as likely be monopolized by some impromptu concert, radio marathon or art event. And really, once you are there, the last thing in the world you want to deal with is the outside world. But you never know.

It was on that crazy Buss for the 2000 Burn. I am hoping that the state of electronic communications is at a point, that a number of people at Bman will be able to email and upload to their websites. But this is just a guess. News out in past years came mostly from commercial sources. I need to search out some sites that might be providing breaking news and photos from the desert. Not that I expect anything earthshaking. This is just for fun.

Black Rock Desert Poem by tanya

Black Rock Desert was the destination,

Headed for a weekend of good times and recreation.

What I got was so much more –

But, wait, we’re just at the door –

These lessons take time

To infiltrate your mind.

So we’ll start from the beginning:

In my head thoughts were spinning

As I gazed at the mountains afar

>From the window of my sister’s red suburu car.

All that I knew of the event

Were second-hand stories from a book that had been lent.

This book, along with my ticket, to me my sister had sent,

A sort of you’re-graduated-so-now-you-can-really-learn-about-life present.

She told me they call it Burning Man,

Named for the tall neon figure in the sand.

“They will burn him Saturday night,” she said,

and off through the desert we sped.

After Gerlach and Empire we finally reached the place.

Turning onto the playa with my sister’s smiling face,

She popped in Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians

And, laughing, together we sang like crazy demons.

Greeted by sparkling glittered insane ravers,

Drove to 8 o’clock and feet to meet our new neighbors.

My first visions didn’t go past my eyes,

Which were sun and travel weary from the drive.

It wasn’t really until that night

That I completely took in the sight

Of a beautiful, glowing, magical community

That laughed in the face of a made-up reality.

And after an evening of riding double

On a bicycle that tended to wobble,

Sitting in a mushroom tower,

Feeling its tremendous power,

Smoking some hash,

Visiting a shrine for Johnny Cash,

Making way for the motorized couch,

Waiting out the rain in an Elvis tent, I crouched

Thinking Toto, this is nothing like home,

And biking across the playa we roamed,

Amazed by the sculptures of chrome.

We cheered at the Thunderdome,

Got lost in a maze,

And I knew I was about to reach a new phase.

This experience was going to teach me about community,

About people, about life, about love, about beauty.

And that it did in many ways

Through energized nights and dusty days.

The people I met were what made it all work –

This experience and how it changed my whole outlook.

I first encountered the Cyberbuss folk

Who lifted the world with the energy every time they spoke.

They were friendly and offered a game of Rock-Swivel & Bob,

So we camped next to them and added to the mob.

Their names have escaped me but their faces remain,

Except Sam, Rob, and Gamitone ­ I remember their names.

Others I met under the Central Camp dome

While sipping on frothy cappuccino foam.

Like the suspicious man who was writing to his boyfriend:

“I’m sorry to tell you, but this relationship must end.”

He was sitting at a table, smoking a cigarette, and then

He smiled and finally set down his money-sign pen.

There was Rupert, who shared his nitrous with us

As we sat on the seats in his comfy RV bus.

On his hat was a patch of black and white thread,

“Give me head till I’m dead,” it said.

His wife Sunny was her own rockstar

As she danced in the glowing ejaculating car.

And then there was Shad, who introduced me to these two –

I think he impacted me more than he knew

Through our long chats under the mid-morning sun

And the evenings spent together, full of good times and fun.

He had a smile that made my heart flutter,

My knees go weak and my words begin to stutter.

And before long in his arms I was held,

Into the deep pool of his eyes I fell,

And waking together to the lull of the wind,

We wondered what the coming day would bring.

Outside was my sister Jamie –

Beautiful, intelligent, the star of the family.

She was recovering from her own personal tragedy,

Pushed down by a man she had loved madly.

Almost done healing, she had learned so much –

This experience, together, brought us closer and in touch.

As we fought through traffic to get back to the city,

We discussed the experience and felt pity

That the beauty of people ­ their heart and their soul ­

Can so easily be stifled by our culture’s control.

And we vowed we would not return to the norms of society,

We would instead live in the world of a true reality

Full of love and compassion and people who would not shriek

When we finally decide to release our inner freak.

Burning Man Festival Nevada, United States.

Burning Man [mainsite] http://www.burningman.com/

Official list of the Burning Man Project: http://www.burningman.com/blackrockcity_yearround/contacts/jrs_lists.html

Thier ‘Legal Advice Page’ http://www.burningman.com/preparation/event_survival/law_enforcement.html

Location Map: http://www.burningman.com/preparation/maps/reno.gif

Burning Man is a Labor Day gathering/party/festival that began in 1986 with the torching of an 8-foot stick man on San Francisco’s Baker Beach. Since 1990 it has been held in the remote Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. For a week, the desert “playa” becomes a canvas for some of the most beautiful, fantastic, and just plain weird art this side of Oz. The festival’s centerpiece now stands 40 feet tall.

Hundreds of people devote much of their lives to the festival’s planning — for little or no monetary gain whatsoever — and thousands of people travel from all over the world to attend. Experience Burning Man once and you’ll understand why.

Visit Nevada’s Black Rock Desert at most any time of the year, and you won’t find much there – just a barren desert formed by an ancient lake bed. But come around a week before Labor Day, and you’re likely to witness a transformation as awe-inspiring as any desert bloom: the creation of Black Rock City, a counterculture metropolis otherwise known as Burning Man.

It’s difficult to explain the concept of Burning Man to the uninitiated. Some call it a neo-pagan festival. Others think of it as this generation’s Woodstock. In truth, it is neither. Burning Man can really only be defined by experiencing it.

Miles from the nearest town, the thousands of participants must bring everything they will need to survive in the desert. Monetary transactions are not allowed at the festival. The climate is extreme, and creature comforts are minimal limited to what people can construct in a few days from materials they have brought in themselves. The ticket to Burning Man warns that participants risk serious injury or death by attending the event.

But participants assume the risks for the chance to create something extraordinary an ideal society that exists according to its utopian vision, if only for one week. The society is defined by the rules that have been established over the years, and by the feeling of community that develops through shared creative efforts.

Many participants form camps grouped around community projects. Each camp has an interactive element, with open invitations to all who wish to participate. Art, costumes, dancing, and music dominate the playa. In recent years, technology has greatly added to the mix, and this year marks the debut of PlayaNet, a wireless high-speed network that will serve as a festival-wide intranet.

Burning Man is a marriage of art, anarchy and technology. It’s a place where hippies, trendy beautiful people, brooding artists, goths and nerds can find something in common.

What impressed was that some of the art is actually good. It’s mostly ephemeral – meant to be burned or certainly taken down at the end, but some people with real talent go to BM to show off.

Also impressive is the tremendous effort that goes into the camps and structures. While some just set up a minimalist camp, many camps have impressive structures that clearly were quite some work to set up. People aren’t there to camp, they are there to show off what they can make.

Here you see a variety of shots of different camps. This is just a tiny sampling, and not even the most intersting. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of unusual camps. Some built giant towers or other structures

Some people, trying to get a smaller experience within what is now a large town of 15,000, build villages within the Black Rock City. They arrange a large cicular area, get common generators and other facilities and collect a group of camps. The Irrational Geographic Society and its stage are shown here on the right. “Drano” city on the left.

More strange camps, including one (Holmes on the Range) with three naked women on a giant penis. Who can resist taking a photo of that? A lot of the experience of BM is going around, enjoying the camps, and going into them, and meeting the people, perhaps offering to help out. In fact, in line with the BM “No spectators” ethic, this is almost mandatory.

All the streets were arranged in a hemicircle around the Man. In the center of that was a big cicular area called the Center camp, which included the one cafe and a stage in the middle, and some of the most established camps around it.

Near the end of the weeklong culture jam, participants burn a giant wooden effigy in a cathartic celebration that gives the event its name. And then the ephemeral city disappears, leaving no trace in the desert.

Collected links here, some really cool photography, check it out. All makes me want to go .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. … ….. ……. one day!

Abobe ‘Special feature on Burning Man

Adobe Panorama Day1

Adobe Panorama Day2

Adobe Panorama Day3

Burning Man Message Board 2002: http://bbs.burningman.com/

The Photographic book, ‘Burning Man’ from Amazon.

World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, August 26 to September 4, 2002

The Summit marks the 10th anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The UN Secretary General’s five priority areas for Johannesburg are: Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity.

The Earth Times: http://www.earthtimes.org/wef_johannesburgdirectory.htm

The Daily Sumnmit: http://www.dailysummit.net

Guardian Special Reports: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldsummit2002/0,12264,757397,00.html

The World Summit on Sustainable Development:

http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/wssd/wssd1.htm

A strategy for sustainable development for the United Kingdom:

http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/uk_strategy/index.htm

UK Strategy

A better quality of life provides a national focus from which local and regional action can also follow. We have set a target for all local authorities to prepare local sustainable development ‘Local Agenda 21’ strategies by the year 2000 and hope to have sustainable development frameworks for each English region by the end of 2000.

The Strategy for sustainable development has four main aims. These are:

social progress which recognises the needs of everyone;

effective protection of the environment;

prudent use of natural resources; and

maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment.

For the UK, priorities for the future are:

more investment in people and equipment for a competitive economy;

reducing the level of social exclusion;

promoting a transport system which provides choice, and also minimises environmental harm and reduces congestion;

improving the larger towns and cities to make them better places to live and work;

directing development and promoting agricultural practices to protect and enhance the countryside and wildlife;

improving energy efficiency and tackling waste;

working with others to achieve sustainable development internationally.

http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_08_11_tash_lodge_archive.html#80274233

The Winslow Boy

“Let right be done” Sir Robert Morton

On BBC2 tonight. Just had to watch this again. Quite simply, next to Ken Loach’s film “Kes”, Terence Rattigan’s “The Winslow Bow” is one of my favourite all-time films. I’m one of Nigel Hawthornes greatest fans. But I had read the book at school, and have always been so impressed by the sentiments expressed. The law standing up for the little man. “Let Right be done!”

The Winslow Boy, Trial of the Century?

This is a richly textured film based on a fifty-year-old play, tells the true story of a high profile lawsuit in England, a cause celebre that captivated public attention in the waning years of the British Empire just after the turn of the century. Reflecting the gentility of the social conventions followed by its aristocratic characters, much of the film’s intrigue lies just below the surface. With rich Edwardian costumes and witty dialogue, The Winslow Boy resembles a Merchant Ivory film more than a courtroom drama.

Through the lens of a sensational case, the film reveals much about society and the issues of the day, and highlights how public perception both influenced and was influenced by the legal battle. As with many high profile trials, the passage of time has faded the importance of the fate of the litigants and their legal issues. In a hundred years, the O.J. Simpson case will likely be valued far more for what it revealed about the racial difference in perception of the fairness of the criminal justice system than as a courtroom drama. In fact, in The Winslow Boy, there are no scenes of the trial. It’s simply not that important. The characters’ efforts in getting the case to a court and its effects on their lives are the essence of the story.

The plot centers on the fourteen-year-old son of an upper class family (Winslow) who is expelled from the Royal Naval Academy for allegedly stealing five schillings from another cadet. The proceedings which resulted in his expulsion were conducted without the knowledge of the boy’s parents and afforded him no legal representation. The family begins an obsessive quest for judicial review, with the boy’s father and older sister ready to sacrifice the family’s assets and her marriage prospects if necessary. The sister, a suffragist, takes on his cause with the same zeal she devotes to her voting rights work. One of their first tasks is to secure representation by an experienced barrister, a King’s Counsel. He is a rather young looking, conservative member of the House of Lords. He eventually shares the family’s passion for its cause and becomes their champion.

A subplot is the barrister’s rejection of the suffragist ideology espoused by the daughter. Their debates on the subject provide a metaphorical tension between the old ways of the recently passed nineteenth century and change promised by the newly entered twentieth. The romantic tension between them provides no small contribution to the appeal of the story.

The film provides many glimpses of public fascination with the case. There are newspaper headlines in “War Declared” size type, and political cartoons, buttons, posters, and even umbrellas proclaiming allegiance with one side or the other. As snippets in the film show, some citizens worried about England’s place in the world following the decline of the Empire. Thus, some viewed the Winslow boy’s claim as an assault on British institutions and an indirect threat to peerage and the monarchy. Others viewed the claim as an overdue call for a re-examination of the fairness of British society and its traditions. The uneasy juxtaposition of nineteenth and twentieth century sensibilities is best illustrated by the cigarette-smoking suffragists who crowd the women’s spectator galleries overlooking the House of Lords, while peers debate the Winslow case in the sanctity of their males-only club.

Many critics of the day warned that the entire affair was drawing national attention away from more important affairs of state. Looming in the background, phrased with contemporary irony as “trouble in the Balkans,” was the growing inevitability of what would later be called “The Great War,” a conflict that would cut down a generation of British men. The foreboding gloom of the Great War also cast a sort of reverse shadow on the machinations surrounding the expulsion of the Winslow boy from the Naval Academy. His expulsion could have the effect of saving him from annihilation in combat. (In fact, George Archer-Shee, the real-life “Winslow boy,” died in World War I.) This future knowledge the audience has, but the characters do not, provides a tragic overtone to the family’s quest for justice at any cost.

In another sense, public absorption in the case of the Winslow boy was a form of mass distraction from concerns about the world’s troubles. It gave people a chance to forget that the old world they knew was crumbling around them, and that cataclysmic events of unimaginable terror were about to overtake them. Thus, the case foreshadowed Court TV and similar programming four score years later: a forum where people can attempt to either grasp or avoid the overwhelming scope of society’s ills by watching the fate of a single person played out before them. Robert L. Waring

Check ou the film details on the Sony Film Site at: http://www.sonyclassics.com/winslowboy/

This film really contrasts, with one i watched a couple of weeks ago. “Blow Up” check this out. You’ll see I have wide taste.

Vista 1.4

This is a test to see if using Vista 1.4, i can write to this blog.

I all us well, this is a pice of ‘integrated software’ that will allow me to monitor, icq, microsoft, messenger, yahoo, messenger, irc communications in one window. Further it allows the sending of sms messages, and , i’m about to find out, is able to write directly to my blogs!

Vista Features

Vista is a Universal WebServices Client that supports Channels for Information and Content via XML/HTTP/SOAP/XML-RPC.

Vista is the World’s first Cross Conferencing client across AOL, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber and IRC messaging services.

Vista lets you play or develop games/add-ons like Chess with your buddies.

Vista lets you develop your own custom web service clients that can be deployed on the Vista platform using your current skill sets.

Vista treats you as the owner of your data and supports standard security mechanisms like PKI, SSL, Blowfish, etc..

Vista allows you to customize it by adding and removing channels/features.

Vista allows you to send SMS messages, get latest Stock Quotes and publish to Web Blogs.

No Banner Ads and No Spyware modules in Vista.

i3 help and feature [blog] page: http://dev.i3connect.com/

Download: http://download.com.com/3001-2150-10137652.html

Blitz festival Review

Earlier stuff on the Blitz festival at: http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_07_tash_lodge_archive.html#78897980

Blitzing through the Corporate Shite….

Blitz festival hit the streets of Manchester with an explosion of artful propaganda, actions and info, to offer an alternative vision to the Corporatised Commonwealth Games frenzy.

Blitz was organised by the Northern Arts Tactical Offensive, in collaboration with UHC arts collective, BEyondTV, i-contact, Fanclub, a Spacehijacker and many other individuals. NATO aims to bring together people working on social, cultural & political issues & to promote art that is spontaneous, conscious & public. The Blitz highlighted all that is street-level, independent and potentially illegal from the dissenting inhabitants of Manchester and dissolved the corporate spectacle.

AgiTATE Art Exhibition

Brazenly located in the middle of a budding mall “Great Northern”, this exhibition in the belly of the beast took over unused warehouse space and transformed it into the most beautifully presented and ideologically challenging collection of art work Manchester has seen. A curating team led by UHC, kept it all sailing the thin line between propaganda and art, enough to attract the most action-orientated activists and impress the least thoughtful critic on their way to the Virgin gym. Starting from the premise that the third world war will be fought in our heads, through images, on the airwaves (etc), the exhibition housed work from local graffiti artists to a “live sound installation” (read- “pirate radio station”). It will be on the web soon- link on Nato website. Over 2000 people visited in a week ­ many taking away radical and anarchist books. Simultaneously, The Body Politic, a radical feminist art exhbit, curated by Angel, ran the whole week in the Green Room.

Music and Film

Live outdoor music took over Great Northern Square, in Manchester’s monied heartland. The ramshackle stage, was so incongruous with the shimmering reflective aluminium surrounding that the whole event amounted to an action on consumer hell. The punk bands swearing loudly, the installation skate ramp under the “no skating” sign and the graffiti wall made it feel like a subcultural spectacle at times, but the real problem was the rain, as ever. Not to be thwarted, Blitz went on to 4 interactive & film events, hosted by BEyONdTV and i-contact.

March for Capitalism?

In keeping with the Blitz idea of undermining (with irony) ‘glossy’ manchester and confusing the tourists, the traditional protest was turned on its head with a march for capitalism. It began (after Skate Attack (see over) pleasantly with cucumber sandwiches and G and T’s in the park. An impeccably dressed, if slightly creased, rabble rallied round a 3-headed corporate monster. Despite us being for once on the same side, the police forced a ‘route’ upon us.

Saturday shoppers and tourists reacted interestingly to the placards ” Bomb Other Countries”, “The environment can kiss my ass” and others. Some people boo-ed because they saw through our heavy irony, others because they didn’t, some joined in because they were drunk, and others were genuinely bemused- with many mutterings of “Bombs not Bread?” to be heard. The three-headed monster was escorted out of town by the police, despite the fact that he encouraged shoppers to buy more and praised the Officers’ commitment to the public good. Meanwhile the rest of the crowd went off with FanClub to monopolise the queue at WHSmiths with monopoly boards.

Spoof Tourist Guide

As if the tourists were not confused enough already, an alternative guide to the city appeared for the Games, an exact replica of the Council tourist guide, it gave the other side to the city council spin and directed people to the Blitz events. It laid out some of the less media-worthy details around the Games- ie. the costly last minute makeovers, cuts in leisure services in under-resourced communities to finance the new sports facilities and a critique of capitalism as a whole, using Manchester as an example of how it has all gone a little wrong and just ain’t cutting it for da people. The council cottoned on in the end and began throwing their weight around as usual, threatening to sue places that displayed it for libel. However, “volunteers” in the Games purple shell suits with yellow vomity shoulder splats made sure that distribution was not adversely effected. Curiously adapted logos also began appearing all over the city’s billboards, city sweepers, vans and buses, as well as paint bombs and graffiti.

Double Strawberry Gotchya!

Finally the Biotech promotion event of the NorthWest Business club was seriously disrupted. First some noisy animal rights activists protesting about animal testing were dragged out. Then the Vice President of Biogen (Denmark) the world’s oldest biotechnology company was struck in the face by a double strawberry gateaux by Agent Sara Lee. Finally AstraZeneca’s keynote speaker was interrupted several times by before finally admitting that indeed his company did profit from people’s misery. Meanwhile some GM carrots and others outside the event made sure all the delegates at the Biotech Breakfast were fully aware that some Manchester residents were less than happy at the prospect of their city being a base for the dodgy biotech industry.

More info from http://www.nato.uk.net