Fourth of JuPlaya, yip yip!

Morley and Mike on the train from Helsingor to Copenhagen, August 2009. Them's some seriously confident, loving smiles. Hooray!

Photo by the fabulous Ian Baker. The entire DDI-Goes-International set is worth checking out!

At this very moment Dance Dance Immolation is in a shipping container on a train headed for Houston, Texas.  From Houston it will be loaded onto a cargo ship and will be on a motherfucking boat to Denmark. On July 31st, a 7-person crew of Interpretive Arsonists will fly to Copenhagen and proceed overland to Skanderborg for Smukfest. We will be running DDI for four nights, August 6-9. And if that wasn't enough, the festival takes place in a forest, so they're building us a raft and we'll be running on a lake.

The team (myself, raindrift , nicoletbn , Jonathan, Mo, edrabbit , and sofauxboho ) will be working hard the duration of our stay - four days of setup, four nights running (August 6-9), two days of teardown/pack-up, a day at Legoland, then back to Copenhagen.  

The majority of the crew will be headed straight back to SF.  Something about some big party in the desert? I dunno, anyway, I've decided to spend another week and a half (August 13-22) exploring Scandinavia!  My round trip plane fare is paid by the festival, and the first 10 days we get room and board. I might as well spend a little of my savings getting a real vacation after the (totally awesome and worth it) stress of running DDI in a foreign country.

If anyone has recommendations of places to visit or stay in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania or St. Petersburg, let me know. Even more awesome would be introductions to friends residing in Scandinavia whose couches I might surf in exchange for witty commentary about fire and robots, stickers, doing the dishes, and being relatively house-trained.

WOOOOOOOHOOOOO! We are now officially International Rockstars. Fuck yeah.

The crew of DDI on Saturday night. (Well, most of us! With a few notable exceptions).

Photo by Vanessa Naylon / flickr:takeitez

Check out her set from the party, she has some AMAZING photos of DDI in action!

I, clearly, don't write in my LJ much anymore. What with twitter, facebook and having a real job and a busy life, I rarely find the time. When I do, it tends to be scattered lists of random things. Today is no exception. I give you thirteen random events and thoughts from the last few months.

One
I've determined with some certainty that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. More specifically, sunlight is a drug, and without it I get depressed. I'm really happy it's spring again! I love daylight savings. Having golden light streaming through the windows when I return home from work is an amazingly uplifting and emboldening thing.

Two
I've joined a gym. I've got a kickass personal trainer named Carmela - she's totally sexy and inspiring. I'm going to the gym 3 to 5 days a week - weight training, cardio on the elliptical, and treating myself to the dry sauna afterwards. The gym is halfway between my  house and my office, which makes it very easy to work out before or after work.  I joined soon after we decided to stop working on Timescale. I figured I have the free time, and no excuse! I've wanted to get in better shape for... a while now... and I finally have a good attitude about it. So far so good.

Three
This month marks my five year anniversary with headlouse . Five amazing, wonderful years! Five years of growth, learning, laughing together and adventuring around the world side by side. Five years of successful navigating the at-times turbulent waters of polyamory. Five years of dedication to our relationship, his marriage with nifercritter , and my own interest in finding a partner. Five years of communication and patience. Five years of fabulous sex. Five years that have seen major changes in both of our lives - from new homes, to new jobs, to new lovers and circles of friends. Here's to us, and here's to another five!

Four
I adore my tiny pink MSI wind. It is the cutest computer evar. Hackintosh FTW!

Five
I have started saving towards a downpayment on a house. With luck, I'll be buying my own home in the next 3 to 6 years. It depends where I wind up living - East Bay is most likely, but I'm also taking a gander at cities beyond the Bay Area. I'll be in Portland in October for the Geological Society of America national meeting, but don't worry I have no plans to head back to the east coast any time soon.

Six
We're running Dance Dance Immolation this coming Saturday night at NIMBY: How to Destroy the Universe Part 6! Read all about it here. Come say  hi! I'll be MC'ing later in the evening.

Seven
I got a raise yesterday. Not a big one, but enough that I feel valued and appreciated, particularly in these trying economic times. It's awesome that I get paid a handsome salary to do something I love. I commented to Claire last night, "You know, when I was in Pittsburgh, I romanticized life in San Francisco. Now that I'm back I've realized it was all true!"

Eight
I learned how to ride a motorcyle! I successfully passed the Motorcycle Safety Fundamentals class last month, and I have an appointment next week at the DMV to get my M1 license. After that, we'll see... on the one hand, I could totally buy a motorcycle! That would be awesome! On the other hand, I could save my money and put it towards that house I'm dreaming about, and not run the risk of being killed on the highway.

Nine
I've been working out in the field at  San Pablo Dam. It's a fascinating project, both from a project management standpoint and from a geotechnical standpoint. I've been working 20 - 30 hours at the job site logging solid CDSM core, choosing samples for compressive strength testing, and compiling an extensive database tracking all of the sampling and installation. Learning lots!

Ten
Spatula is doing great! Springtime agrees well with le chat - his snarfling has subsided and he spends many an afternoon sprawled across my bed, basking in the sunshine. I bought him a new cat tree and though he's not tackling it at 2am anymore, he still spends a fair amount of time scratching and gnawing at it. He'll be five years old in June.

Eleven
It goes to eleven! Last weekend marked the 6th annual Bicycle Day. We had a smaller crew this time - a tight knit band of twelve. We returned to Angel Island for a sunny, euphoric ride to the top of the mountain, from whence we surveyed the entire Bay Area. It was a beautiful day filled with good friends and good cheer. After our ride we retired to House Askew for delicious snacks and dinner, music, and the unveiling of a hidden universe beneath our coffee table.

And with that, it's time for me to take a bath and head to sleep. Farewell, and stay tuned for more in another month or three!

Dear Timescale column artists, supporters, donors, and friends:

As you’re probably aware, Burning Man is unable to fund Timescale. We’ve discussed whether there might be room to negotiate, and there simply isn’t. All of their art grant budget is committed to other projects. This has been a disappointment, but we understand that Burning Man received many beautiful, engaging proposals, and some difficult decisions had to be made. We look forward to seeing our friends’ successful projects, funded or not, on the playa this summer.

We have spent the last few weeks reviewing our own resources, discussing possible new sources of funding, and looking at ways to cut costs. After much effort, it became clear that a mile-long art project is inevitably expensive and time-consuming to build. The time spent on fundraising would directly impact the amount of time we could spend working on the project itself, especially since the work and the fundraising would have to start immediately.

When we add in projections for what we could realistically fundraise during a recession, it just doesn’t add up. We simply do not have the resources to build Timescale in a way that’s consistent with our artistic vision. We know this will disappoint the people who were looking forward to making column art, or to walking the corridor and gaining a deeper understanding of our planet’s history. We’re all quite sad that we won’t see 27 different visions for periods in Earth’s history. We received so many wonderful column proposals, and we’re truly sorry to have to walk away from the promise of such inspiring collaborations. However, at this point we’d have to make so many compromises for the project to succeed that it probably wouldn’t feel like a victory when we made it to the end. In the words of the inimitable Nina Rawkstah, “Burnout isn’t sexy.”

Upon the announcement that we’d lost funding, the outpouring of support, care, and offers of help from the community was an inspiration. Thank you all. Please don’t consider this a failure of our community, or a case where things could be different if we’d all tried harder. The scope of Timescale was set from the very beginning with the assumption of major grant funding. If we’d been denied funding initially, we’d probably have tossed the idea into the “too
expensive” pile and moved on. As it was, the momentum we built in the weeks following the original grant announcement allowed us to consider moving ahead regardless of funding status. At this point, we’re happy to have the team, even if the project can’t happen.

Since making this decision, our task has been to decide what to do now that we have a collection of motivated, interested artists who’ve cleared their schedules to build a big project. We’ve come up with a number of good ideas, narrowed it to the best one or two, and are already doing the preliminary design work. We have fourteen people and big box of tools — only good can come of it.

– Ian Baker, on behalf of the Timescale team

PS - Some people donated money to the project. We really, really appreciate that. Your donations will be returned over the next few days.

PPS - If you’re in the SF Bay area, please join us on Saturday, April 4th at 7pm for a Timescale Wake at NIMBY^2. We’ll take sledgehammers and explosives to some of our concrete test cylinders and column models to celebrate the creativity and dedication that was poured into this project before its untimely demise.

Six notes from the month of January:

Note 1: Timescale proposal submitted! Wahoo! Uh oh, now we have to actually BUILD it if they decide to give us a grant....

Note 2: If we get that grant, I'll need a vehicle for build season (and beyond...). I briefly borrowed a truck from a friend, but alas that won't be a long-term solution. I'm pondering an extended-cab Toyota pickup, basically a nicer newer version of BonBon with more seating room. We'll see. Saving that decision for after we hear back on grant satus.

Note 3: My cat is really, really snotty. Like, snot flying out of his nose in long nasty opaque chunky globs. Ew. However, fresh air seems to be helping him of late, so hopefully the summer will be easier on his poor congested sinuses.

Note 4: I love living in Oakland! And I love biking to work. I'm super excited for the imminent arrival of my new bike, hand-built on an old Fuji Sagres mixtie frame by my friend Tomcat.

Note 5: Furcon was a helluva fun time! Got to see M & Jovino in their element, hung out a big with Neonbunny and his adorable boy, and met Salamander and Woofie. My partner in crime was Ramon, a dapper bear indeed. Next year I'm determined to rouse a larger crew of my friends to join me!

Note 6: I finished off the month at the Fishbowl for Ed's birthday, then dancing my ass off to Amon Tobin at the Independent. After working in the field 7am-3pm on Saturday, I was feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and doubted I'd be feeling very motivated to dance at the Amon Tobin show. But damn, every time I see im perform, he just won't let me not dance! It's insidious, his music - it 's fucking addictive glitchy evil gnarly pounding wonderful motivation! After the show I biked back to Riverton with Colin and we passed out hard. I can't hardly complain - finishing January in the arms of a wonderful man!

February is off to a roaring start - today I went shopping for tweed with Colin, preparing for the upcoming Tweed Ride on February 12th! Next weekend it's back to the Timescale grindstone, refining the concrete mix for the columns.

Life goes on, beautifully, overwhelmedly, and scattershot. Just the way I like it.

Me, with the 12" concrete cube Timescale proposal.

For those of you who are curious to see what I'll be building for the next eight months of my life, take a gander at the final Burning Man grant proposal for Timescale.


Here's the lovely artist's rendering, by the ever-so-talented Star St. Germain (click for full size):

We should hear back from the Burning Man art grant committee in late February/early March. Cross your fingers that they choose wisely and decide to fund this project!

If you are interested in getting involved, either as a column sculpture artist or as a member of the build team, let me know.

Photos of the large concrete proposal box are forthcoming once Nicole pulls them off her camera...
 

Skeptical disease vector at the Edwardian Ball. Photo by Binx!