The care and time that so many people put into costumes is a little bit overwhelming. I mean, you hear about a jellyfish themed party, but you don't expect to see people dressed up as them everywhere! I counted at least five people who had modified tentacles on decorated umbrellas. How compete? I, myself, stole Jen's newly-minted jellyish shirt and so I felt I'd approximated at least the texture and colors of the jellyfish. But it was so little compared! I think one of the best quotes I heard was from someone commenting on her friend's excuse for not coming: "I'll have to take forever to get ready!" The response was, "You don't even know what it means to get ready for a party. I've been working all week just to get ready!" Additionally, the place was adorned and decorated with jellyfish of all sizes. A geodome was jellyfish themed, the dj booth was a mobile jellyfish that could drive, they decorated the walls, and little blinking baby jellyfish were on fingers all around.
Oh the jellyfish! They are my second favorite marine invertebrate (next to the wondrous octopus, although the mantis shrimp and the sea cucumber are pretty captivating, too). I've always wanted one for a pet. Just look at these gorgeous things.
For more information about the mobile jellyfish from the year 12000, check the group's website.
Here's a small set from the latest Easy Street fiasco. This one included water in liquid form, indoors, which seemed to quickly turn to steam. Still at 5:00 in the AM the place was sweltering. Humidity just makes raw heat feel oppressive. It's the inverse of sitting in the sun's chromosphere, over one million degrees centigrade, hotter than the surface, but not enough particles to pick up the heat and even feel. Yeah, so it was like the inverse of that.
I wasn't there for very long - I had a trip to the black hole (in white canyon, southern Utah) the next morning even though thunderstorms were making that trip dangerous and uncertain.
This set has been like, published, and can be ordered as a cute little book from Blurb. Click!
From the photos it might not be apparent that this river trip was not just an everyday occasion. It wasn't like all the others! This one was unique! (Yes yes, I know that we are always heroes in the center of our own universe, and we feel that our own experiences are more fulfilling, rich, and poignant than others, but there's something almost Disneyland-like about the "river trip" that I don't love, they seem somewhat formulaic in spirit and the photographs almost always look the same).
But anyway, beneath our river uniforms - the anonymizing elements of life vests, helmets, and sharp sunlight on a one way track - it was a reunion of friends who had not seen each other for years. Some had not done the trip for ten years, others had done it every year for the past twelve. It was a group of 26 quite amazing people who met for relaxation, adventure, conversation, and a common enthrallment of and in powerful forces of nature. The smoothness and calm of the river can easily become a violent, life-sucking force. It's a metaphor for the fragility of our relatively calm planet hurtling through mostly empty space. One small thing goes wrong and it's all over. So, we slid through a groove in the rocks that had been set down from the Oligocene and popped out even longer ago, the late Cretaceous. It was relaxed yet rigorous, sacred and profane.
For further information, I'll refer to Jas's page on the trip.
Brandon, a rafter/photographer on the trip, also has pics: click!
I spent seven days at this year's rainbow gathering, which was in Wyoming this year.
The biggest question I have returning from the rainbow gathering is this: what was the impact on the mosquitoes!? I, myself, noticed a dramatic shift in the cleverness of the mosquitoes after about four days of battling. The early ones were lazy. I must have killed hundreds. Jen, sitting in one place while people were balancing rocks around her, killed one hundred and five, placing them in a morbid graveyard which was intended to warn the others. But after three days of massacre and blood exchange, they would not simply land. They would hover near, test their landing pad, and would require much attention.
Humans were driving evolution by killing the careless. The arms race had begun. If we had been able to stay I'm sure that we would be able to have conversations with them in 100 years.
The stories from spending a week with thousands of people are endless. I could write all night. There was death camp, the warriors of light, searches for people, rock balancing, wacky mysticism, my own secular preaching, nonchalant nudity, incredible and continual acts of altruism, and loud people.
Loud people. When you get so many people together you are quite certain to have a number of annoying ones. And the fact that they are prominent and vocal makes them seem to be more numerous than they are. I mean, some of the kids there were downright coarse. A 15 year old girl's voice could sound like a raspy 40 year old, screaming out constant obscenities. I couldn't believe it at first, but eventually I simply slept through the pre-dawn "good morning!'s, fighting dogs, and incoherent thundering.
It makes sense, though. I mean, what is the rainbow gathering but a collection of numerous regional outsider groups. Most of the people don't fit in, are socially awkward, and have antisocial tendencies. It's an odd mix, and some will always feel like outsiders even among a throng of thousands of others that feel the same way.
