Fascinating first reading. In essence, when the dust storm rages in at 4pm and you're probably off your face, here's how you protect your lungs, your eyes and your body. With Particulate respirator, hipster scarf and
goggles... Sweet Jesus. The horror!
Last year's Burning Man was a bit more this:
Dawn at the Temple
and this:
Lady Flamingo Faun
and this:
Tent exploration
Needless to say I am a little terrified. My ladies who lunch on acid look could take somewhat of a beating.
My precious
Perhaps we best break for a song. Or even better, a movie clip:
Aha. So elegance can indeed save the day. If Rachel Weisz can handle it, so can I. You may trip out a bit and see imaginary faces in the sandstorm, but as long as you kiss the first man you see it all goes away... Smashing advice. I'll let you know how it goes in THREE weeks when I return to the land of normal. The castle of Wales. I hope it is a less bumpy ride than last year. So the sermon begins...
It's all very well going down the rabbit hole but how do you come out the other side? Fairytales deal with this magnificently. The prince saves the princess. The dragon is slain. And you all live happily ever after. Unless you're the dragon, or the wicked witch or the evil stepmother. As I slope further and further away from princess opportunities due to lifestyle choices, I realise I am more inclined to side with the villain than the heroine. I recognise Ursula the Seawitch and Malificent. I find Ariel and Snow White a bit slow and a bit whiny. Maybe it's the ageing process, or the Spinster growing within, my own silent passenger.
Part of me likes this deviation. I like the friends that side with it too. The wild raucous ones I play with who encourage the badness. Those who find me positively prudish due to their wilder sides or reward my tales of excess. There is a part of me however, that struggles with this abandonment of meeting a nice man and settling down and having babies. It affects family relationships. I found myself spitting venom at my brother for some seemingly long forgotten slight about me swearing too much and having little in common with him. It seems sides begin to be taken.
I feel guilty for not fulfilling the princess role, for not finding my prince, for being too much to settle down with. Is it my perception or how my family really sees me? Perhaps it is a case of learning to live with this person I've become, of embracing the Elphaba, green faced misunderstood witch and realising my ruby slipper days are behind me? Or maybe I'm just ramping up for the wedding of the century when my beautiful, best friends Andrius Paskus & Janis Latvels get married at the Bellagio in 6 days time? And I jump out of a plane, and go fight dustdemons in the desert?
In summation. At present, I work in a castle and pretend to be a Princess while living in a desert of my own making. Next week I'll be in the actual desert, where the wild things are. Then I must return and pretend to be normal again. It perturbs me. Fuck it. Let's look at pretty things instead :)
Sunday worship is brought to you by the groom and the groom.
My beautiful boys - Janis & Andrius
BOBFOC? Oh no, he's pretty up top too. Mr Janis Latvels :)
I know this is the campest follow up to that statement, but I can't resist. To defying gravity :)
Hello. Sorry to be so unSunday in my approach but this spinster has been living it up with a 4 day weekend full of sugar and spice and all things nice. Still Untouched but full of plans and high fallutin ideas. I hope you enjoyed the Veronicas, this track's a cross between Don Henley's Boys of Summer and Divinyls' I touch myself. J'adore. Spinster anthems. I'd now like to read you a short excerpt from Angels & Insects by A.S.Byatt, one of my favourite authors, as she so concerns herself with Victorian art and poetry. It is a wonderfully bumbling spoken piece by a Mr Jesse to Miss Tennyson (sister of Alfred Lord).
.....................
'You don't seem to understand. I didn't mean to speak so much so soon, but there I go, rushing on, like the North Wind, can't stop - have you ever felt that someone was to do with you, when you saw them, quite simply, just that, that there are people all over the place with noses like dough-buttons and eyes like currants and other people like Roman busts, you know, and then suddenly you see a face that's alive - for you - and you know it's to do with you, that that person is a part of your life, have you ever felt that?' 'Once,' said Emily. 'Once, I believe.' Had she? They stood in the street and looked at each other. Richard's bland, amiable brow was crumpled with his puzzled attempt to make her share what was perfectly plain to him. He made an awkward movement with his arms, half a salute, half the prelude to enfolding her, and drew back. 'I'm crowding you, Miss Tennyson, I'll go now, I hope you'll talk later and not hold my awkwardness against me. If I'm right, we do have things to say to each other, and if I'm not, it will become clear enough, no bad feelings, wont it? So I'll bid you goodbye for he present, Miss Tennyson. It's been a pleasure.' And he strode off, very fast, down the street, leaving her not knowing whether to laugh or cry. ..................... It's no 50 shades of grey, but I much prefer to hear talk of dough buttons, currants and Roman busts than strong men, weak women and bad porn. I had my photo taken with this book on Sunday. Other books titles strewn around included: The Psychology of Romantic Love by Robert A Johnson; The book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould; Basic Bhagavad Gita by Sravaniya DiPecoraro; John Keats, The Complete Poems; Mythology by Edith Hamilton; The Dictionary of the Occult by Andrew Nataf; Guenevere, the Queen of the Summer Country by Rosalind Miles; Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy and Tales of Power by Carlos Casteneda. I hadn't heard of this link yet http://hotgirlsreadingbooks.tumblr.com/ but I think that's the general gist. Sunday was photoshoot day. My ego had been supremely flattered when I'd been offered a free photoshoot. I hadn't really thought through the likelihood that I'd be encouraged to buy photographs afterwards. After spending an hour in make-up and being told the shoot would last about 5 hours, I figured there was likely to be an element of sales pitch. There is NO sales pitch. There is just wonderfully clever lighting and make up and your vanity does all the rest. I want these photos so bad. I want them over my imaginary kingsize bed. I want selections of some in my imaginary study. I want a giant coffee table book made with them placed on my imaginary coffee table. Alas, or luckily, depending upon your perception, I have no rooms of my own, so have no place to put these pictures, so am not purchasing. For now... But they're out there. About 50 lovely photographs. I'm strewn across a fake fur on the floor with green satin gloves and black veils. I'm pouring Chambord as if a wicked love potion into a gilded vessel. I'm twirling a parasol in a pastel sheath dress with an overstated hello boys wink. I'm Pre-raphaelite wicked with curious books, statues of buddhas and peacock feathers fresh from the castle lie in my wake. It was egomadness. I was in heaven. I was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. I recommend you all do it. Boys included. With beauty being in the eye of the beholder, having professionals help you control your image is quite wonderful. Of the many photos taken. The photographer has posted 3 on his site. If I want to revel in my beauty once more I must pay for the privilege. Nifty business model. Relying on the seven deadliest of sins. Here are the three I can share:
Elaine, my beautiful friend who came to join the egotrip.
Me looking somewhat jilted
The pair of us, busy subverting the male gaze, or posing :)
So Sunday was pretend to be a model day. Saturday was pretend to be a sailor day. This lucky little spinster was picked up at the castle by the House Steward in his smashing red sports car and whisked off to Lake Vernwy to get my Wayfarer on. I was imagining self as Lynne from Howard's Way. The epitome of grown up cool. Alas, as the grown up on the boat was used to racing yachts, I spent three and a half hours getting bruised while exposing my knickers due to far too much tacking and far too little drinking. Fun though. Monday was yoga nidra with friends, which led to yoga snoring with mat and waking up late in the afternoon. I then drove to Blackburn to visit the faery wood.
Faery writing pod where pacts were made
By Tuesday strict covenants had been drawn up to ensure the blogging grows to novelling and then it was time to go home, back to teenworld at Hope Cottage, Number one Cleveland Street, Cherry Orchard, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, Great Britain, Europe, the Earth, the Milky Way, the Universe, Infinity and beyond. Which is where I am now. Which is why it is bedtime. I leave you with the dulcet tones of the theme tune to the finest drama before Sunset Beach. Oh and your Sunday worship, in honour of Tom Daley and his bronze...
Hello and welcome to the fourth in the series of Sunday Spinster Sermons.
We open today with the 1988 hit, Need You Tonight by INXS.
Most of today's sermon will focus on that year. As it's the year I was 12. A children's TV programme in the UK uses this as a format to look at history through the eyes of celebrities. Some speak of the perfection and freedom of being 12, usually the ones who were good at PE while others talk of the realisation they were different and escape into a more creative world of music, literature or art. As discussed last week, I'm not one of life's PE winners.
I was inappropriately reading Riders by Jilly Cooper and dreaming of being fabulously rich and successful and a million miles away from Wilmslow, the off licence I lived above and All Hallows Catholic High School. I was enjoying getting turned on by Michael Hutchence with his raw sex appeal and George Michael with his new album, Faith, and his declarations that he wanted my sex. I didn't quite understand yet that really he didn't.
Not that I was much of a Lolita. I was hiding behind my glasses and curling up with my nose deep in a book. This was the year Matilda by Roald Dahl came out, I would have enjoyed her every bit as much as the strong characters in Riders, here was a little girl who could outdo her teachers and perform magic. Wonderful. At the cinema, I was watching Tom Hanks in Big, working magic through the mighty Zoltan. Dreaming of being a grown up and controlling my destiny.
This was the year Kylie Minogue and Bros bounced onto the pop scene so I was singing along about being so lucky and dropping boys, all the while desperately seeking a hat with no top on so my hair could poke out like Kylie's album cover, the ultimate pineapple.
I wonder what 12 year old me would make of 36 year old me? She wouldn't be amused by the fact I still live at home. She would probably tut that I still bit my nails and ponder that maybe that's why I wasn't allowed to wear a sparkly engagement ring? She'd be happy that I'd been on adventures and had written and had fallen in love and had sex with strange men in strange places. She be surprised that so much remained the same. That the same yearning would exist, dreams of another life and the constant escape to the arts.
Caliban sums it up rather well.
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd, I cried to dream again.
I leave you with Sunday Worship. Olympically themed of course. The first is safe for work. The second. Depends where you work.
Good
morning and welcome to today’s Sunday Spinster Sermon brought to you with the
battle cry ‘Lead the revolution in your bedroom & set all the zippers
free!' The week began with a mighty T10 over in Asia and ended with the Olympic
Opening Ceremony in England.
Many zippers will have been set free. Grindr, the all male find-a-friend app
crashed. Love has been shared across the land.
This leads
us to today’s first reading. A short tale of love and loss inspired by the
young bucks strutting around the Castle I type this from and my interesting
period of fallow.
The Greek
myth of Diana and Actaeon can be
found within Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The tale recounts the unfortunate fate of a
young hunter named Acteon who was the grandson of Cadmus, and his encounter
with chaste Diana, goddess of the hunt. The lovely goddess was nude and
enjoying a bath in a spring with help from her escort of nymphs when the foolish
but exceptionally handsome man unwittingly stumbled upon the scene. The nymphs
screamed in surprise and attempted to cover Diana, who, in a fit of embarrassed
fury, splashed water upon Actaeon. He transformed into a deer with dappled hide
and long antlers, robbed of his ability to speak, and thereafter promptly fled
in fear. It is not long, unfortunately, before his fellow hunters and his own
hounds track him down and kill him, failing to recognize their friend.
The second
element of today’s Spinster Sermon must of course be the Opening Ceremony
of the Olympics. Another fusion of dance, history, myth, art, poetry,
fairytale, theatre and magic. All the wonderful lefty multicultural crap, as a
Tory MP so eloquently tweeted.
Thanks to
Danny Boyle, I have finally started watching sport. I hated it as a child. I
was forced to watch it on TV, in the same way I was forced to go to church on a
Sunday by an over zealous father with Creationist tendencies. Once you added
bullish, bulldyke PE teachers and skipping training bras to go straight to a
cup size before going to Secondary School, my sporting fervour was somewhat
diminished. I must have been one of the few children at school who adored
English and Maths and Science but would actually bunk off to avoid the agonies
of a PE class.
The
pageantry of the weekend has transformed this. I can now see sport as theatre,
sport as storytelling, sport as beauty. (Sunday Worship to follow confirms
this)
I’ve never
achieved the dizzying heights of success that these athletes earn through years
of determination and endeavour. This led me to wonder what would be my top ten
moments so far? What have been my Olympian moments? Moments where I’ve transcended
the every day to become a champion? I have no wedding day or first born to
celebrate. No marathon or race won, so what have been my moments of perfection?
These were
the top ten that came to mind as I mused last night.
Hearing that I looked beautiful
in the moonlight by my first love as I lay naked on the two single beds pushed
together
Flying a Cessna over the Okavango
Delta I’d just mokoroed down
Getting A grade A-levels on the
same day as my little brother and seeing mum cry with happiness
Learning dad would live after
signing papers agreeing he was brain dead
Swimming with sharks off Dyer Island
in South Africa
Learning I was going to present
the BBC documentary IpsoFacto
when I was 15
Kissing an ill-fated pararmour
under the stars on a sampan in the South China
Seas
Being fed a joint and a ribena
by two separate boys after a night clubbing in Leeds,
too content to move
Strutting in heels through a
heavily armed PLA in a square in Beijing
on route to an Asian Football Cup party without authorisation but high so
feeling authorised
Sitting in my house on Lamma Island after a big party thinking
about the friends I’d made and life I’d created, thinking, I did this.
They’re my
breathtaking moments. Amongst hundreds of others. The ones that come first to
mind. I encourage you to think of your own. They’ll make you smile.
Hello and welcome to our Second Sunday Spinster Sermon.
I hope you all enjoyed our opening hymn.
As a committed friend of a friend of Dorothy, I was very excited to be seeing The Wizard of Oz LIVE at the Theatre Seven this week. I had tissues at the ready. I thought of Judy's original perfection and Eva Cassidy's raw hope and knew I would be sobbing before the first few minutes were done. This was not true.
The Wizard of Oz a la Shropshire was the campest thing I have yet to see and I've frequented a lot of gay bars. Each character was a Mae West impersonator. Every last one of them! Highlights including the tinman having a magic 'ass' due to his midwestern drawl and Toto, the pug, fleeing the stage wherever possible.
As this is part of Sunday Service where I must offer up an act of contrition; this week I am mostly sorry for sniggering in the Gods while playing imaginary drinking games along to each act of high campery.
Nora Ephron would now like to come forwards and recite the first reading of the day:
“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel
like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter.
Reading gives
me something to talk about later on. Reading
is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself.
Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with
reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with
someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”
Amen.
Our second reading comes from Durga. My favourite Virgin Goddess. A Virgin Warrior and Destroyer. We are very pleased to welcome her here today as meditating upon her has cheered me no end. She remains my favourite not just because her mode of transport resembles Aslan but that her wiki page describes her as being able to, 'manifest fearlessness and patience, and never lose her sense of humor, even
during spiritual battles of epic proportion.'
Thank you Durga.
The word Shakti means divine energy/force/power. I am the warrior aspect of the Divine Mother / Brahman (Supreme
Absolute Godhead). As a goddess, my feminine power contains the combined energies of all
the gods. Each of my weapons were given to me by various gods: Rudra's
trident, Vishnu's discus, Indra's thunderbolt, Brahma's kamandalu and
Kuber's Ratnahar.
According to a narrative in the Devi Mahatmya story of the Markandeya Purana text, I was created as a warrior goddess to fight an asura, or inhuman
force/demon, named Mahishasura. He had unleashed a reign of terror on earth,
heaven and the nether worlds, and he could not be defeated by any man or god,
anywhere.
Mahishasura
underestimated me, thinking: "How can a woman kill me, Mahishasur—the one
who has defeated the trinity of gods?". However, I roared with
laughter, causing an earthquake soon making Mahishasur aware of my powers. Mahishasura rampaged against me, changing forms many
times. First he was a buffalo demon, who I defeated with my sword.
Then he changed forms and became an elephant that tied up my lion
and began to pull it towards him. I cut off his trunk with my sword.
The demon Mahishasur continued his terrorizing, taking the form of a lion, and
then the form of a man, but both of them were gracefully slain.
Then Mahishasur began attacking once more, starting to take the form of a
buffalo again. I became angry, and proclaimed to
Mahishasur in a colorful tone—"Roar with delight while you still can, O
illiterate demon, because when I will kill you, the gods themselves will roar
with delight".When Mahishasur had
half emerged into his buffalo form, he was paralyzed by the extreme light
emitting from my body. I laughed
before cutting Mahishasur's head down with my sword. Mahishasur slain, I rewarded other soldiers who helped in the battle by bestowing upon the army a knowledge of jewelry-making. Give a man a medal and he's proud for a day. Teach a man to make his own medals and he's proud for a lifetime.
Thank you Durga.
We move on to this week's Sermon. Last week's was very lunar and quite emotional. This one moves away from the feminine and towards the masculine.
This weekend. I met my uncle for the first time. He said he'd seen me before when I was about 10 years old. At that time I was quite shy and bookish so I don't recall. As I am no longer so shy (still bookish), it made for a much more memorable meeting. He's similarly prodigal. I always thought Prodigal meant had gone away and now come back, due to Bible stories. Turns out that's not quite right.
prod·i·gal/ˈprädigÉ™l/
Adjective:
Spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.
Noun:
A person who spends money in a recklessly extravagant way.
Uncle likes a drink, smokes, wears stoner t-shirts, dived with sharks, travelled the world, speaks his mind and has blue eyes. We had quite a lot to talk about.
The most interesting stories were of his father, my grandfather. I never really got to know him as he was a non comedy version of Melchett, from Blackadder. The Sergeant Major. Fabulous beard and moustache. Very shouty. 'Hells, bells and buckets of blood' he would rumble when vexed. He made beautiful art too but didn't like children, so as he died when I was 13 we never got to chat. I learnt lots of wonderful history about him this weekend. Lots very sad but fascinating also. Having been brought up by a very down to earth mother who enjoys the English countryside more than the trade winds, it made a lot of sense to learn my grandfather had been with the Royal Artillery during the Second World War and had fought in Mumbai, Calcutta, Mandalay, Imphal and Ceylon. He'd fought with the Chindits.
Ernest James Siseman was the youngest captain at 23. Ernest James Siseman operated deep behind Japanese lines and was weakened by malaria. Ernest James Siseman met my grandma at Deolal, 100 miles outside Mumbai when she nursed him back to health.
The British saying 'doolally tap',
loosely meaning "camp fever" comes from Deolali and the apparent madness of
men waiting for ships back to Britain after finishing their tour of duty. Doolally today means mad or insane. Mum was born in May of 1946. The Burmese campaign ended in July 1945. What a place to be made. Not surprising he didn't talk much. He did create beautiful paintings though.
After his death his paintings were sold off. Most of his work was of
landscapes, he didn't ilke drawing people. The little girl being bookish
on the left is me. Hope to track it down one day.
This one is at Liverpool University. Really modern. I look forward to visiting.
Lovely to meet you uncle Quentin. Looking forward to visiting you in Finland. The fact you live a short drive from Moomin World makes the offer all the more attractive :)
It's nice to have an uncle. Nice to have some male energy around. Even when it bleats like Melchett :)
As you walk in and chose your seats, you can listen along to Lucy Rose singing Lines. Filmed in Wild Wales to set the scene.
In future Sundays we shall move into our Acts of Contrition and follow up with readings, but for the pilot Spinster Sermon, we'll cut straight to the homily itself:
‘I’m not going to stand for it,’ she screamed down the
cluttered stairs.
‘Stand for what?’
‘You being such a bitch to me. I go out of my way to do
things your way. I bend over backwards. And all you can do if remind me how I
only have a month to go until I need to move out. You can’t even bear to spend
more than half an hour in a supermarket with me.’
‘Oh you do get yourself in such a huff,’ she jokes.
Teenager high jinx. Such memories. Sadly, this is
not a memory. Well it is. But one from today, not twenty years ago. Moving home
has brought back all the old behaviours. Mum is made of sterner stuff than me,
a more grounded soul, so clashes are frequent.
I find myself seeking attention and getting angry when I don’t receive it.
I thrive on intrigue and giggles. Mum on peace and gardens.
This last ridiculous argument
was down to the Twinings Logo in the tea and coffee aisle
during our big shop in Asda. I asked how old she thought it
was. She said old and moved to go. I said no, guess how old? She said 100
years? I said no. She said 200. I said no. She said, ‘Enough, I’m sick of
playing these games, we’re leaving the supermarket now!’ So I got upset. Such a
shame. The Answer is 300 years. So near. Yet so far. I read it on a tweet this
morning. I am twelve.
The twelve year old put the shopping in the car in a stony
silence. Drove home. Unpacked. Took items particular to herself in a bag up to
room. Slammed door and sulked in the tiny back bedroom still full of boxes.
This is following a further scene at the check out, when mum had asked me not
to do any of my cooking until after she’d finished her’s, as she had a friend
coming over. I’d glowered back. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I won’t be anywhere near you. I’ll
stay out of your way.’ God. I’m a bad episode of Sunset Beach, perhaps I’ve
turned into my own evil twin?
Then mum knocked on my bedroom door and asked if we could talk.
This is always bad. I stop being angry and get upset. I cry. Mum feels bad. She
wants a hug. I am so tense I don’t want anyone near me. She doesn’t understand why
I’m upset. She says she loves me. I cry a bit more. We’re just different
people. A spinster and a divorcee sharing one very small house. She knows I’ll
find a job where I can move out. Having tried for over a year, I am less sure
of this. But I am sure that I get happy when I write.
I had already planned to start my Spinster Sermons this
morning. At 5am. When I woke up with the monthly barren bat signal. The
Spinster Special. This is no way completely explains the proceeding paragraphs…
I was pondering a way to motivate self to write again. I knew I needed
something with a reasonable frequency. I admire my friends who keep to weekly
blogs by adding photos of fashion or travels or some such. As I reside in the
Shire and my social life is pretty sparse this would have been tricky so I wanted
to play with the Spinster thing. At 5am, I realised that Spinster Sermons would
work.
As a very lapsed Roman Catholic I could still recall the
Sunday Mass rundown. There’s a welcome, an act of contrition (saying sorry for
being bad), lessons (Bible and Gospel readings), a sermon or homily,
transubstantiation (flying saucer paper with stamped crosses and cheap red wine
turn in the body and blood of Christ), Communion and then thanksgiving. All
rounded up by a song.
This week’s Sermon seems to have something of a lunar theme. Next week who can say. Two weeks time will definitely
be sex based. We should be back to tears again in 4
weeks.
In the spirit of this back to front, moon-kissed Spinster Sermon. I offer up this reading by Keats. I first learnt the tale of Endymion when captivated by the most beautiful man at Chatsworth. There are many tales of Endymion. My favourite is that Semele, the Goddess of the Moon who fell so in love with his beauty she decided he must never age. He was therefore granted immortality but must always stay asleep except when the Moon Goddess came down to visit him and enjoy his company. They had 50 daughters.
Endymion by John Keats. 1818.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Not prevalent in your usual Roman Catholic Mass, but Spinster Sermons offer up movie recommendation of the week. Mass tended to tell us what not to watch. The Life of Brian was certainly banned. This week I recommend Bright Star http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810784/ the story of Keats but told through the eyes of his lover, Fanny Brawne. It's gentle and tender and kind and of course poetry filled.
I think we come to the end of today's Sunday Spinster Sermon and I'd like to include my favourite part of Mass. The connection. When we would all stand up from our pews and make contact with each other. We'd say 'Peace be with you.' 'And also with you' while we shook on it.
So I'm sitting back in my little house in Shrewsbury, sipping on some Welsh blackberry and apple brandy and watching a Doris Day documentary. I'm sleepless. I'm jetlagged. I'm trying to process the most remarkable week of my life. The week I lost my Burginity at the Rites of Passage Burning Man 2011.
If you've ever seen The Muppet Movie, or Labyrinth, or Fraggle Rock, or Dark Crystal and delighted in it's mayhem, then that is 90 mins of fantasy that becomes tangible and lasts for a week while at BM.
The first thing you cannot believe upon arrival is the vastness of the space. A city is created for just a week to be burnt or torn down at the end. The playa stretches out for 3 miles and your tiny brain cannot compute its immensity. There are derelict fraggles as far as the eye can see. Art work emerges twinkling and mighty from the dust. It is an apocalyptic future. A dystopian past. Another dimension. Life on Mars. The Fifth Element. There are 50,000 wild ones, all communing to love, to laugh, to lose their minds and find them again.
You have this magical originality, this alien landscape and then you have your tribe. A few of you have made a camp. I was with wonderful old friends from Hong Kong and new ones from Germany and the US. We were all cartoon characters in our own graphic novel.
We were based at a New York sound camp named Bubbles & Base. Tina Jane and myself, along with Doctor Richard were to open the bar on the first night. Dress in gold was our only instruction.
We had arrived at camp after a 15 hour RV mission bought to us by the heroic Marija. We hit the playa at 1am but didn't park til 6am due to slow traffic onto site. We slept for a few hours and adopted our first costume change. TJ was bedecked in body hugging harlequin suit, heels and Northern Thailand hilltribe headress. I wore a Jessica Simpson polka dot bubble dress and parasol. We were caricatures of ourselves. We set out into the dust. Every other camp offers free booze. So we slurped IPA in a tiny saloon, travelled by fairground whirligig for beer and sipped whatever else was available in our plastic champagne flutes. We primped. We posed. We tried to take it all in. We found Shamrock City, soon to be our Irish Bar home from home and went back to the RV for a temazepam-drenched 4 hour sleep before our 2am alarm to prepare to bar wench.
We drank some amaretto and coke, smeared our eyelids and lips with pritstick to hold the golden glitter and hit our bar. For the next 8 hours, we served champagne to the thirsty circus folk while Doctor Richard checked ID. As the sun came up for our first true BM sunrise, we knew we were somewhere incredibly special, and not of this earth.
A further nap, and another costume change, and out we walked again. This was the pattern of the week for we had camped beside the Evil Dubstep Sound Camp, pumping out chainsaws and dentist drills. Music for the deaf. Music for the gremlins. Certainly not music for me. TJ was more adept at sleeping through this but as I had spent the last year in sleepy Shropshire it was gradually dementing me. But there were open bars. And sights to be seen. So the week continued.
We donned saris and made pilgrimage to the temple of transition. A place of such beauty and meaning I cannot describe. The walls are plastered with photos and letters and clothing of loved ones. A shrine to all those you have lost or forsaken you. People kissed. People cried. People mourned. In the middle of the desert. In a structure due for burning in but one week.
The dubstep continued. The drinking continued. The bowls were passed around. The mushrooms began to be nibbled.
Time and space stuttered.
Our RV ran out of power so no oven, no microwave, no AC. It is 41 degrees. We only have noodles to eat.
And then nightfalls. The temperatures drop and you find yourself out in the middle of the desert without your friends. You've lost your way and possibly your mind, somewhere between a portaloo and an artcar. You walk the miles back, in the dark, using the Burning Man and Temple as your guiding stars. A curvaceous, illuminated structure near the Bubbles & Bass camp means you can find your way. Pilgrimage through the dust. Falling into your tent, you wrap yourself in furs and sleeping bags and know exhaustion will get you through the soundcamps all around.
The morning begins again and so does the desert. You cycle. You drink. You listen to spoken word poetry in central camps. You meet more humans.
Snowcones are nearby. If you flash your junk you jump the queue. Your top slides off and you are suddenly wandering the playa topless. And who cares? No one. Many are naked. Then to Camp Beaverton for Wayward Girls. The lesbian camp. 150 girls whooping to a lecture about female ejaculation. Women tell you you're beautiful. Stainless steel paraphernalia is shown. We leave before the demonstration moves on. TJ finds it dull. As we stroll the playa, another artcar picks us up, and we listen to sweet non-dubstep tunes in the afternoon sun. My parasol protects my modesty. Somewhat.
We move towards the best dayclub of the playa, Distrikt and are picked up on our way by a phenomenal transgender lady we name Patsy for her abfab similarities. She steps out of her Sponge Bob Square Pants car to assure us she's no Patsy, she's a much bigger girl. She makes my own look like gnat bites. We spend some time at the club then I decide I've had too much of everything. I don't want to see anymore porn, anymore nudity, anymore mayhem. I want out the movie. I want a bed. I want clean clothes. I want freshness. I want to have not eaten that hash brownie. We return. I pass out at the back of the RV and stay there for around 10 hours.
TJ brings back various friends for me to meet. All quite innocently, but in my mangled brain I imagine wrong scenarios and pretend to slumber on. The dubstep rages on, symbolising the evil techno green bad trips I had once or twice in my teens. I sleep.
The next day is better. It is the day of the burn. There are only 2 more nights. The Man Burn. The Temple Burn. I can do this!
We get up for champagne at our club and are told that a movie star has a vagina art installation just around the corner. So off we set. We climb the cock and balls. We slide down the tube. We enter the vagina. We hit the G Spot. We get misted. We emerge to the morning sun. We meet Rosario Dawson. All is well.
We have a mellow day. Lots of cycling. Lots of exploring. The oddness is feeling less odd. We drink lots of water. We prepare for the Burn. Having spent all week losing people, due to the natural and not so natural highs, our tribe plan to meet at the temple at 8 to walk over to the Man. I embrace the mayhem and the pharmaceuticals and off we trot. We have Eunice, the Unicorn as our guide. She is held aloft as we enter the most tribal happening. Every light is on. Every stereo is playing. Pyrocars spurt their flames into the air. Acid & E & mushrooms & pot & absinthe fill the air. Here is what occurs from afar: http://vimeo.com/28801666 Within is a magical, wild, untameable beast. A delirium. A celebration like no other. As he burns, the tribes woop and hug and sing and stare and the dancing begins. We are lost out on the playa for hours. Skipping and jumping. Where the Wild Things Are. The Lord of the Flies. The Island of Lost Boys. The Amazons.
As things calm, TJ and I slip away. We are not so high. We retreat to the RV to take pause and drink a glass of merlot. TJ ponders just relaxing, for the first time in the week I may add, but I reject that and off we trot once more. To have it out with the Evil Dubstep club! And we go. And we dance. Like we've never danced before. We gyrate to the dentists drill. We surf to the chainsaw. We clear the floor. We own the floor. We take back the night!
And so... to the Oirish Bar... The place of all things good.
We meet a giant Irish muppet, who shows us his show RV. He got it cheap off some fella and drove it over. It's bedecked in red velvets and an utter pit. It is wonderful.
We return to the bar where a cheeky chap offers me granola on the dancefloor. The music is wonderful.
A sparkly Wolverine Elvis type comes to talk. He hands me a bracelet. With my a silver nametag on it. It is almost my name. A L L I S O N is says. Pft. That is the American spelling. I only have 1 L. And off I flounce. I am followed by a wingman to say the spelling is bad but the math is good. TBC.....
