(I think the original article is somewhere in my storage space, so this image will have to suffice for now) ?K? MAGAZINE September/October 1995 “Lord of the Fires: Burning Man” For those whose imagination runs towards an epic scale, the Burning Man beckons. Fire, industrial drum circles, massive structures built and destroyed, costumed and naked people, music, dancing and more fire. Burning Man is a three-day festival held since 1990 in the midst of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. It originated in 1986 when Larry Harvey built an eight-foot effigy of a man with triangle-shaped head to burn to mark the summer solstice at a beach in San Francisco. What began as an event witnessed by twenty is now a Labor Day weekend arts festival/ritual sacrifice/postmodern carnival of the absurd where all of the 2000-plus attendees are required to be participants—not spectators. A vast empty and ancient lakebed is now a community for a few days complete with four FM radio stations, a daily gazette, landmarks and businesses. It is also one apocalypse of a party. I walk through the city at night trying to find my campsite. Before sunset, I hadn’t imagined how difficult it would be to find it. I learn quickly to recognize the temporary landmarks which help me back. The Burning Man glows brilliantly in red and blue neon to the east, a tall FM antennae has a few large red light on it in the center of the camp near the stage. My address for the weekend is near the brightly lit encampment of the band Polkacide, whose klezmer-playing clarinetist I can sometimes hear. There is so much to look at, to do and to see. Sleep is very low on my list of priorities. Bands and performers, mostly from the Bay Area, are scheduled at the stage, but they rarely stick to the listed times. A mile south of the main camp a rave rages continuously for the whole weekend. There are three different dance areas complete with their own music genres and decorations. I am amazed by the amount of civilization which my fellow campers have brought with them. Theme camps have been organized by different groups for the weekend. At Camp Chaos, a room complete with disco ball hanging from the ceiling, leather sofa, stereo and oriental rug awaits visitors. A theatre group called Crux Productions from NYC has set up twin forty-foot World Trade Center towers out of scaffolding with a swing hanging in-between. Tiki Camp has a fountain and a large cow-shaped hors d’oeuvre table. Someone has built a huge zoetrope, probably twenty-feet in diameter, with neon figures which animate when it spins. At McSatans, campers can purchase burgers and cigarettes. Inside the pyramid-shaped camera obscura, after one has crawled through it’s spiral labyrinth, the world outside is projected onto a large white table, a little more contained and magical than it is in the windy outdoors. Tribalists, clowns, naked people, fire spitters, hackers, metal forgers, aliens, ravers, belly dancers, weirdos, freaks. Mass culture-rejecters all to varying extents. Art camp for pyromaniacs. Questioning status-quo reality by building the first space station in cyberspace is one of the ways founder Larry Harvey describes Burning Man. For those who come out to the desert from the crowded metropolis, it is an escape and a rebuilding of a new smaller city. I was surprised by how many technological amenities were transported out to the vast, cracked landscape. Video projectors, neon, laser lights, refrigeration, porta-potties which were never out of toilet paper, radio stations, sound systems—it was like a big three day film shoot in the middle of nowhere—a commercial for immediacy and poetic terrorism. There was a Man. A Man burned. So did a huge installation called Toyland built by the Los Angeles Cacophony Society. So did an immense organic sculpture known as the Fire Lingam, built by Pepe Ozan out of the actual dust of the playa. San Francisco’s Seemen, a machine arts group, presented “Art of the Ephemeral Spectacle” complete with metal jaws mounted on a golf cart spitting flame and a woman with a metal flame-spitting dildo. The spectators watching this performance got a bit tweaky and started demanding different things to be burnt. First the cry, “Burn the windsock!” was quite popular, and then after the windsock was nicely demolished, the even more popular cry, “Burn the audience!” went up. For an event which demanded no spectators, there were many: tourists and film crews abounded. It felt almost obscene to see so many people there only to document and not to experience. Many discussed the inevitability of the Lollapaloozation of Burning Man: corporate sponsors running amok, MTV filming Summer Break 1996 there, fast food booths and official Burning Man souvenirs—there already are Burning Man t-shirts, videos and glow-in-the-dark Frisbees for sale. Oh well. Some believe that the challenge of the four-day camping experience on the lifeless plain will keep those evils away. Two apt quotes from th

Cada carrer decorat es guarnit amb decoracions fetes a ma pels veins mateixos, d'acord amb un tema que canvia cada any. Concerts, jocs per les criatures, begudes, menjar i altres activitats culturals abunden a aquests mateixos carrers decorats i places dins el barri. La majoria de les decoracions estan fetes amb materials reciclats, com botelles de plastic, cartro, canyes de plastic, i tapes de botelles. -------- Each street is decorated with decorations hand made by the neighbours themselves, according to a theme that changes every year. Concerts, kid games, drinks, food and other cultural activities abound within and around these decorated streets and on some plazas within this borough. Most decorations are made with recycled materials like straws, plastic bottles and cardboard. ------- Cada calle decorada es decorada con decoraciones hechas a mano por los vecinos mismos, de acuerdo con un tema que cambia cada ano. Conciertos, juegos para las criaturas, bebidas, comidas y otras actividades culturales abundan en estas mismas calles decoradas y plazas dentro del barrio. La mayoria de les decoraciones estan hechas con materiales reciclados, como botellas de plastico, carton, canas de plastico, y tapas de botellas. ------------------------------------ Campanar de Gracia Placa de la Vila de Gracia avans Placa de Rius i Taulet. La placa de la Vila de Gracia (fins el 2009, de Rius i Taulet, tot i que coneguda pels graciencs com la Placa d'Orient)[1] es el centre administratiu de la vila de Gracia. El campanar de 33 metres que domina la placa des del mig es el primer que sorpren nomes entrar-hi. Fou construit per Antoni Rovira i Trias entre 1862 i 1864. Es tracta d'una torre octogonal amb un rellotge d'esferes de quatre cantons. Al capdamunt hi ha la mitica "Campana de Gracia", batejada com "la Marieta". Conta la llegenda que el 1870, durant l'aldarull de les quintes, va estar sonant des del 4 al 9 d'abril, impulsada per una corda fins al terrat d'una veina. Les tropes del general Gaminde, situades al pla de Barcelona, bombardejaven la vila rebel per mirar de fer callar la campana. Per aixo hom pot escoltar el seu so esquerdat. Aquesta historia va donar peu a la creacio d'una de les publicacions de mes longevitat de la premsa catalana. Creada per Innocenci Lopez Bernagosi, "La Campana de Gracia" es publica durant 60 anys, fins l'octubre de 1934. A la vessant mar de la placa hi ha l'edifici de la seu del districte, construit per Francesc Berenguer i Mestres. Restaurat fa pocs anys, a la facana hi destaquen dos fanals d'estil mariner i l'escut de la vila forjat amb ferro. Tres lliris blancs sobre camp blau. Quatre han estat els noms oficials que ha tingut aquesta placa de la Vila de Gracia: Orient, Constitucio, Rius i Taulet i l'actual. Tambe te tres noms populars: "del Campanar", "de la Vila" i "d'Orient". Alguna vegada tambe s'ha sentit dir com "la placa del rellotge". ------ Placa de la Vila de Gracia formerly Placa de Rius i Taulet. This square is home to the administrative and political centre of the neighbourhood and seat of the district's town hall. It is one of the neighbourhood's most peculiar squares largely due to an interesting story centred around its famous clocktower. The tower, also known as the bell tower of Gracia, is crowned by a clock with four faces, placed there so that it could be seen from all corners of the old village. The tower was designed by the architect Antoni Rovira i Trias, who gave one of the other neighbourhood squares its name. Inside the clock's structure, on the side that faces the town hall, is a spiral staircase that leads up to the clock's actual mechanism. Albert Billeter, who was borne in Switzerland, built the clockwork. He was responsible for bringing electric clocks to Spain. The square also recalls one of the neighbourhood's fondest memories. A plaque honours one of the human towers that the "Castellers" (one of the great traditions still practised in Catalonia) erected next to the clock tower. ------- Torre del reloj, conocida con el nombre de Campanar de Gracia, en la Plaza de la Vila de Gracia