Black Rock City 2 - my burn in captions

The week prior to Burning Man was also the week James and I moved out of the apartment at 22nd Street. Both the move and the Bar Mist Ya soundtrack required that I get a handle on a CD collection that saw its last reorganization in 1996, when I made the switch from jewel boxes to binders. This year's reorg took three days. 

The Scribble Death Watch waited in vain for me to Medevacked out of the desert in a hail of vomit for the reason that heat and dehydration, contrary to widespread expert opinion, played no role in my illness of the prior three visits to Black Rock City in the late 90s. The culprit was the dust, a Pleistocene Era concentration of alkali. This year the weather was perfect and the dust stayed mostly on the ground where it belongs. When it did come up I wore either this rhinestone-studded gas mask...

...or this much more stylish and comfortable dust mask that mysteriously turned up in my underwear drawer. 

Despite being civilization's most logically laid out metropolis, Black Rock City can still be a challenge to navigate: people steal the damn street signs (hey DPW - how about holograms next year?). Comfort & Joy's Day-Glo flags, the work of Brian "Chickpea" Busta, provided one of the best landmarks on the playa.

I suppose it's a cliché to say this about anything found in the desert, but The Temple was so beautiful and grand that it suggested a mirage every time it came into view. The burning of it on Sunday night in virtual silence, 36 hours since I'd last slept, was cathartic in the extreme - I wept so hard I nearly put out the fire.

Making the desert bloom.

Ridiculously fun dance party on this art car.

Bruce Beaudette, Comfort & Joy resident shrinking violet, who reminds me regularly that he slept through Apparition of the Eternal Church.

I got to Distrikt early to get the Bar Mist Ya a good parking place.

While I was busy sunning my feet, two burly middle-aged guys scurried up to the top balcony, leaned over the side, and corrected the spelling of the camp. Off they ran, giggling like schoolgirls. It was a couple of hours before the K was restored.

Favorite activity at Distrikt was bringing the Bar Mist Ya's 3-gallon industrial pesticide applicator up onstage and showering the noonday ravers with a light vanilla-scented mist - until I was schooled by the chick with the powerhose.

As a friend tells his impressionable nieces and nephews: Fashion first, safety second.

Ami Student and his unstoppable charm offensive.

Last set 2011, DJ Kramer

Night falls on 700 of the happiest people on earth. In about 20 minutes it will be 699 - I'm on the verge of discovering my car keys have vanished.

Don't miss the first installment of the 2011 Burning Man archive, How to Build a Bar Mist Ya. Tune in tomorrow for Part 3.