OK, I'm sure my hordes of shrieking fans(or at least the few, loyal readers out there who actually listen to me blather on, whilst hanging in for the art and nude girls) can't wait any a minute longer for my Critical Massive post, so here goes!

It was a Burning Man fundraiser, so the sights were truly amazing.

Unfortunately I was too busy gawkinggapejawed at night to capture the true glory of the spectacle on film for y'all-the FIRE!-and oh my god do I mean fire, fire, fire!

The artworks are GIGANTIC, and either on fire, or magnificent with electricity and pulsating video flashes... There's an immense sculpture like the open hand of a dragon, with the claws pointing upwards and if you wait a while-it shoots fire from all of them-huge staccato bursts that scare the living piss out of you.

There's a tub of water with a fire burning in the middle, flames bursting right out of the water... Another has sand, on fire-blue fire... Which you can rake into patterns...

Everything is mesmerizing, even if you're not on drugs.

:)

Everyone is either in outrageous costumes, or happily naked. Nakedly hooping, dancing, kissing-oh, so much kissing happened that weekend!, cooking, eating...

My camp had a wine and cheese event that brought everyone out-it was mad, mad fun being surrounded by so many wonderful freaks free to be their freakiest.

And just being free to stroll about nude, that rocks my socks off!

:)

I got commandeered for a body painting workshop:

and happily fulfilled a buddha request:

The leader even asked me to join their Burning Man camp, and man, I wish I could!

I fell in love with the fire dancers with their amazing lithe bodies and freaky, beautiful flame-wielding skills. They had this incredible performance where they fought the tentacled lake demons(who actually came swimming up out of the dark lake waving horrible multi-tentacled arms-and were blasted by the firegoddess with her flame-shooting lance and her fire winged cohorts...

Incredible.

I lounged in a heap of friends and other friendly bodies in one of the enormous geodesic domes and gaped in awe as the sexiest couple in the entire galaxy gave us an aerial performance to rival Circ de Soleil.

I fell in love with them too.

I have to say, hanging around camp with your titties hanging out is just lovely(if only you could just hear that said by the lovely english lady who enchanted us all with her accent and her fine vodka-not to mention won my heart by playing my new favorite Ani Difranco album as we struck camp, you'd understand what I mean).

We hiked down to the waterfall and swam in the pink lily beclad lake. Camp Bronson is pretty special all by itself. I'll have to go be nude there again, festival or not.

:)

I learned what a 'shirtcocker' is and watched a whole jubilant parade of them, known as Critical Dick... I missed the prize-giving end of it, but saw the hilarious and eye-opening beginning, where they ornamented themselves(have you ever seen a tentfull of cocks with pipecleaner bows and hearts on before?) and heard the inspirational speech given by the fearless leader-and I mean fearless, as he leapt up, to dangle(and I mean dangle, too :) ) from the geodesic pole above our heads and proceeded to fire us up about the joy of shirt-cocking and all.

There was an inspirational chant too, but damned if it hasn't gone out of my head...

All in all, it was a grand, surreal, wild weekend.