Theophony: 2012 Burning Man art installation

It's about our tuning into God and experiencing the Creator through sound... both heard and unheard. Check it out. Pass it on. And show your support.

Pillars of the Saints: follow-up

Last year was awesome. This year we're gearing up for another art project, so stayed tuned!

Pillars of the Saints: Burning Man project

st. louis

this week in st. louis has been great! we celebrated Erica's birthday on wednesday with some great Lebanese food. we had a perfect (but cold!) prep day 1 today. we've been enjoying the comforts of this nice little bed and breakfast. we visited an amazing glass exhibit by Chihuly in the Missouri Botantical Gardens. we went out for my first "bubble tea" experience. and we don't have really any work to do today (before the playground build on Saturday)... it's been a nice break from the normal, that's for sure.

... then, after our build, we went to this kick-ass (displaced) Brazilian restaurant there. go check it out!

how weird

in true san francisco spirit, my new roommate eileen and i went to the How Weird Street Faire last Sunday in full costume... or, well, at least I was pimpin' it with good style; eileen wasn't too sure about the wig that she wore into the festival, so she abandoned it.

cirque du soliel

about 2 weeks ago, i had the absolute pleasure of going to see Cirque du Soliel for the first time with my sister-in-law, mardie. (tony was out of town.) it was as wonderful and magical as i ever could have imagined. the show was called Corteo. it was so creatively artistic and diverse. it's amazing what the human body (and human mind) is capable of.

wdydwyd?

my brother, Tony, wrote:

Finally got around to getting all those portraits we did at Burning Man online. We still have about 20 images to add... Special thanks to Hope for helping scan most of them, to Jeremy for helping me out on some technical glitches on the web site, and to many of you who helped with the fun process of setting up a table and shooting the portraits on the playa. Maybe well do a roaming portrait studio a few times again this year?

And here's my portrait.

howwierd

today was the How Weird Street Fair (a pun on the street named Howard). similar to the the Burning Man Decompression party, there were 4 stages of djs and live music, performances and costumes, but not any playa art. check it. it was only $5 to get in with a costume, so it was fun and it fit my budget.

House Concert

okay, i am still alive and kickin' it. sorry i dropped off my blogspot for a while. it seems as though i'm online so much for work that i haven't devoted any online time to personal webspace. here are some highlights since my last posting:

-assisted another project manager's playground build in Fort Myers, FL
-celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents in Wethersfield, CT
-hung out with two friends in NYC--Marit Milien(a former Swedish exchange student that lived w/ us in 1995) and John Boyd (a childhood friend from summers in western NC)
-have done loads of paperwork, conference calling, emailing and planning for my current project in Panama City, FL (build day = this friday, december 10)
-saw The Incredibles and Ray in the theater
and...
-helped my brother Tony and his fiance Mardie host a house concert with The Weepies.

here's an email about the event that Mardie wrote to friends and family:







From: Mardie Oakes
Subject: The Weepies concert

Hi everyone,

Our house concert was wonderful last night! Hope and Bryan (Tony's college friend) worked with us all day to get the place ready for 60 people to decend [including Julia Butterfly Hill!]. The coolest part for me was when the Weepies were warming up before people came. I was cooking in the kitchen and they were playing in the living room. I often cook and listen to their CD from the stereo in the living room, so it felt very familiar, but every time they stopped in the middle of a song I'd start smiling uncontrollably because it would vividly remind me that they were REALLY playing in the living room. Everyone seemed to really like them - we had about 55 people come (the picture of the crowd is terrible but shows you how we packed them in) and my guess is they sold about 60 CDs - people were getting lots for Christmas gifts. They are just finishing a 40 show 4 month tour, and we were the last of 7 house concerts and they said ours was the best - we had very friendly and open people, great space and lighting, and just a good "vibe" - of course they may tell everyone that but it seemed for real to us!

Love Mardie

a couple must-sees

I'm home in SF this week, but the weather is a bit miserable. (The commute was terrible this morning!) The winter is beginning to creep in, and it's cold and rainy here. Thank goodness I'm able to borrow my brother Tony's car this week, b/c otherwise I'd probably get sick from biking in this weather. I'm not looking forward to the time that I won't be able to borrow his car this winter.

This past weekend I went to see the Broun Fellinis at SF's the Boom Boom Room. They are incredibly eccletic and talented. Influenced by the traditions of jazz, funk, Afrocentric Hip Hop, Dub, film music and African/Indian trance sounds, this trio is a must see!

Last weekend, I went to Bruno's to see the Jessica Lurie Ensemble--an excellent "avant-jazz" solo project of Jessica Lurie.

Also, I watched the first DVD of the series "Angels in America". (Winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Winner of the 1993 Tony Award for Best Play.) Also a must see... if you haven't already.

love parade and BM decompression

this past week i actually spent at home in SF! it's the first whole week i've had here! and just shy of a miracle! so i had to live it up! i went to the first Love Parade in the US (originally held in Berlin), the Bluegrass Festival in the Park (for free!), a bar in the Lower Haight for Indian house/techo, a lounge/bar in the Mission near me, and the Marin Headlands (Center for the Arts)... there is an endless amount of things to do or places to see here. it's incredible.

i'm beginning to meet more people, but it's slow... i've reconnected with a friend from my church youth group in CT. she and her husband just moved out here from Philadelphia, and i'm super-glad they did. they and their friends are very good people... also, at the love parade, i ran into a couple that i met at Ann Dupre's wedding in Black Mountain, NC, a couple of years ago, and i met some awesome guys through them! the best part is these guys are avid music-goers, and now i have them to explore SF's music scene!... oh, how the world rotates and brings people together! God is so good.

today, i'm going to the Burning Man Decompression party in Potrero Hill. ($10 with a costume, $20 without.) i'm going with my brother Tony, his fiance Mardie and some of their friends... and i'll be covered in pink! it'll be grrreat!... more later.

tuesday through saturday this week i am building my second playground (as lead project manager from start to finish!) in London, Ontario! it should be awesome but cold! it's supposed to get down to 40 degrees F on the day of the build! hopefully volunteers will still come out for it... more later.

life's fullness

So much to say, so little time and energy to be spent on updates. I spend quite a bit of time on the computer, on conference calls, in the plane and out on playground build sites, and I sometimes forget that there is more to life that work.

Burning Man was a good reminder of Life's fullness! It was incredible out there. The sun, the wind, the high-pressure days and nights, the pocket of desert surrounded my beautiful mountains... The diversity of artistic expression spralled out in an organized fashion across a pre-historic lake bed. By day and by night, the playa's culture and ambiance would never cease to amaze me... the art installations, the art cars, the costumes, the music, the theatre, the dance, the theme-camps... the love, the openess, the positive sexual energy, the freedom... After just a few days, I felt more at home and settled than I've felt in a long time. It was liberating and inspirational.

Our theme camp was "WDYDWYD?" It means whatever you think it means, but we used the definition "why do you do what you do?" for our camp's "event." Basically, we took (and gave out) b&w polaroid portraits of people who would hold up their answer to the question on a piece of paper in front of them... soon, everything will be up online.

After Burning Man, I dove right back into work and began traveling all over again... visiting our playground manufacturer (the one KaBOOM! buys from exclusively), building a playground in Ottawa, Ontario, leading a Design Day in Tulsa, OK... Next week I go to Pittsburgh, PA, to lead my first build. That means that this project is mine, from start to finish. I'm the one that helps the community organize the entire thing, and I'm the one that will be running the show on Friday, Oct. 1... Yep, the playground is built all in one day! 200+ volunteers show up at 8 in the morning, and the playground is built in less than 8 hours! It's a great event because the community comes together with their funding partner in the project, and they produce an incredible child-designed public playspace in no time! (The planning process takes about 2 months--beginning with a Design Day with the kids and the adults of the community.) So, that's my job in a nut shell... or rather, that is the tip of the iceburg, so to speak. More to come later, I'm sure.

Lastly, my sister Heather came for a visit this last week. It was so great to spend time with her, especially because we're perfect partners in crime but also because we're such close friends. We had a great time out and about, exploring the city and meeting new people. I hope to find the time and energy to continue that on my own.

mural in the mission

Juana Alicia

There is this beautiful mural of La Llorona--painted by local artist Juana Alicia--on the wall outside of my brother Tony's apartment (over a mexican dinner/low-end burrito place at 24th x York) in the Lower Mission District of San Francisco. Check out http://www.juanaalicia.com/ for more info about it and the artist.

a creative name-sake

from a friend-of-a-friend. thanks, cliff.