It Makes You Want To BELIEVE

believe SidneyThe fabulous John Curley has been keeping you up to date on all the crews and artists getting the Black Rock Desert ready to Welcome you. You have probably read his post about the recent  storms, and perhaps another on the way. My husband has been on the desert for a few weeks so I had been wondering about the damage, whether his trailer was anchored down, and how everyone who is building the city would be impacted by the weather.  And then my friend Sidney Erthal sent me this amazing photo of BELIEVE.

The “V” in BELIEVE was tilted by the storm, but had the “E” next to it to lean on. But, as you can see,  the “I” had fallen over, but there, in the morning after the storm, stood Truth is Beauty, standing taller than the “I”, just like she knew she needed to be there. Now that is a moment after a storm to make you smile.

BELIEVE: Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg as part of The Large Word Series

Truth Is Beauty: Marco Cochrane and Crew as part of of The Bliss Project

Photo: Sidney Erthal Photography

About the author: Affinity

Affinity

Affinity, a Burner since 2000, was legally married on the Playa in 2001, was wedding coordinator and then training coordinator at Burning Man, before becoming the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) Social Media Coordinator and an Advisory Board Member. An attorney, she served on the Board of Directors of the Western Pension and Benefits Conference. She interned with the Human Awareness Institute for 10 years. She writes about how art is envisioned, produced, created, installed and its afterlife.

8 Comments on “It Makes You Want To BELIEVE

  • Lady Bacchus says:

    It’s as if this was planned and meant to stand on the playa in this manner. I love it! Can’t wait to see all the beauty during my journey this next week.

    Cheers!

    Report comment

  • Josh and Cody says:

    They should probably just let nature make the installation even MORE amazing!

    Report comment

  • Don’t stop BELIEVING! :)

    Report comment

  • Straightveg says:

    Visual poetry, all the more powerful because it was unplanned. Life doesn’t always slap you in the face. Sometimes it sneaks up behind you with the strong, comforting hug you don’t know you need until you get it. This was one of those times for me. A profound thank you to all involved.

    (and to continue on Roy’s comment: Lean on “E”, When you’re not strooong…)

    Report comment

  • joz says:

    This is very inspiring

    Report comment

  • jin says:

    be safe out there, gents. in case you didn’t know, drunk sex is now considered statutory rape. and ‘drunk’ is more than 2 drinks in 3 hours. it doesn’t matter of you are also drunk, only she is raped in this scenario. even if she verbally consents to the sex, by law she cannot consent.

    if you have sex with a drunk woman on the playa, and she regrets it the next day, she can have you arrested. all she has to do is prove she had enough drinks to constitute being drunk during the sex (more than 2 in 3 hours prior to sex) and you better have a good lawyer. and you better know how many drinks she’s had while not in your presence, because those are counted also.

    don’t believe me? google it.

    Report comment

  • Michael Rubinstein says:

    Citizens of Black Rock- please share and popularize for years to come.

    Time travel experiment takes place in one week!

    A proposal to test the possibility of travelling backwards in time:

    First, we select a time and place, say Aug 30, 2013 at noon at the Burning Man gathering in Nevada, United States, with GPS coordinates 40°45’13.83″N, 119°16’37.20″W.

    The idea is for some future scientist or time traveller to send a message of some kind to the specified coordinates at the specified time providing us undeniable evidence of time travel.

    So, we can, in the present, test the availability of time travel in the future just by waiting for a sign from the future at the specified location and time.

    In order for this experiment to succeed this message needs be preserved and popularized for generations so that a person from the future can send the required signal back in time to the specified coordinates.

    Why I have proposed the Burning Man gathering as the time and place? Because it will be full of people who would be willing to commit the needed time and powers of observations to simply wait and see if any sign from the future is provided.

    Should the experiment fail, I propose it get repeated each year at the same time and location until it succeeds. Or, perhaps better, in the past, say 2012. Since we have not yet heard of such a sign being received, then we already know it is doomed, and perhaps we should abandon the experiment. But then maybe this is the reason for its failure. So, no, let’s push forward, and stick with Aug 30, 2013 at noon at the Burning Man gathering in Nevada, United States, with GPS coordinates 40°45’13.83″N, 119°16’37.20″W.

    Report comment

  • love you fuckers! Thank you JC for connecting. what a beautiful thing that happens with effort enthusiasm and……fuck you. ….I ain’t gonna call it

    Report comment

  • Comments are closed.