We spent the day Saturday at the L.A. Food Truck Chowdown with 50 of L.A.’s best food trucks, there live bands and hungry people who streamed past us all day long. Gorgeous weather. Enough said. Kids banged on it: This guy mapped out the “black” and “white” keys … A father-and-daughter duet … A steel-drum/percussion …
Xylovan’s 2011 summer tour schedule
We’re starting to feel like a band here. We have gigs comin’ out our ears. L.A. Food Truck ChowdownSaturday, patient June 11: (late morning to 7 p.m.) If you’re hungry and/or bored this Saturday, come down to the Los Angeles Food Truck Chowdown. XyloVan will be there along with a ton of art cars, vintage …
School outing
We introduced the van to my 11-year-old son’s classmates and their families last weekend at a huge campout/gathering/party at El Capitan Resort up in Goleta. Kids make the best xylophonists. They have sharp enough chops to make interesting sounds, even if it’s playing “Chopsticks” together, and what they lack in precision they make up for …
XyloVan at BarCamp
I had the supreme privilege of taking XyloVan to BarCampLA 8, an ad-hoc un-conference that I like to think of as an intellectual mosh pit, where tech, art, community and strategy thrash and get sweaty. I set up in the upper lot, and told the stories of how I built it (one of these days …
XyloVan goes to Hollywood
That was great – a little microburn without all the driving, heat and dust. XyloVan trekked a massive 4.3 miles last night to the Egyptian Theater to help kick off the L.A. League of Arts Burning Man Film Series. We utterly devoured the fascinating first film in the series – Dust and Illusions. Check it …
Bang on the van today!
Egyptian_Theatre_Hollywood_7.jpgLast night was the Burnal Equinox – the precise halfway point between Burning Man festivals – it’s sort of the formal kickoff season for preparations for the 2011 burn. On the off chance you don’t already know about it, Sunday’s festival kicks off a film series in at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood with a …
Walkin’ with buddies
XyloVan doesn’t usually do requests – we like to show up where we think people will have fun with us. But Jim Hodgson, a Burner alum, asked us to park at the Down Syndrome of L.A. Buddy Walk last weekend, and it turned out to be a nice experience. We gave a lot of kids …
L.A. Decompression 2010 – photos around XyloVan
If we’d stopped to take more photos, we wouldn’t have had near as enjoyable a time chatting with everyone. If you spot yourself, drop a line in the comments and say hey!
Sweet Decom
You all are really the most superb humans. Thank you for today. Er, yesterday. More and better pictures and video tomorrow night, er, tonight. No, wait a minute …
Xylovan at L.A. Burning Man Decompression Arts Festival
We’ll be there – come by and say hi (hi!), bang on the van, rock out. You and yours (alllll ages) deserve a tasty slab of dust-free Burning Man culture – Decom runs all day today, noon to midnight. And a huuuge amount of art, music, playa couture, activities for all ages … It’s a …
Packing up – and heading home
Sunday started out nicely enough – then quickly deteriorated to a headlong death march as the wind picked up over 25 mph and brought half the playa with it in dust-cloud form. Biomass was a tremendous help playing roof-monkey – we pulled in all the rigging and began loading up the bikes and lashing them …
Post-burn chilldown
Here are a few clips from XyloVan’s final hours on the playa – from just before the burn on Saturday night to just afterwards – and then a bit from Sunday morning before we began packing in earnest. Seeing all these people play again while I was editing the clips (and I mean play, as …
XyloVan on Burn night – a blessing of flame and ashes, or What’s It All For?
At some point we all seek meaning in our lives. Some dive into religion headfirst, damning all who fail to follow them and shaming the very values they claim to hold dear. Others plunge themselves into work, drugs, sex, gaming – or even a quiet spirituality that has little to do with god or gods. …
Snapshots – happy Burn Day
Snapshots – Climbing exercises, killer art cars, mucking about on the playa
After listening to this guy play a while, we motored out beyond the vortex to visit a couple of installations even more remote than the van. We really liked 11:11, a monument of four towering boxes made of plate steel and etched with symbols of the four elements. We clambered all over an excellent jungle …
How to not get killed at Burning Man
First of all, walk/bike onto the open playa in the dark and rising wind to retrieve your art car. Next, stop halfway out and just stand there (with the wind still rising) taking pictures of the Man like an idiot tourist because he looks cool in the dust storm … … pausing only to close …
Paging Nurse Chuckles
Hubba hubba.
Snapshots – achievements, laurels and honors of others
Morning greeted us with a visit from Barry (Beary?) who was celebrating his 60th birthday. We sited the van early, then set out across the playa for a busy bike around. Biomass got to run the flaming eyes on the Golden Mean (thanks to the captain!), pill we played with the luscious Syzgryd‘s luscious flame/sound/color …
Repair time in Kidsville
Quick – run out and publish this bumper sticker: “AN ART CAR IS A HOLE IN THE DESERT INTO WHICH YOU POUR MONEY” I moved the van into Kidsville Thursday morning to repair a melted circuit. A staple had cut through a lead, shorting out the entire port strobe circuit – and basically melting the …
Snapshots
Because, ed hey, it was our family vacation, too.