Category: Homo sapiens

Gong Fights at Burning Man 2022

I wanted to bring something fast, loud, and stupid to the playa this year. Something that was portable, easy to make and use, and memorable. (photo gallery below!)

You know the sound a steel mixing bowl makes when you strike its edge? I love the round, BONGing resonance of it. So:

Equipment: I built two sets of armor from raw materials found at Goodwill and our local hardware store:

  • Two sets of old football or hockey shoulder pads
  • Two old bike helmets
  • About 14-16 steel bowls
  • Assorted bolts, washers, nuts, wingnuts, and bushings
  • About 6 feet of light chain
  • Two superball-tipped, vinyl-dipped, fiberglass pairs of mallets
  • The Septagon – seven linked lengths of painted 1×2 pine on the playa floor to contain the fights.
  • 1 overhead scoop light for atmosphere
  • 1 amazing camp tower at OKNOTOK, the legs of which were roped off as the ring.

Safety gear:

  • Goggles
  • Gauntlets made of polycarbonate sheet
  • Earplugs for all fighters! (that shit gets loud, even in testing)

Rules: 

  • Overall:
    • No intentional blows to the face
    • No intentional blows to the ‘nads
    • If you step outside the Septagon (or you’re pushed), you lose
  • Fight with Violence (see video):
    • Strike the chest or head gong (fitted with chains, to make a distinct noise) to earn points
    • 15 points takes the round
    • 3 rounds wins the fight
  • OR fight with Art (see video):
    • Fighters must strike each other’s armor as musically, creatively, uniquely, balletically as possible
    • You have 60 seconds
    • The crowd judges the winner.

Gong Fights exceeded my wildest dreams! The ferocity of the Violence Fighters, the grace of the Art Fighters, and the the idiot noise and chaos overran all rational concerns, and a kind of animal fervor took over.

It was stupidly magnificent, and magnificently stupid. Thank you especially to Mr. OK, Michelle, Lydia, Dakota, Thor, Sumit, Dandelion, Drift, Jackson, TwoNames, HoneyBear, Mike, Special Snowflake, and everyone else who armored and scored and assisted and fought and danced and hooted and lost and won.

13/10, will do it again.

(photos by Sumit Jamuar, video by @brian_huy_mac and @z_antibeersnob)

 

R.I.P. XyloVan – 2010-2019


XyloVan began its life nearly 10 years ago as an idea: Let’s build a mutant vehicle so our young kids can ride around even after bedtime and we can all enjoy Burning Man safely together after dark.

The van’s full, rich and musical life ended last month – after so many adventures, mishaps and miracles that I never could have dreamed of – with me stripping off the xylophones and gongs and putting the vehicle up for sale.

It was like building it all over again – but in reverse. (see photos below after the jump)

Deeply bittersweet.

I peeled off the magic, wrenching the hand-made instruments from the 3/8-inch mounting bolts where they had ridden ever since 2010, when my wife and kids and I began transforming a 1985 Ford 350 ClubWagon XLT into the only musically-playable art car I’ve ever met.

I unwired the control pod carrying the digital-delay mixer and Arduino control box, and stowed the electronics and cables for future projects. I put the instruments into long-term storage against the day when I might bee foolish enough to build another musical mutant vehicle. And I turned the van over to … More

Xylovan’s neighbors – and our coming Indiegogo campaign!

photoSo – a little background:

a) We live on a narrow, hilly street, but most of the neighbors are cool.
b) We’re almost ready to kick off our IndieGogo campaign to give Xylovan a badly-needed new engine
c) Not all the neighbors are cool, it seems
d) We just jumpstarted it (had to use both my car and an auxiliary power pack and a lot of prayer), moved it 10 feet and posted this note on it:

A Note to Our Neighbors!

Hi:

We’re the family that built Xylovan 4 years ago, and it has delighted thousands of people who have had a chance to play on it wherever it goes.

Please know that the vehicle is not abandoned. It’s just awaiting a heart transplant that we can’t yet afford.

The engine blew a head gasket last year, so we cannot move it more than a few feet until we can raise the money to buy a new engine.

As it turns out – just as we were preparing an online fundraising campaign this month at IndieGogo.com to raise the $5,000 we need – one of you complained to the Parking Authority, and we got a ticket and narrowly avoided having it towed from the street today at even greater cost.

It seems we owe you an apology for not having moved it sooner – and perhaps for not talking with you directly about our handmade musical instrument.

All of our direct neighbors have told us they are comfortable with its parking place and they enjoy having it around. But we did not reach you – and for that, we are sorry.

Please do feel comfortable contacting us directly – we don’t bite – and let us understand your concerns so we can work to address them directly.

Xylovan *is* here to stay – it’s part of our lives and the lives of more of your other neighbors than you may realize – and we hope that we can work with you to make you feel more at ease with it as part of our neighborhood together.

Here’s the good news – We expect to raise the money within about 30 days and repair the engine soon thereafter. and we will be working all spring to get the van cleaned up, repainted and ready to bring music to more people. So while Xylovan will always be big and a little weird-looking, at least it will look more attractive and move a lot more often.

In the meantime, we will try to keep the van parked closer to the neighbors who appreciate it (and farther from your door) – and we hope you will take a little time to learn more about us, and about our musical art car.

Yours,

The Reeds | 310.722.3392
Xylovan.com (and) Facebook.com/Xylovan

We really hope they contact us so we can do right by them. We can’t keep paying tickets, and we really can’t park it anywhere substantially different.

Lucidity Festival 2013



Lucidity Festival was a much needed calm in the storm of our lives. Lately, it’s seemed like the plates we’re spinning are spinning us, and someone keeps adding more plates! At some point, your realize your life is living you, and you need to re-center, to find peace and solidity among solid souls with good intent.

So you came to the Lucidity Festival (again) , and you lose yourself in play and art and noise, and embrace old friends and make new ones and then you remember what it was you were up to before you got too busy to smile.

And then you smile.

We were so glad to bring the van out again and invite you all to play. Thank you all for the lovely sounds you made with us. We hope you found your peace, too. Maybe we’ll see you on the playa, if not sooner.

Fun at Caine’s Arcade – The Cardboard Challenge Day of Play

XyloVan was thrilled and tickled to be invited to join hundreds of kids (and grownups indulging their inner children) at the Caine’s Arcade Cardboard Challenge DAY OF PLAY.

Kids in Boyle Heights (and at Cardboard Challenge events all over the world) built wild, amazing toys, games and masks out of cardboard, tape and a little paint. And they reminded a lot of grownups about something we often forget: Making things is a joy and an adventure.

We’ll have more photos up shortly – stay tuned. And if you’re not already familiar with the kid whose imagination sparked a worldwide movement of child empowerment – well, check out their Facebook page, watch the video below and consider donating to the Caine’s Arcade Scholarship Fund:

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

Burning Man 2012 – Whoa, what was THAT all about?

We left the playa 8 days ago.

We’re still trying to figure out this exhilarating, \ exhausting, just-got-mugged-in-a-brothel feeling.

Our 9th burn – the 6th for our two kids – started out wild. Then it grew wacky, turned mostly wonderful – and then veered toward the horribly woeful and deeply weird.

In the end, 2012 was a kick in the skull, a warm meal in the tummy, a pyrotechnic blast of hot air, a goosing of the chakras and raw noise and (of course) the B e s t   B u r n   E v e r.

It’s just that it all happened at once. And things got, shall we say, a little madcap.

Your keywords for joining XyloVan on this crash-dive burn are dust bowl, flying saucers, Gate badassery, Swing City, Burn Wall Street, Center Camp, playa throat, nude acrobatics, darkwads, polo-shirted virgins and Goddammit, is AAA really charging fucking $1,595 to simply tow us and XyloVan from Exodus to Reno? …

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We’re headed to Swing City!

(Via Swing City on Facebook)
We’re tickled as hell to share this news:

XyloVan just learned that we will be joining Swing City in Black Rock City this August at Burning Man 2012.

Swing City is dedicated to aerial gymnastics – and the XyloVan crew is about as buff as a plate of doughnuts.

But we’re as likely to monkey around on playground equipment as the next 5-year-old, and can’t wait to try out the rings, the silks and all the other gear.

So drop on by 9 o’Clock between C and D and serenade us while we’re nursing a likely collection of sore muscles and bruises.

Come bang on the van!

Rocking the mallets at Lucidity Festival 2012

Everyone brings something glowing and unique to XyloVan.

Little kids, drunks and professional percussionists hammer at the keys in a zillion different ways. People play “Chopsticks” or “Star Wars” or “Mario Bros.” or “Claire du Lune.” They goof, explore and jam.

Their music is as diverse as their faces and lives.

But the beauty of the thing is that once they start to play – without fail – every single XyloVan-ist goes to the exact same place: a moment of personal stillness and concentration where they are completely focused on the sound their hands are making, the vibrations in time and space that make up their personal experience at that very moment.

It’s a place of utter clarity, fluidity and dynamic tension. And it is invariably beautiful and humbling for us to watch.

So – these are the videos from Lucidity Festival. If you spot yourself playing anywhere in these videos, please say hi in comments below, tell us where you came from, what kind of music you play in the “real” world, and why music is important to you.

And from the bottom of our grubby hearts, thanks to everyone who played. You are inspiring, powerful and generous with your energy. We’re really glad to have met you all and we’ll see you again very soon.

Raoul’s lucid dream

I kind of want to dedicate this set of dispatches from Lucidity Fest 2012 to Raoul, a little, sparkly-eyed older Mexican fellow who strolled up at like 2 a.m. Sunday and reminded me of the power of transformative encounters with new music.

He had never seen anything like XyloVan. He kept saying, “This is … amazing” and shaking my hand – and basically he got sucked in so hard to the sounds that he could make with our van (little old him!) that he insisted on pulling up a patch of grass and trying to sleep with us.

He was super-sweet, and finally got up the courage to plink away at the keys for a few seconds. I didn’t see him for the rest of the event, and went looking for him among the late/early Dubstep stage crowd or the fire dancers, but he never turned up.

Anyway, his deep enthusiasm for the van and the music you all were making really endeared him to me. Thanks for showing me a new definition of joy, bro. Great meeting you, and maybe I’ll see you at next year’s Lucidity Fest.

Lucidity Festival 2012 – All about inner light

Now that was a hell of a thing.

XyloVan is all packed away and my ears are still ringing with the music you all made together – with us and throughout Lucidity Festival 2012.

There are plenty more photos and video where this came from (and still to come) but I’m too shagged (and back-to-work!) to sit in front of the computer for long so let me say this: Lucidity was birthed in a mighty, muddy burst of noise, electricity and water, and gained consciousness as we brought our collective minds and hands together in the gorgeous surroundings of Live Oak Camp to make something clear-eyed and good. And I’m delighted the van and I could be part of it.

Thank you all for bringing the joy. Stay tuned.

L.A. Burning Man Decompression 2011 – Photos of art, fire, music and mutation

Decom was glorious.

Twice the number of installations we saw at last year’s Decom, an explosion of art cars, flamboyant fire, generosity, interactive experiences and deep, rich music.

We loved talking with everyone who stopped to play the van, and everyone we met on walkabouts in this lush, dustless burn in the shadow of downtown Los Angeles.

We chatted with fantastically creative veterans (hi, JB!) and starry-eyed virgins-to-be (Jared! Go get that ticket!).

We marveled at beautiful performances by the Mud People and Burning Opera, gratefully chowed down on Krishna coconuts and danced shamelessly at Disorient, Opulent Temple and the formidable Art Car Bus Stop.

We reveled in our fantastic placement (Space 26) (thanks, Athena, Beth and Deb!), just over the hill from jug-band magnetic Ant Farm, across the way from Family Love Village and within convenient eyeshot and earshot of the excellent music and fire performances on the Scarab Stage. (Wanderlust! Love in the Circus!)

And we saw what began as a little miniburn under the 1st St. bridge 9 years ago bloom into a huge event – long lines out the door, plenty of goggle-eyed non-burners sponging up all that intoxicating culture – that promises to fill every corner of the L.A. State Historic Park at next year’s Decom.

Here are some photos – if you were there, or recognize yourself in any of ’em, sing out in the comments!

Kids, darkwads, dubstep and jerks – A little feedback to the Borg on Burning Man 2011

There’s a fascinating thread over at the Burning Man Blog inviting feedback on this year’s burn. The Burning Man Organization (variously known as BMORG or the Borg) asked for feedback, and got an earful – on everything from the joys of big art and gifting to the miseries of unwanted noise and the hellacious exodus ordeal.

Here’s my two cents:

Bullets:

– Eight burns since ’96 (covered it for the L.A. Times back in the day, then fell down the rabbit hole and never looked back)
– Five burns since ’05 with our son (now 11) and daughter (now 10)
– Second year with a major art installation (XyloVan)
– First year with a mutant vehicle (Xylovan–>JANUS)
– Residents of Kidsville
– Virgins hosted – numerous
– Art car passengers transported – too many to count
– Darkwads almost run over – too many to count. You can’t legislate common sense.
– Moop collected – too much to weigh.

Forget it, Jake, it’s Burning Man.

This year was, like all the years before it, the Best Ever, thanks to the massive creativity of the artists, the warmth and intelligence of the great number of burners we shared time with, and hell – the weather was pure butter.

From reading the entire thread, BM2011 also seems to have been the source of a huge amount of glowing compliments, anxious complaints and bitter rants – as it always is …

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