About that event horizon...

Full disclosure: It is Wednesday, and I am not here. I am at Alchemy, the Georgia fall Burn, supervising the move-in of the 100 camps and 50 art pieces you see in the map above. I wrote this post last Thursday and scheduled it for this morning.

I spent the last week whining about not working on Lichtenbergianism for Kids and the cocktails book, examining my stasis and trying to decide whether it was laziness, “writer’s block,” or worst of all, emptiness. I finally settled on the latter, with the proviso that it was symptomatic of my Large Event Horizon syndrome, i.e., when I have a large event like travel or a burn or a show coming up, I don’t have the energy or attention or will or focus to work on my usual projects.

So today’s post is both a defense of my idea and a brag about my accomplishment.

Long time readers of this or my personal blog know that I have been involved with Georgia’s version of Burning Man since 2014, and it didn’t take long for me to start volunteering with the organization that runs it, and after that it took no time at all before I found myself in a position of authority. (That’s another story.)

My position is Placement Lead, which means I draw the map you see above. And that means that all the theme camps, art projects, mutant vehicles, flame throwers, etc., register with me to tell me where they would like to be on that map.

It’s my job to create this thing from whole cloth, and since 2016 I’ve created it literally from whole cloth as the burn has moved from one property to another. (And that’s another story.) This is the third burn that I’ve designed from the ground up. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’ve had to.

What are my guiding principles, you ask? I’m glad you asked. You can read about them here.

So yeah — getting this set up and largely done before we went to Italy was a thing, and then when we returned, getting it out the door was another thing, and then last weekend getting it all laid out with stakes and tape was a HUGE thing, and now — today — it all starts. I get to make sure all the hippies are in the right place and (relatively) happy, and then I get to relax and enjoy this city I made.

Perhaps other writers could continue slogging away on their book during all of this, but I don’t. After all, Cras melior est.