Philippe Glade is the author of old-fashioned paper book “Black Rock City, NV – the Ephemeral Architecture of Burning Man“.
On his site, thisisblackrockcity.blogspot.com , he hands out “Golden Rebar” awards to the best structures at Burning Man. 2013 features some real doozies, incuding an igloo literally made of bread.
We’ve picked our favorite three. See the complete list of 2013 winners here at Philippe’s site.
Golden Rebar Grand Prize: Metal Pods Village by Scott Parenteau
When last year Scott “Tin Man” Parenteau came for the first time to Burning Man, he became an instant celebrity on the playa with his walking pod that since brought him several awards at Maker Faire, and with his two patented metal pods used for shelter was a big draw for his neighbors.
For his second time at Black Rock City, Scott upped the ante and decided to build a village for his friends. He was able to finish his own shelter by adding the third pod, the bedroom on top of a fully operational stainless steel custom made shower and a complete kitchen.
A bedroom with a view and bamboo flooring.
Golden Rebar for Only In Black Rock City and We Want to Keep it this Way: The Dome of Dough
This Shelter was entirely made of 850 Loaves of Bread with an insulation value of R-5 and lasted the week.
Do we witness the start of a new building trend at Black Rock?
On the blackboard were some possible names: Rye Not? Flour Power, Dill Dough, Make loaves not War…
Golden Rebar for BRC Landmark: The Chitonby D’Milo Hallerberg.
Shelter and community space made of steel tubing and nylon cloth, the Chiton blurs the lines between
architectural concept and art installation, a feat few architects in the default world are capable of. It measures 21 feet high, 22 feet wide and 45 feet long.
It’s great to see the experimental architecture of Burning Man being celebrated and highlighted like this, and we appreciate Phillipe’s efforts. He must be favored by the BMOrg, since he is allowed to use their trademarked term “Black Rock City” to promote his book.
This breaks my heart. If we are going to use Burner culture for good in the world, it should be to combat people like this. Yes, Second Amendment. And all the other Amendments. Yes, Constitution of the United States of America. Yes, Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yes, Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace (thanks Burner Barlow!)
But, seriously? She shot a frikkin lion? Come on Burning Man Project, take your tens of millions, take your biggest Regional being Afrika Burn, take your social engineering and PR blitzes, and do something useful and meaningful. Take the Playa to the Planet. Stop this. Not just this one fool, but everyone everywhere who would even entertain the thought of doing this.
TV presenter causes outrage after posing with lion she killed
An American television presenter has prompted outrage by boasting online that she had killed a lion in South Africa
Melissa Bachman after her “Incredible day in South Africa” Photo: TWITTER
Melissa Bachman, a keen hunter who makes programmes on the American outdoors, posted a photograph on Facebook and Twitter of her holding a rifle and smiling beside the corpse of a male lion.
“Incredible day in South Africa,” the self-styled “hardcore huntress” said of her pursuits at the Maroi Conservancy, adding: “Stalked inside 60-yards on this beautiful male lion … what a hunt!”
A furious online reaction led Bachman to deactivate her Facebook and Twitter pages within hours. It also prompted an online petition asking the South African government to bar her from returning.
“She is an absolute contradiction to the culture of conservation this country prides itself on,” said Elan Burman of Cape Town, the author of the petition, which quickly gathered 3,000 signatures.
“You, lady, are what is wrong with the world,” said Richard Robinson of Maryland, who was among the signatories. “Take with no consequences. Shoot, kill, consume, destroy.
“You didn’t kill a lion, you stood behind a machine and pulled a little trigger, you pathetic, sad excuse of a human.”
While the African lion is rated “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, it is not officially an endangered species. “The main threats to lions are indiscriminate killing,” said the organisation.
The photograph was in keeping with Ms Bachman’s past activities. Her official website displays pictures of her posing beside dead alligators, turkeys and bears among other quarry.
She was axed as a contestant on the National Geographic programme Ultimate Survival Alaska last year after 13,000 people signed a petition protesting against the inclusion of a “heartless trophy hunter”. Ms Bachman could not be contacted for comment on Friday.
Ricky Gervais, the British comedian, shared Ms Bachman’s comment “what a hunt!” on his own Twitter feed, adding: “Spot the typo”.
I don’t even need to spot the fucken typo. A cunt’s a cunt, and this is one of the worst possible cunts I’ve ever come across in my life. I hope for her sake that our paths never cross, I don’t care how many guns she has.
If there’s anything Burners can do against this, let’s do it. Forget Leave No Trace, a better principle is THE EARTH AND ALL HER CHILDREN ARE SACRED.
Call me a Pagan tree hugging Gaia worshipper if thou wilt.
I’ll leave you with a photo my brother took today in Australia. Happy Steve Irwin Day. This planet needs our love and our support and our help.
Crocodile cloud on Crocodile Hunter day. Photo by Muzza/the Universe
What are they putting in the water in Aurora, Colorado? The town was the site of the Batman Massacre, timed to coincide with the “Dark Knight Rises” movie launch in 2012. And now, a man has been caught breaking into a house and kidnapping an 8-year old girl from her bedroom. What’s worse, is he planned to go to Burning Man, announcing on his Facebook page that he wanted to pick up a couple more kids there.
The man arrested for the kidnapping of an 8-year-old girl also wrote about helping orphans and joked about “kidnapping” at the Burning Man festival on his Facebook page.
John Stanley Snorsky, 26, of Aurora, was charged Saturday with first and second-degree burglary and second-degree kidnapping for allegedly breaking to a home in Aurora, and grabbing an 8-year-old girl from her bedroom. The girl was able to call for help and escape her attacker after he pulled into an alley, police said.
Snorsky had been in jail since Tuesday morning for an investigative parole hold on an unrelated case, according to police. He is scheduled to be in court on Monday and is being held on $600,000 bail.
On his Facebook page, Snorsky described himself as having a troubled childhood where he was forced to eat “from the dumpsters.” The Facebook page has since been taken down.
Snorsky described himself as growing up in orphanages after his mother abandoned him and his father was sent to prison for murder, though none of this was corroborated. He also wrote that due to his experience of being abandoned he wanted to help orphans.
“These kids have had horrible lives and with the holidays approaching fast they feel lonier [sic] than ever … so for my birthday and Christmas wish I want all my friends to come together and send 15 KIDS [sic] and 3 [sic] staff members from the orphanage to the nutcracker,” Snorsky wrote in February.
His profile also stated that he spent time in prison after he “made the regrettable mistake of burglarizing a gun shop.” Snorsky described his 7 years of being incarcerated as helping him improve his drawing skills.
Over the last year Snorsky also touched on the major events in Colorado, including the mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater in July 2012. Snorsky wrote what “disgusts” him about shooting is that a man “can become known #worldwide by #killing all these #innocent #people here.”
In the last few months, Snorsky wanted to celebrate his freedom after being released from prison and even joked about kidnapping.
“I‘m going to burning man next year to celebrate the first time in my life that I’m completely free,” wrote Snorsky. “I’ll kidnap a couple of u[sic] too hahaha.”
Snorsky was arrested after the girl who was nearly kidnapped was able to help police create a sketch of the suspect. Police released a composite sketch of the man they were looking for on Monday night and received over 200 calls.
“She is a brave young lady and kept her wits about her,” Aurora Police Division Chief Rob McGregor said at a news conference Saturday. “It is a message to all parents to reiterate to their kids to make noise if something is going on.”
The girl, who police did not name, had very minor injuries and was transported to the hospital after she escaped.
A reward of $20,000 was set for information leading to the arrest of the kidnapper. Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said that he believed the reward was a major factor in the fact that more than 200 tips came in.
Snorsky was taken into custody on suspicion of committing felony theft, police said at a news conference on Saturday.
McGregor said Snorsky, a self-proclaimed artist, works in Aurora at a sub shop. A Facebook page under his name and date of birth showed drawings that he has made and posed self-portrait, he said his work is available in private collections across America. His artwork was used in the sandwich shop where he worked.
Snorsky came to the United States from Russia, police sources told ABC News. He has served time in a Colorado prison for burglary and escape.
While out on parole, Snorsky made friends where he worked at the Aurora sub shop, including with police who often went there to eat.
The restaurant owner, a 72-year-old-woman, felt sorry for Snorsky and took him in, according to police sources.
It was not clear whether Snorsky had been assigned an attorney.
More than 200 tips came in, possibly related to the $20,000 reward. It looks like police picked him up on another matter, so not sure if anyone gets the cash.
This Russian pedophile was friendly with the cops, huh? Disgusting. Let’s hope this was something totally random, and Burning Man is not on the radar for more sinister, organized pedophile/white slavery rings like Jimmy Saville in the UK or Penn State in the US. According to the Nancy Grace report above, there were more than 310 registered sex offenders in a 2 mile radius of where this girl lived.
I can see why Pershing County’s Judge and Sheriff don’t think Burning Man is a safe place for kids. It’s not just that they might accidentally eat the wrong cookie, or see exposed genitals…it’s that we live in a big, scary world, even in the best of places. Burning Man is an easy place to get lost at, whatever your age. In fact, that’s part of it. If you’re not getting lost, you’re not trying hard enough! It’s remote, sometimes harsh, chaotic, gigantic, dangerous (even deadly), and it’s full of people on all kinds of drugs with all kinds of sexual fetishes. All celebrating their “freedom” as it relates best to them. For this guy, “radical self expression” meant grabbing a couple of kiddies to enjoy. Do we have to “radically include” these people in our party? Burning Man is not a small community any more, where everyone knows everyone. Three quarters of the people there have 2 or less Burns under their belt, so the massive 70,000 population of newbies are mostly unknown to the community.
Kids didn’t bother me when there were 15,000 people there. Now, when the party has gone so mainstream that people like this are planning their lives around a visit, it creates a whole new level of concern. It’s not just two parents, one kid, and everyone else can get fucked because they’ll raise their kid however damn well they like; these are issues for the whole community. This was seen in 2012 when the Exodus line was completely shut down for 12 hours, everyone was held hostage at the party no matter how urgently they had to leave, because a 16-year old girl went missing for a while. Thankfully, they found her, safe and sound. All it would take is for something really bad to happen to one kid, and it could affect the name of all Burners. A lot of stuff can go wrong at Burning Man, we’ve been lucky so far as the city has grown but we only have one year of creating a 70,000 person city to reflect on. To assume that there’s no difference between 30,000 and 70,000 flies in the face of logic. I think most repeat Burners noticed how packed the Playa was this year, not just the Esplanade but all the bits in between as well. There are 1000 planes there now, and almost 1000 art cars and service vehicles driving around.
If they made it an over 21 event, they’d still sell 70,000 tickets, people will probably gift more. It would certainly encourage more free booze everywhere, although in some circles this isn’t seen as a good thing to add to a party. If you insist that kids must be there, then maybe you should ban registered sex offenders (right now, they are supposed to check in with the LEOs when they arrive). Of course, this may be a problem, since peeing on the Playa might be enough to get your on the sex offender database in Pershing County.
