It's getting down to the final days before Burning Man, and of course I have about five million loose ends to tie up. I have procured and learned how to properly drape a sari and I made a battery operated tutu that glows three different colors. I have the necessary supplies for a fully operational desert black and white polaroid photo studio. M has an official English bobbie's uniform and full tea service for 8, with extra shortbread for Kyra. Between the two of us, we have more bizarre costume stuff than we know what to do with. We will probably never, ever use it outside of Black Rock City, Nevada.

I am looking forward to a week spent in 108 degree weather. I'll be back with pictures and a lot of playa-dusty stuff that will end up sitting, still packed, in the garage until next year.

See you in September!

My brother just sent me a link to One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately. I'm proud to say I only own 2 of the top 25 albums, but I'm not telling you which ones. I'm not that proud.

My brother is one of those little brats who repeat their little MP3! MP3! mantras and buy iPods and roll their eyes when I say "but CD has better sound quality!" as they happily download emo band after emo band on their parents' fat broadband cable connection. I stood my higher ground. That's stealing! I dutifully bought a lot of CDs which I listened to once or twice and then put away forever, because, quite frankly, they were bad albums.

I have to say, I'm coming around. As I was purging my CD collection last week, getting a pile of stuff to sell at Amoeba, I finally began to understand the purpose of the MP3. The MP3 was invented as a way to store and listen to single songs when the rest of the album sucks. Why pay for and keep a whole CD when you can only listen to two of the songs while the rest make you want to stick an icepick into your eardrum to stop the pain? Rip the ones you like, ditch the CD. They're also useful for songs you sort of like but are embarrassed to own and would never, ever pay for. Songs like the Nike commercial Elvis remix of "A Little Less Conversation," or the Minnie Ripperton cover of the Doors' "Light My Fire". This is the only explanation I can find for why I couldn't find any copies of, say, Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cello on Limewire but I had no problem finding 5,000 copies of the new Britney Spears single. Granted, this did not stop me from spending 10 hours straight looking for stuff like, oh, Minnie Ripperton's cover of "Light My Fire" (featuring Jose Feliciano. No shit.)

The RIAA should stop whining. They have nothing to worry about. They just have to stop banking on singles from talentless one-hit artists and start putting out some decent albums. I went to Amoeba, and with my hard-earned trade-in credit I bought Suba:Tributo and Verve Remixed, both of which were very good listening, all the way through.

I borrowed a little Nikon 990 from school to see what I could do with it. I can't say this is the model for me, but it's furthered my resolve that someday I want to work all digital. It was so cool to just shoot something set up on my kitchen table and plug it in and have it on my computer and in Photoshop within a couple minutes. No scanning, no cloning out dust particles, no paying for film! I can use one sheet of film when I output it on the laser film recorder later. I always print on actual photographic paper if I can help it, since the Epson prints look great for about a week, but within a month or two they've faded. I don't want to know what they'll look like in 5 years.

I tried doing something digitally that I just wasn't pulling off photographically. Maybe it works, maybe not, but it sure was spiffy making pictures in Photoshop. I feel more like an illustrator than a photographer today.

So. An electric bride and groom in color and black and white.

I'll spare you all the extension cord porn I made later.

I'm going.

My favorite miracle client apparently sensed this, and called on Friday with another job. I'm also cranking out a lot of show posters and flyers this week. I like it when work appears at a well-timed moment.

I was still on the not-going side of 50/50 when we went to Muddy Waters in Santa Barbara this weekend for a pre-burn party. Hypnotized by a succession of a) fire dancers, b) house music, c) trapeze artists and d) an art car consisting of a Volkswagen bus that has had its top removed and has been converted into a full bar with two giant manually controlled propane torches on top, not only did I decide I wanted to go but so did M, who up until this point had been in the "never going back" camp.

It cemented the deal when M's Dad offered the use of his truck and camper trailer. We have tickets. We're doing a road trip through the Sierras, up highway 395, ending up at Burning Man probably somewhere in the middle of the week.

I hereby vow not to blow any money on glow sticks, camo netting or shade structures. I am bringing my 4x5, a roll of white seamless paper, and a lot of film.

Anybody got some spare kimonos?