TagTemporary Autonomous Zones

Christiania can stay, but must pay rent

Looks like the Danish government has reached a compromise, but it’s probably not the one Christiania’s citizens want:

In 1987, Christiania was recognized as a “social experiment” and residents were later given the right to use the land, but not own it. The government plan eliminates the agreement.

By Jan. 1, 2005, residents must make agreements with the state to rent the areas they use. Adults now pay a fixed monthly fee of the equivalent of $266 to the community for electricity, water and other services.

Two-thirds of Christiania’s residents live on social welfare or have no official income.

Full Story: The Guardian: Copenhagen’s Hippie Enclave May Remain.

Copenhagen autonomous zone to close down

Is it finally the end of the line for Christiania? The Danish government seems closer than ever to shutting it down.

Like almost everyone in Christiana, the 31-year-old, who refused to give his name, said that the state was using the drugs issue as an excuse to grab one of the capital’s most valuable tracts of land. ‘They just want more luxury flats for the rich,’ he said. ‘I built my own house here. I have two young children who are third generation Christianites. I am not going to give all that up without a struggle.’

I wonder if it will still be around this spring, I was planning on visiting. Of course, I hope they can last longer than that.

Full Story: The Guardian: End is nigh for the commune that kept hippie dream alive.

Burning Man stories

I keep forgetting to blog this: a collection of Burning Man stories from the Fray.

The Fray: Burning Man Stories.

Xeni Jardin’s Burning Man coverage

I didn’t get a chance to meet Ms. Jardin while I was out there. Maybe next year.

Full Story: Wired: Burning Man ’03 Ashes, Dust

Burning Man: Coming to a town near you

I’m back. I’ll be posting some thoughts about Burning Man on my personal blog, as well as on Margin Walker in the near future. In the mean time, I’ll be posting some BM related links here… first off, check this:

Two full-time employees of Black Rock City LLC are helping develop regional spinoffs beyond those already growing in places like New York, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Austin, Tex., ? and making sure they adhere to the philosophy of the original. […]

Black Rock Arts Foundation, meanwhile, has been set up to raise money and to bring radical art to communities nationwide. Organizers also just distributed what they call a ?Burning Man film festival in a box,? a do-it-yourself kit that they expect will promote avant-garde cinematography.

I think this is a great idea, as long as it is handled properly. I don’t think the Burning Man community is going to take it well, though.

AP: Burning Man Festival Seeks Social, Political Influence

(via Abstract Dynamics)

Temporary Autonomous Zone Live Show Online

The Incunabula crew have put online a recording of a live show featuring Hakim Bey, Robert Anton Wilson, Nick Herbert, Rob Brezsny and Joseph Matheny.

T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone

More details on this show can be found here.

August: A Bad Time to be a Berkeley Grandmother

Every year thousands of students at UC Berkeley skip the first week of classes to go to Burning Man. Someone on the Burning Man announcements list has written a hilarious letter to his professors to get out of classes:

For the third time in three years, my grandmother is planning to die during the week leading into and including Labor Day. In fact, her funeral pyre will be lit at approximately 9 p.m. on Saturday, August 30th, at which time 30,000 of my closest friends will join me in mourning as her remains are charred into a 40 foot tall column of flame illuminating a moonless sky over the Nevada desert.

This, of course, means that I will miss the entirety of the first week of classes. As I have done in years past, I am writing this letter to ask that you hold my place in your class. I hope you, as many instructors have before, will show compassion and understanding for my week of grief and grant this highly unusual request.

Full Story: apophenia: My Grandmother is Planning to Die During the First Week of Classes

(via Abstract Dynamics).

Drowning Rat camping trip coming soon to Oregon

Drowning Ran is a Burning Man inspired camping trip this weekend in Oregon:

Drowning Rat is simply a camping trip in the rainy, miserable, cold woods of Oregon, happening the weekend after Mother’s Day. We make a rat (out of branches, last year) and do a little ritual, and drown the thing.

There’s also hot springs, whiskey, fire, pirate songs, feather boas, George Bush in the forest with a disco ball and the Golden Pee Pot. Eating feasts, and pies that appear to be covered in rat turds. It ain’t a festival. It’s in a regular campground, exact location TBD.

Link.

Mutant gatherings

Coachella, which Xeni says is “sort of like BurningMan, but with better music, more port-a-potties, somewhat less nudity, about as many E’d-out hula-hooping-and-flame-dancing love children, and half the dust and wind,” is over. But she took pictures.Festival of the 100th Monkey, the sequel to Phoenix Festival has been postponed ’til next year. Maybe I’ll go to the national Rainbow Gathering instead… but I doubt it.I’d love to go to Psygeocon, a psychogeography conference, next week but it’s in New York.I’m gonna try to make it to Burning Man this year. Any other cool gatherings coming up?

A Place to Chill in Seattle

One of my favorite spots in Seattle – Polygraphic, the experimental electronic night at Thee Aurafice Coffee Bar – has a write-up in the Seattle Times.

I shouldn’t be telling you about Polygraphic. Honestly. You see, to publicize this splendid weekly happening also violates one of those unspoken rules among ink-stained newspaper curmudgeons: Write about things we would be irresponsible to ignore, but keep the really great gems to yourself. I probably shouldn’t have revealed that either.

Will this ruin the scene? I doubt it, though it’s crowded already. Oh well, I rarely go anyway, it’s quite a commute to make on a Tuesday night.

Seattle Times: Beat the weeknight doldrums and just chill at Polygraphic

See also: The Electronic Beat: Polygraphic

Update: Thee Aurafice shut down, and Polygraphic is no more. Read the posthumous reviews on Yelp. And in 2014 There was a vigil for the long gone coffee shop.

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