The Ishmael Gradsdovic Papers, part nine


Ishmael Gradsdovic joins the Burning Man crew in this undated part nine from the papers...


I got the pictures back from Thrifty -- the ones from Burning Man. I really hated all of the cameras flashing about when I was there, but God bless B----- for bringing hers. Picture one. I think it was the day after the sandstorm, but her hair is black -- not grey -- so it might have been the day before. I think it's morning -- the shadows are long -- she's standing in the foreground, feet spread a bit wider than shoulder-width, one foot forward off the bottom of the picture, the other foot back, pronated. She's wearing my purple rubber shoes, so she was probably just back from or just about to go to the bathroom (we usually went barefoot otherwise). She's got ankle-length white socks on below dusty shins and dimpled knees and canvas-grey shorts. Her right hand, below a turquoise- colored leather bracelet, lightly holds her tucked-in thumb. Her left hand is wrapped in her plain white T-shirt and hangs at about pube-height. She's wearing a beaming, just woke up and I'm staring at the sun but I'm happy anyway, smile. Behind her is our dust-covered camp table and cooking equipment, and behind that the center of the camp. Behind that, miles in the distance, the surrounding hills.

Picture two, the fire flute -- a couple of stories tall and made of mud and chicken wire. Picture three, my face and right arm against the backdrop of the sky -- I look so old (even my teeth look old) with my smile accenting every incipient wrinkle on my face. Picture four, B----- holding the umbilicus by which the Burning Man was raised. She looks casual, even bored, in big dark sunglasses; her hair held back behind her head; wearing a dusty half-tank-top and the same canvas shorts. Her arm, stretched to the limit up to the rope, looks unnaturally bent around the elbow and shoulder, and the bicep seems twisted around from the front of her elbow to the back of her shoulder. Her face is unreadable; her head seems tiny -- like it's been placed by trick photography on a busty 18th Century French Libertie model. The man in the background is utterly passive; people on the ground below staring up at it, one taking a picture.

Picture five, she's holding the rope again, but this time viewed perpendicular to the rope. She holds it with both hands, and has a less inscrutable smile on her face. Behind her are scattered bicycles and spectators and shadows of everybody and everything stretching toward the man. Picture six, half of me is cut off the right edge of the picture, but the other half of me looks back toward the camera as it walks toward our camp from the center of camp. The man is visible in the distance, the tallest thing on the horizon. It is nearly dusk; wisps of white clouds scratch the upper atmosphere.

Picture seven, a man wearing nothing but a wristwatch, facing the burning man, his tucked-in buttocks and intricate tattoo toward the camera in B-----'s hands. The tattoo is of a tiger climbing a branch in front of a waterfall. Picture eight, the fire flute again, just before it is lit, a group of dancers looking like San Luis Obispo Mardi Gras parade rejects holding torches made of kerosine-soaked rolls of toilet paper on poles in the foreground. Picture nine, C-----, black-clothed, black-haired fan of the loud and angry -- a man whose highest complement is "It doesn't suck." -- wearing a starched white shirt and a semi-colorful tie. It's the night of the formal dinner and dance in the center of camp.

Picture ten, D----- and F----- and F-----'s woman seated below our makeshift tarp awning. Picture eleven, two people whose names I forget already and C----- (holding a Budweiser -- captured on film) sitting under the same awning. Picture twelve, D----- wearing my wonderful hat (later lost in the storm), sitting on a folding chair, playing his conga. Picture thirteen, me looking very entranced and very very dusty, wearing my hemp shirt and hemp shorts, and probably nothing else, banging on two glass bottles with a wrench to join D-----'s percussion ensemble. Picture fourteen, the burning man in flames. Just fire against a black background with the framework of the man visible as outline against the fire.

Picture fifteen, seven of the crowd of people who danced around the burning man after it fell to earth. One wears a Metallica t-shirt; one woman wears panties and holds a plastic cup. Another looks like George Michael on a bad day. The night is clear. In fifteen minutes the whole scene will be completely obscured by dust and the woman whose hard nipples stand out against the jacket of her dancing companion will have to find her way back to camp in a swirling, rainy blind windstorm.

Picture sixteen, our group gathered around C-----'s birthday cake, which although exposed to the previous night's storm is still okay to eat if turned over and eaten from the bottom up to just below the dusty layer. C----- looks just like C----- should look. F----- has his tongue sticking out in anticipation of the bite in his hands. D----- is smiling and raising his eyebrows to the camera.

Picture seventeen. D-----, B----- and I as seen from someone elses car door. We look like war refugees. Covered with dust (B-----'s jet black hair looks grey; D-----'s blue shirt looks white; My hair could pass for blond), tired-looking, trying to smile but only getting the corners of our mouths to half-mast.




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