I have returned! I did not get hopped up on the drugs, or infected with a “social disease”, and I only got a wee rash on the sides of my knees! Good stuff. It was a really interesting trip. Funny story: I did not wear my costume once. Not once. The weather was so sucky and dusty I didn’t have the opportunity. And I blogged about this costume for months! I wasn’t sad or anything, I know I’m going to get a chance to use it at Halloween and The Mermaid Parade and when I attend weddings of people I want to make uncomfortable.
About two weeks before I left, I contacted my friend B. who is a computer wiz and he made me a thing with a little computer Arduino brain and strips of LEDs that go frrrrrip, frrrrrip, frrrrrip in a similar manner to a jelly. Here’s a video that shows what I’m referring to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMghL4MedV4&
Now, these jellies in the preceeding video are fairly small and the LEDs I was using are fairly large, so I had B. do a couple of changes. First of all, its just one color (sort of a sky blue). I didn’t want it to be all different rainbow colors because that made my brain hurt. Also, I had him slow it waaaay down (again, brain hurt avoidance). Since my clear plastic umbrella had eight sections, B. made eight strips that extended further than the bottom of the brolly and curled under a bit, increasing its jelly-like qualities. The LEDs are so bright that I bought white duct tape and taped over the strips onto the plastic umbrella and the lights shone right through (bam!). The I spray-painted some vague blotches (also light blue) to make the umbrella translucent versus transparent, and then I sewed some tulle all pleated-like and had them dangle down from the middle. Cricket carried my umbrella around Burning Man and no joke, we probably got close to one hundred compliments on it. People were chasing us down on bicycles to say how awesome it was. First of all, in the darkest dark, when Cricket walked by it looked like this:
And as the sun was setting we were standing watching people play dodgeball (more on that in a later post) and I realized you could really appreciate all the elements on the jelly-brella.
Wildly popular. Tomorrow I will delve into the other-worldliness that was Burning Man. Be ready for a lot of pictures and a bunch of videos.
AAAGH!!! SO COOL!!!! And I love that Greg was the bearer of the the umbrella!
You know you’re welcome to borrow it any time. I think Storytime would be vastly improved by a giant blinking fluffy jelly, don’t you?
that is VERY, VERY cool!