Monday conglomeration

I was sad to hear about the passing of Bill Richardson. I knew Bill, donated to Bill, had dinner with Bill and thought he was one of the most able politicians and public servants I have ever met. Best modern day negotiator we have ever seen, dennis rodman notwithstanding. Bill was not without his faults but who is? * Burning Man. I have never had the desire or inclination to check it out. Never felt like my bag. But I was a participant at one of its primal antecedents, the early Rainbow Festivals, both in Highbridge Park in Spokane and in Cusick. Lived in yurts, homemade structures, tree houses and school buses back then, had a ball. Same concept, without the big money ticket for a burning man type experience today. We fed each other, slept with each other, played with each other, made music with each other, got pretty high on occasion and it was a wonderful experience that I have never regretted for a moment. Highbridge lasted about four months. Crazed Caravans of hippies with names like Medicine Story and Lou Gottlieb from Morning Star Ranch, it was a counter culture who's who and way too much fun. Way too agoraphobic and claustrophobic for that sort of thing today but I flowed a little easier around people then. Burning Man seems like way more of a classist or caste experience with better structures perhaps and cooler art, a heck of a lot more planning involved than our primitive efforts. Bit rich for my blood. Hobnob with Neak Katyal and Chris Rock and some of today's luminaries. Paris Hilton. Elon. Michael has a millionaire friend who is there right now, still loving it he said. And I think that notwithstanding a fatality, and who knows what happened there, it seems like it will be ultimately self sustaining, rain and mud notwithstanding. People will share and survive and maybe have the greatest experience of their lives because some of these people probably don't experiences challenges like this on a daily basis and challenges make us not only stronger but feeling better about ourselves. My prediction is that even more people want to return next year. Of course, a few more weeks of not getting out of there and maybe you get more of a MadMax scene where people start eating each other? But I highly doubt it. Marjorie Greene thinks the rain is god's wrath for liberal hoaxes like climate change. Tell me, why did god hate hurricane belted Florida so much, Marge?  Or Hawaii. How did they piss him off?* Yesterday I started proofing photographs with whatever paper I had around until the paper I ordered gets here. They look pretty terrible but then again I am a perfectionist. It takes me 6 to 10 tries to find an exposure and color value  that will work on the printed page. That is why I don't get people who send work to labs? And say, "print it." I am a control freak and there are so many visual decisions that must be made before something meets my subjective criteria? Why would you cede your aesthetic decision making to another human if you are an artist? Now actually the fun starts. I have new ideas about how to create prints that I would never have considered doing, the luminosity of the captured image looking so perfect on a backlit monitor. A few of the more graphic images might even get printed on watercolor paper. Will keep playing and experimenting. Never settle.