Welcome back to all of those that went out to the playa this year. As you may have noticed, Interpretive Arson took the year off in an official sense. Both Dance Dance Immolation and 2pir stayed in storage for the Labor Day weekend this year, but many members of IA made it out to the playa on their own. Anomaly, a piece by Mary Franck and worked on by many IA members, was there. And of course several IA members helped out with setting up and running BRC as well as working on various art projects, including Morley’s contributions to Michael Cristian’s Elevation.

For those of us that stayed behind, there was the first Balsa Man. It was a somewhat last minute event organized primarily by Colin that would fill a gaping hole in our Saturday night. While the Man in Black Rock City was delayed due to whiteout conditions, several dozen people gathered at Baker Beach to watch a 3ft tall effigy of the Man burn, complete with fireworks, flash powder, and idiots who danced in the ashes. The call for other mini-art was answered as well, with a Temple of Reduced Expectations, a mini-trash fence, and even a mini Dance Dance Immolation. The transportation and setup of MiniDDI was the fastest anyone has ever seen, and just like the real thing, everyone enjoyed it. Unfortunately as two long time members of IA, Rubin and Reed, battled it out on MiniDDI, a horrible software glitch occurred when Rubin missed a step in “Butterfly”. The result was a thoroughly charred and destroyed MiniDDI. A video of the the run can be seen below:

More pictures and videos from Balsa Man can be found in Colin’s Wrap-Up post for the event. And yes, the theme for Balsa Man 2009 has already been announced. It is “Big Dreams Writ Small”