These are all great ideas, but having a publication that you can hand out while on playa has its on benefits. Online publications relating to burns tend to stick to promotion and planning. Having an "on-playa" paper provides "live" coverage of events as they unfold, much the way a tradition newspaper did, when people actually read stuff. For instance, say you want to announce a performance or art placement, but did not make the submission deadline for the WWW...BAM! write a blurb and submit it to the editor. Or, say a particularly reknowned artist or performer is making an appearance, but did not want to announce their presence before-hand, spoiling the surprise. Put it in the paper.

In homage to it's black rock patriarch, the "PDF Beacon" would be the perfect title for such a publication. If they can manage distrubution and moop issues at the scale of a 50,000 strong city, certainly taking it to a smaller level would be a cinch. One of their tenets is encouraging multiple people to read the same copy, i.e. distributing one copy to each theme camp. And hey, guess what, paper burns!

I think enhancing the existing Burning Pony Express with these writers you call upon is a good idea. More centralization...AND more CONTENT! News of PDF's past, editorials of PDF's Ways & Means, write-ups of PDF Meetings' Past Minutes and Future Agendas. It could also contain some fiction writing and poetry related to the PDF Experience, as well as Mid-Atlantic participants in BRC and Burners without Borders, etc.

As for the actual printed page, I feel all efforts should go into helping make the What, Where, When the most accurate and up-to-date 'Program' possible, because once we're 'On The Playa' it is (thankfully) hard to get online. So the printed WWW replaces the electronic WWW. IMHO, very appropriate for its purpose.

Obviously, he was not using enough bacon. Your printers are jamming? Bam, bacon grease. Problem solved. I am not sure of the exact diet that the staff of the Black Rock Beacon adheres to, but if this fall is any indicator, it is best to err on the side of caution. There is no such thing as too much bacon, you know? Also, it might be good to have certain objects dedicated solely to the preparation and consumption of bacon, such as a bacon skillet (eggs are the only exception and may be cooked in the bacon skillet to absorb any leftover bacon residue), bacon fork, bacon plate, bacon bibb, etc. It's good to have an embodied ritual surrounding the whole process.

On a related note, I am chewing on an idea for the spring: bacon cook-off. The culinary applications of bacon are endless. Call me superstitious, but running an article on the bacon cook-off in the first issue of the PDF beacon cannot be a bad thing. I will try to keep it to six inches.

Has anyone ever had a wilted spinach salad with chicken livers, bacon vinaigrette, pickled red onions and lardons (that's jullienne strips of bacon, in case you were wondering)? Wholly shit...all I can say is brace yourself!

I am glad I tickled your funny bone:) Matt definately helped me along in the process. However, I think I am going to start my own paper entirely devoted to bacon. Best of luck with your project.

Just kidding, I am looking forward to working together. We can brainstorm and wisecrack on this forum, but we should probably touch base on a more serious level as the spring draws nearer, say in march, so we can work on layout for our first edition. In the meantime we can work on articles and topic ideas. When the WWW is posted, we could do a daily article on our perceived highlights. For instance, anything involving bacon or nudity. Then, once we are on the playa, we will have the Thursday edition basically in the bag and ready to hand out, and the rest of the editions outlined, with space penciled in for coverage of events like major parties, performances, interviews, art placements, etc. We will also keep our ears to the ground for events not listed in the WWW, so we can keep everyone informed, in case there weren't already enough distractions on the playa.

As far as circulation, I am thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-100 copies. We will pass them out to theme camps, keep some at the participation station, and at the greeter's gate until Saturday. We don't want to kill a bunch of tree or create a moop situation, and with circulation in those numbers, you can anticipate 10-20 people reading each copy, which is reasonable. Maybe we could also include games that encourage the participation of multiple people.

Would you be interested in covering other burner-themed events, like PEX parties and open spin jams? Usually most of the chatter surrounding those types of events focuses on promotion and planning, as I mentioned previously, but it would be cool to have coverage of the events after they are in the history books (because we will put them there, bitches!). That service would probably be more useful in an online capacity, or possibly a monthly or quarterly newsletter. But for real, we need to make a daily hard-copy newspaper to hand out at PDF. It really makes me sad that all of the newspapers are going out of business. Won't it be funny if the only newspapers are free and created by burners?

God, we are a bunch of lunatics...

I wouldn't have it any other way......

YES! Awesome. I need to get some shit down on paper. Call me.
ML,
~F