EuroBurners: Scenes from Nowhere

This page is an archive of thoughts and words inspired by Nowhere 2005. There are quite a few in-jokes and it's a bit abstract, but hopefully it might give you a feel for the event. I've restructured it so that some of the more accessible stuff comes first.

If, like me, you're having trouble adjusting to life after Nowhere, I hope this page provides some amusement. Please feel free to add your own thoughts, words and comments.
JesseCar

Scenes from Nowhere

Fifteen minute rave

It was Sunday night. People were wearily hanging around centre camp, lounging on leather couches and curling up in the giant red blanket that was in the UFO before Fabian had to deflate it and pack it away. The tea had failed to kick in and there was a lethargy hanging over the camp, brewing with the notion that we would have to deconstruct the whole thing the next day. Stefan was half-heartedly playing reggae on the sound system, the palm fronds had been folded up, we'd lowered the flag and saluted as the trumpet played for the last time. Word that the generator was soon to run out of fuel failed to move anyone to action. Noone quite believed it, and besides, noone had the energy to do anything about it.

With 20 minutes of power left, Michael burst in. For five minutes he rallied, ranted and riled: 15 minutes to P-A-R-T-Y. He commanded the scene, ordering dance tracks, disco lights and dancers, promising substances to assist. We pumped up the sound, jumped to our feet and went mad. The energy, lights, lust and dust of several dance parties seemed condensed into those minutes. So pumped up were we, that when the generator did die a few people started vocalising the beats and melodies. Ridiculously, people actually kept dancing to that for a few minutes more, until it became clear we were just a bunch of hippies in the middle of the desert without so much as a generator to power us up.

So we sat in a circle and lit candles.

Just visiting

The UFO was quietly breathing. Tensing and flexing, transforming its skin into green, then blue, then mauve. It was tethered in the dust, and strained against the ropes that kept it bound to an alien earth. Its people never strayed far, but built man-mimicking structures like time-pieces, circus tents and tipis. Clad in strange clothes or with bodies painted - perhaps for ceremonial purposes - they danced, weilded fire and performed ancient rituals beneath the planet's only moon. They worshipped the dark, celebrating from a borrowed monument each evening as the searing sun descended from the sky in a creative flurry of orange, red and gold.

It seemed that the ship and its people had a symbiotic relationship. They would enter through its pursed lips, whereupon strange music could be heard emanating from the creature. Those already inside would cheer and chant the name of any newcomer. Should too many try to enter, it would protest wildly, threatening to collapse. They seemed to suffer no harm in the warm belly, for periodically the organism would belch and one or two people would stumble, blinking, into the tearing desert wind and choking dust.

For a week, this phenomenon was monitored in the Spanish desert, then, without warning, it disappeared (along with its people), leaving no trace.

Top 5 Nowhere Phrases:

This is no ordinary camping trip. (DougaldDutch, repeatedly, with a shake of the head and a look of joyous bemusement)
The party has begun! (YomZZ on Thursday night, upon hearing that five girls had just driven up to the site topless and one of them was Connie aka LadyC)
Who's got the lighter? (various people, accompanied by frenzied searching and the eventual realisation that they had it all along)
You're either in or out, in or out. Decide. (Anyone who had decided to be IN the UFO)
Keep it Tidy. (Santi and his disciples)

Top Nowhere Moments:

Pete singing his yodelling song - it was actually the first Sound of Nowhere coming out of the Center Camp Soundsystem.
Absolute silence after the 'Fifteen minute rave' (see below). Feeling the site as it is with still all the people there.
'Fifteen minute rave'.
Last flag recovering ceremony. The last clear tones of Steves trumpet. Don't tell me you didn't have tears in your eyes!
Steves song he played on his last DJ-Set: 'This is a song I play for a good friend - she did this song before she died 10 years ago...'
The Friday evening chant on the ridge. Ohhhhhhhhmmmmmmm

Nowhere Withdrawl Symptoms:

I walk to work with a bop in my step.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to dress in costume in the daytime.
Sometimes, during meetings, I get the urge to strip off topless and howl like a banshee.
At 5pm I skip around work declaring that it's Pimm's o'clock.
After a night out on the town I scan the horizon for a UFO to snooze in on the route home.
One week of physical presence at work - and having worked for 42 minutes all together. Important memories and feelings come up and they still have highest priority.
Not understanding why companieros (work-mates) don't just use their hands to grab that piece of water melon out of that bucket.

And more phrases:

Fuckin Hippies! (DrunkenNurse, all the time) [ Make that: Power Hippies! (Guido) ] According to Eu directive 7219, section 34 C p[ower hippies has been declared an offensive term and will now be replaced by transglobal techno shamens
Woad! Woad? Woad! Oh WOAD! (DougaldDutch and Andrew, seconds later they were smearing blue and black all over their bodies.)
Where is the cooler with the cold beer? (anybody with a warm beer can in their hand)
This saved me from looking like a plonker Steve double after realising that he was dressed for the real world and looked ridiculous compared to the fabulously spangly people of Nowhere. He proceeded to don a silver and pink boob tube and spangly mini skirt from the costume exchange to feel like less of a plonker.
Which Swiss Chris?? Any time anyone asked a question and the answer was SwissChris cue endless repetition of "which Swiss Chris would that be?". Surprisingly that didn't get old till Thursday morning. I thought it would have lost all appeal by Wednesday afternoon.
Existential Santi and DrunkenNurse will know what that means
Magic Stick Vernacular term for a blend of tobacco contained in a rolled paper smoked to provide mild intoxication, often screamed by members with megaphones fabulously provided by wonderful Germans, brummie men in pikey hats and on certain occasions rolled while swimming in canals.
As king of all I survey, I rightfully claim the use of this mattress 'King' Santi, before taking a well earned nap.
This is Mr Club, the Cuban Representative from Havana. He is a diplomat and has brought gifts... Maximus jumps the immigration queue again! YomZZ

Poetic licence

Somebody has to contribute a slice of literary cheese, and who better than the woman who brought you the bar snacks. Swiss, Dutch, British or Australian, it tastes great with a glass of wine, some interesting company and a sky filled with stars. Contributions welcome.

No Way

Scanning for a sign to nowhere
Crackle as tyres touch gravel
Winding up, while landscape dips into darkness
And headlights bounce back off sculpted mountains

Stripping to the bare minimum
We come with full load
But no baggage
At maximum volume

Arrival is departure.
JesseCar

Untitled

Love in a UFO
A seething, breathing, living thing

Characters come and go
Through the tight lips
A parade of stumbling, mumbling souls
Rimmed in red and green flames
Or clad in crazy costumes of the day

The organism belches
And they are spewed out
Into the dust

Music pulses through the canyons
Beneath the vigil of a knowing moon
JesseCar

Pointless things

Plastic eyes
Wobble and roll
Encased inside
A plastic space
Feathers for hair,
Sweets for a face
Who'd have thought
They'd be a soul
For a place that is
No place
JesseCar

Sun queen

She drummed until the sun
Went down
Her beat got faster as it fell
It rose into a tribal yell
Then she stopped
As it dropped
JesseCar

Peoples Republic of NoWhere
Now that I'm back to my normal routine it feels like this is existence that is not the reality but the pretence. There seems to be many of us who ended up at Nowhere that I think may also feel conflicted and constricted by 'normal' society, aka people who can't understand why on earth anyone would want to stay in the middle of Nowhere and create something from nothing dressed in madcap costumes! I know I've often felt on the fringes or like I was having to act to fit in with what was normal and in the couple of weeks after Nowhere it really resonated that there are very few places you can truly be completely yourself. I think many of us who went to Nowhere may have felt 'outside' at some point of our life, this may have occurred in childhood, as a teenager or even just now as the horrors of adulthood and the 'real-world' seep in or maybe you always have felt quite separate to those closest to you. At Nowhere in our individuality we celebrated our community. The more we strove to be outside the more we fit in, the kookier the outfit the more conventional you appeared. In the middle of Nowhere I met many kindred spirits and felt a beautiful sense of affinity. On the upside to returning to reality it was nice to get home to a bath and my joyous reunion with my bed is still fresh and as memorable as all the fun times at Nowhere. The dust has not just settled but long being washed down the drain but the spirit of Nowhere lives on! Viva la republic!

My poetry tends to be longwinded and depressing so I've written a brief Haiku for you all instead.

Dokoka wakaranai tokoro (Nowhere)
Seishin Ijou (Amid much madness)
Atsui supein no tenki (In the hot Spanish desert)
Jiyu ni natta (My soul it ran free)

Ima Koko - Now Here ~ Thank you for fun times, crazy costumes and many memorable moments X Chu X Kat (aka NeKo)