And now..A message from Reverend Billy

The present-day design of the thing called "Art" is to leave us shrugging our shoulders. As the artists writhe on the floor, recite obscure words, and go to college forever, we politely applaud – not wanting to hurt feelings. As in: let's be happy with something riskless that the foundations and corporations can support. At Burning Man there is a strong sensation that we broke through, back into real life. A statement can ring in the air and be carried from this Nevada desert right into our neighborhoods. We leave "Black Rock City" ready to do foolish things in the streets, confront official corrupt BOREDOM, the Starbuckization of the mind and the Halliburtonization of the soul.These images from chantel show our work at the "Astor Playa." The Open Planning Project constructed a perfect replica of the intersection where our church was arrested by Starbucks, chased out of Barnes and Noble, and where we stood up for the local Mud Truck , and down Lafayette a ways, the old Jones Diner. We preached to mostly-naked New Yorkers about the corporations choking Cooper Square. (Now that Walgreens took the Astor Spirits corner – Astor is completely ringed by logos.) Oh, THE SCARY PRAYER OF EXORCISM will return to New York!On the last day of our amazing week, we Fabulously Worshipped in David Best’s "Temple of Forgiveness." David is the man in the photos who looks like Walt Whitman with a trimmed beard. He taught me the physics of forgiveness throughout the week, including such befuddling koans as "The first step to forgiveness takes place when you tell someone 'I'll never forgive you as long as I live!'" In the show, we explored the freedom-to-be-brave that forgiving your enemy can make possible. The Arts suffer badly from a defensive position, a constriction. We didn't feel that when the CODEPINK lovers married at the Temple, and the choir sang the grand, rascally words of Kurt Vonnegut. Then the Temple showed the way for our Art -- it dodged the marketers by bursting into flames! A great Burn!

Visit with Reverend Billy : http://www.revbilly.com/