Ok I'm a flake, yup, one big FLAKE, yes that's me, as the rest of my life has called and that means that I have all but forgotten about the zone...well not quite. first of all the next zone wasn't last night (though plenty of people thought so...just seeing if you all are paying attention) it is next week, the 21st. Z is for Zenith, the top, that's where this elevator stops.

if you have ever been, if you ever want to go, then git over here: this is you last chance. the end is near, oh boy is it ever.

ok so Y was y? as in why. why have I done this, why a party every six weeks for two and a half years; well the most obvious reason is that it's fun, you know to hang out with some of the truly best people I know, and of course it is a way to make sure that I have a social life. yes, too much work and not enough play makes vordo a dull guy. of course there is the joke about how it's been my personal dating service, but truthfully it's worked better for most everybody else than the host. in fact, it's been a unremitting failure for that; maybe it's that thursday night thing. thursday night, what's that all about? thursday night is an intentional night. that is you are gonna show up to this little creative shangra la because you want to, not because it's simply something to do on a weekend night, it talks a little work to get there, a little bit of pain for the day after as you work off the small bits of excess that somehow always appears.

many on this list have just gotten back from burning man. that lovely freaky party out in the middle of nowhere and when entering you are wished a 'welcome home' and the playa itself is the conceptual home to many things, including the abstrakt zone. what so impresses me about the whole burning man thing is the incredible amount of altruistic generosity, the overt and multivalent creativity in every moment, that some of the best art I have seen in the last seven years have been caked in playa dust. I began to wonder a few years back about why burning man works, and I came to the conclusion that the harsh environment allows people to interact on elemental levels ('man, are you ok, drink some water'), that there is a intention of openness ('that pink boa bondage thing looks great on you greg') and an over all sense that life can be lived fully in all circumstances ('well first I had AMD-5C and then chased that with some x and then popped a viagra, wow what I night that I had, can you pass me a lollipop?) the playa is a canvas, we are the paint, and I began to wonder why does this always come home as a memory. the zone is my gift of the desert relocated to a warehouse. granted it is a pale simulacrum in my poor walls but over the last few years I have felt moments akin to the desert heat, to the fire and millions of stars above, to the pure ecstasy of dawn. the abstrakt zone is a TAZ, the beloved temporary autonomous zone, that harkem bey conjured, that is the zone part, and abstrakt, well, why not, let's make this zone undefined, no? and of course the abstrakt zone is A/Z, our alphabet which we have so successfully worked through.

this missive is a bit backwards I guess: here I say thanks to everybody especially to zak from capacitor who whipped out his flaming bowling pins and did some high octane juggling late at night, and then there was the mystery band, gun control, who some how had excellent resonance to some of the art in the back (the ceramic guns placed between two pieces of ceramic white bread with ceramic potato chip bags spilling out (you guessed it) ceramic bullets. pretty cool connection and piece, I'd say.) see ya all next thursday...