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hi
i'm one of the creators of a Burning Man theme camp called 'magicglasses camp'. once in a while somebody asks me how we came up with the idea so i wrote it down recently. thought you might enjoy reading it:
the story of magicglasses
The summer of 1991 in London was long and hot. The days were dry and sunny and the nights were balmy. I was working for a computer company in north London and established a hook-up for acid at work. I had little experience of acid – I had tried it once or twice at college and perhaps once in London and on none of those occasions – in retrospect – did I experience anything which could compare to later, full-on trips.
The acid I was getting from my hookup at work was inexpensive and good – perhaps 2 ukp a hit and it was, compared to my previous experiences, strong – nice visuals, lots of introspection and lots of wonderful shared laughs and ESP-like experiences with fellow trippers. The trips, in some cases would last a full 12 hours.
A group of friends and I got in the habit of meeting at our friends’ Eddie and & Rona’s house in Golders Green North London where we would drop acid and then head out for an adventure on Hampstead Heath in London.
Hampstead Heath is a huge park in London – it covers 800 acres and it’s beautiful. It is always full of people, walking, playing, sitting, and feels safe even when you follow your whim down a little used dirt path. There are a number of lakes and pools in which people swim and it’s possible to feel quite lost in the countryside even though you are in the middle of one of the largest cities in Europe.
In the middle of the Heath is Kenwood House – a neoclassical mansion that houses a stunning art collection. In the summer, concerts and fireworks take place in the bowl by the lake.
We would normally meet on Saturday and drop around noon – which gave a convenient starting point for recording the progress of the trip if nothing else. High noon seems as good a time to start a 12-hour long acid trip as any.
It took about 15 minutes to walk to the margins of the Heath and about 30 minutes to get right in the thick of it. The walk to the heath was always interesting as the houses were typical of those found in any North London suburb – middle class but with a streak of what can only be described as white-trash straining to get out. Some gardens features plastic animals – frogs, flamingos, etc. which always took on a comical look as we made our way to the Heath and the drugs were coming on.
Needless to say, by the time we got to the middle of the Heath, we’d all be tripping pretty hard and there was plenty to do just sitting on a blanket on the grass and watching the trees and birds, the clouds rolling by and people playing soccer, flying kites, etc. We would take little forays into the trees to get closer to mother nature in our acid-addled state. One time, there was a classical music concert at Kenwood House and it was pure heaven standing in the trees, with the sunlight and the music, drifting across our eyes and ears.
Occasionally, the tranquility would be interrupted by an encounter with a stranger – a tourist simply asking us to take their picture or whatever. Always a challenge interacting with the straight people.
After one particularly long, warm and trippy afternoon we started to head home about sundown. Present that day were Ali (me), Sian, Mark, Esther, Eddie, Rona, Jane, Keith and Heather. The last part of the Heath to be crossed before we emerged back into city streets was a long, sloping meadow which faced west. We emerged out of the trees and arrived at the top of this meadow just as the sun was going down over the rooftops in the distance. The sky was blazing every shade of red and it was a glorious sight the way sometimes only a sunset can be. Let alone a sunset while tripping on acid. We decided to sit for a little while at the top of the meadow and enjoy the sunset.
Al that day, I had been wearing a pair of inexpensive sunglasses – I had bought them for about $15 and they did not – at the time – seem like anything particularly special. The frames were brown plastic and the lenses matched. Over the course of the day, I had discovered that these sunglasses had a secret. I have no idea what or why, but the lenses did the most amazing thing to the color red. Anything red took on a new level of brilliance and vibrancy. I’m sure the drugs were involved too but there must have been something about the makeup of the lenses which did something to red light. I had noticed it subtly at first looking at red cars and red front doors as the acid was coming on, during our walk to the Heath. Now I was faced with this blazing sunset and the sunglasses (and drugs) were taking me to new levels of amazement and wonder.
I passed the sunglasses to somebody else and their reaction was “You’ve been wearing these all day and you didn’t tell anybody!”
We sat watching the sun go down, passing the sunglasses along the line so everybody could enjoy the effect. Somebody said “Ali’s got magic glasses” and a seed was planted.
We headed home to watch cartoons, eat bagels and do all the comedown things one does when coming down.
There were a few more Hampstead Heath trips that summer – all fun and balmy and part of what seemed like an endless summer. The magic glasses were lost at one point but I managed to find another pair exactly the same at the place where I bought them so they were not gone for long. That was 1991.
Fast forward. It was 31st December 1998 and I was supposed to be going to Seattle for New Year. My plans changed abruptly and I found myself going to a dance music party in some warehouse way down off Third Street. I was over at Mark and Esther’s house getting ready. I had done Ecstasy once before – at 1015 a month earlier. Needless to say, I was keen to try again. Trance was new and good too. So there we are applying glitter and bindis, making sure everything in cargo pants pockets is in the right place, packing gum flavors, etc.
I look across and see Mark filling a ziplock bag with Gummi Worms. I asked him what on earth he was doing and he explained that our friend Curtis likes Gummi worms so Mark is going to wait until he’s good and messed up on E at 3.00am and then present Curtis with this mouthwatering treat as a surprise on the dance floor. I had never heard of the idea of a rave-treat but I could not wait to see the look on Curtis’ face.
We headed off to the warehouse and dropped E. It was a magical night in many ways. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I met Lael. It was definitely the first time I met Stephen and Ali and it was the night that Ali Wender told me “A little bit of love goes a long way”.
I’m not sure exactly what time it was but Mark grabbed Esther, Curtis and me and delved into one of his many pockets, presenting Curt with a mouthful of Gummi Worms. If you have ever had candy on E at 3.00am, I don’t need to explain what a feeling that is.
Then Mark said to Esther and me that he had a present for us too. How exciting. At that point I would have been pretty happy with a mouthful of Gummi Worms too. He delved into his cargo pants again and handed us each a flimsy pair of cardboard glasses with funny lenses. We put them on and the cool lenses – which we have subsequently learned are called “holographic diffraction grating” – turned the lights in the warehouse into a shower of fireworks and trippy visuals. We were, needless to say, entranced. Then Mark dropped his bomb. “You know what they are, right?” I think Esther and I were too high to converse. “I got you both a pair of magic glasses!” It took a second to sink in but, in an instant, we were no longer on a dance floor in a warehouse in San Francisco, 1999 but were sitting at the top of a meadow on Hampstead Heath 8 years earlier arguing over who’s turn it was to watch the sunset through a cheap pair of sunglasses. If you had told us then what we were doing now, I expect we would not have believed you.
The magicglasses were fun at that party – we would hand them to trance heads who looked like they could not be more messed up, only to see a whole new look of delight on their faces as they looked around the room.
It turns out Mark had picked up the magicglasses at a head shop on Haight Street (where else?) for the princely sum of about $1.50 a pair! Over the next few weeks, we would buy a few pairs, then more pairs to take out to various dance parties. It was always wonderful to be able to give a pair to a stranger and, when they offered to return them, say “Why don’t you keep them”.
Soon we discovered the company that printed them and started buying them online much cheaper (50 pairs minimum order at $0.50 a pair). We started to blanket dance parties in magicglasses and people seemed to love it. In the summer of 1999 I registered www.magicglasses.com and we thought it would be fun to take pictures of people wearing the glasses and publish them on the site – it’s always fun giving somebody a pair of magicglasses and taking their picture because the flash always impresses when seen through magicglasses.
One thing lead to another and Burning Man 1999 was looming. It was to be my first Burning Man and I was really excited about going. One night, Mark, Esther and I were talking about theme camp ideas and came up with the idea of building a tunnel of lights and handing out glasses so people could walk through. Seemed simple enough. We registered as an official Theme Camp and, to our surprise, we landed a primo spot right on the esplanade at about 9.00pm. We had no idea then what level of foot traffic we would see but the response was huge, wonderful, welcoming and loving. The tunnel was shit – it was built by a very stoned Mark, Jane and Ali and it looked like it had been dragged through a bush. It was about 15 feet long and contained about 20 or 30 sets of lights. We also had no idea, that first year, whether the generator we had brought would be big enough to power the tunnel and the gigantic magicglasses sign which Jamie made for camp. But sun went down that first night and we crossed our fingers and started the generator. The tunnel and sign coughed into action and, as is always the case, our ugly duckling of tunnel became a beautiful thing in the Burning Man darkness. We even got magicglasses printed up with our website address so people could send us pictures and stuff.
There are a million stories the tunnel can tell – Perry Farrell danced in the tunnel one night. Everybody has a magic story to tell about the magicglasses tunnel. We have a huge dome now, and a banging sound system and a larger family. It might be a bit longer now (the current tunnel is 40 feet long) but put on a pair of magicglasses and walk through it and it never fails to deliver. As Keith once famously observed: “Be careful with the glasses, they really are magic”. He’s right of course.
The magicglasses tunnel in its natural environment of Black Rock City, NV could not be further removed from a summer night long ago on Hampstead Heath but it’s funny how things work out.
alasdair
i'm one of the creators of a Burning Man theme camp called 'magicglasses camp'. once in a while somebody asks me how we came up with the idea so i wrote it down recently. thought you might enjoy reading it:
the story of magicglasses
The summer of 1991 in London was long and hot. The days were dry and sunny and the nights were balmy. I was working for a computer company in north London and established a hook-up for acid at work. I had little experience of acid – I had tried it once or twice at college and perhaps once in London and on none of those occasions – in retrospect – did I experience anything which could compare to later, full-on trips.
The acid I was getting from my hookup at work was inexpensive and good – perhaps 2 ukp a hit and it was, compared to my previous experiences, strong – nice visuals, lots of introspection and lots of wonderful shared laughs and ESP-like experiences with fellow trippers. The trips, in some cases would last a full 12 hours.
A group of friends and I got in the habit of meeting at our friends’ Eddie and & Rona’s house in Golders Green North London where we would drop acid and then head out for an adventure on Hampstead Heath in London.
Hampstead Heath is a huge park in London – it covers 800 acres and it’s beautiful. It is always full of people, walking, playing, sitting, and feels safe even when you follow your whim down a little used dirt path. There are a number of lakes and pools in which people swim and it’s possible to feel quite lost in the countryside even though you are in the middle of one of the largest cities in Europe.
In the middle of the Heath is Kenwood House – a neoclassical mansion that houses a stunning art collection. In the summer, concerts and fireworks take place in the bowl by the lake.
We would normally meet on Saturday and drop around noon – which gave a convenient starting point for recording the progress of the trip if nothing else. High noon seems as good a time to start a 12-hour long acid trip as any.
It took about 15 minutes to walk to the margins of the Heath and about 30 minutes to get right in the thick of it. The walk to the heath was always interesting as the houses were typical of those found in any North London suburb – middle class but with a streak of what can only be described as white-trash straining to get out. Some gardens features plastic animals – frogs, flamingos, etc. which always took on a comical look as we made our way to the Heath and the drugs were coming on.
Needless to say, by the time we got to the middle of the Heath, we’d all be tripping pretty hard and there was plenty to do just sitting on a blanket on the grass and watching the trees and birds, the clouds rolling by and people playing soccer, flying kites, etc. We would take little forays into the trees to get closer to mother nature in our acid-addled state. One time, there was a classical music concert at Kenwood House and it was pure heaven standing in the trees, with the sunlight and the music, drifting across our eyes and ears.
Occasionally, the tranquility would be interrupted by an encounter with a stranger – a tourist simply asking us to take their picture or whatever. Always a challenge interacting with the straight people.
After one particularly long, warm and trippy afternoon we started to head home about sundown. Present that day were Ali (me), Sian, Mark, Esther, Eddie, Rona, Jane, Keith and Heather. The last part of the Heath to be crossed before we emerged back into city streets was a long, sloping meadow which faced west. We emerged out of the trees and arrived at the top of this meadow just as the sun was going down over the rooftops in the distance. The sky was blazing every shade of red and it was a glorious sight the way sometimes only a sunset can be. Let alone a sunset while tripping on acid. We decided to sit for a little while at the top of the meadow and enjoy the sunset.
Al that day, I had been wearing a pair of inexpensive sunglasses – I had bought them for about $15 and they did not – at the time – seem like anything particularly special. The frames were brown plastic and the lenses matched. Over the course of the day, I had discovered that these sunglasses had a secret. I have no idea what or why, but the lenses did the most amazing thing to the color red. Anything red took on a new level of brilliance and vibrancy. I’m sure the drugs were involved too but there must have been something about the makeup of the lenses which did something to red light. I had noticed it subtly at first looking at red cars and red front doors as the acid was coming on, during our walk to the Heath. Now I was faced with this blazing sunset and the sunglasses (and drugs) were taking me to new levels of amazement and wonder.
I passed the sunglasses to somebody else and their reaction was “You’ve been wearing these all day and you didn’t tell anybody!”
We sat watching the sun go down, passing the sunglasses along the line so everybody could enjoy the effect. Somebody said “Ali’s got magic glasses” and a seed was planted.
We headed home to watch cartoons, eat bagels and do all the comedown things one does when coming down.
There were a few more Hampstead Heath trips that summer – all fun and balmy and part of what seemed like an endless summer. The magic glasses were lost at one point but I managed to find another pair exactly the same at the place where I bought them so they were not gone for long. That was 1991.
Fast forward. It was 31st December 1998 and I was supposed to be going to Seattle for New Year. My plans changed abruptly and I found myself going to a dance music party in some warehouse way down off Third Street. I was over at Mark and Esther’s house getting ready. I had done Ecstasy once before – at 1015 a month earlier. Needless to say, I was keen to try again. Trance was new and good too. So there we are applying glitter and bindis, making sure everything in cargo pants pockets is in the right place, packing gum flavors, etc.
I look across and see Mark filling a ziplock bag with Gummi Worms. I asked him what on earth he was doing and he explained that our friend Curtis likes Gummi worms so Mark is going to wait until he’s good and messed up on E at 3.00am and then present Curtis with this mouthwatering treat as a surprise on the dance floor. I had never heard of the idea of a rave-treat but I could not wait to see the look on Curtis’ face.
We headed off to the warehouse and dropped E. It was a magical night in many ways. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I met Lael. It was definitely the first time I met Stephen and Ali and it was the night that Ali Wender told me “A little bit of love goes a long way”.
I’m not sure exactly what time it was but Mark grabbed Esther, Curtis and me and delved into one of his many pockets, presenting Curt with a mouthful of Gummi Worms. If you have ever had candy on E at 3.00am, I don’t need to explain what a feeling that is.
Then Mark said to Esther and me that he had a present for us too. How exciting. At that point I would have been pretty happy with a mouthful of Gummi Worms too. He delved into his cargo pants again and handed us each a flimsy pair of cardboard glasses with funny lenses. We put them on and the cool lenses – which we have subsequently learned are called “holographic diffraction grating” – turned the lights in the warehouse into a shower of fireworks and trippy visuals. We were, needless to say, entranced. Then Mark dropped his bomb. “You know what they are, right?” I think Esther and I were too high to converse. “I got you both a pair of magic glasses!” It took a second to sink in but, in an instant, we were no longer on a dance floor in a warehouse in San Francisco, 1999 but were sitting at the top of a meadow on Hampstead Heath 8 years earlier arguing over who’s turn it was to watch the sunset through a cheap pair of sunglasses. If you had told us then what we were doing now, I expect we would not have believed you.
The magicglasses were fun at that party – we would hand them to trance heads who looked like they could not be more messed up, only to see a whole new look of delight on their faces as they looked around the room.
It turns out Mark had picked up the magicglasses at a head shop on Haight Street (where else?) for the princely sum of about $1.50 a pair! Over the next few weeks, we would buy a few pairs, then more pairs to take out to various dance parties. It was always wonderful to be able to give a pair to a stranger and, when they offered to return them, say “Why don’t you keep them”.
Soon we discovered the company that printed them and started buying them online much cheaper (50 pairs minimum order at $0.50 a pair). We started to blanket dance parties in magicglasses and people seemed to love it. In the summer of 1999 I registered www.magicglasses.com and we thought it would be fun to take pictures of people wearing the glasses and publish them on the site – it’s always fun giving somebody a pair of magicglasses and taking their picture because the flash always impresses when seen through magicglasses.
One thing lead to another and Burning Man 1999 was looming. It was to be my first Burning Man and I was really excited about going. One night, Mark, Esther and I were talking about theme camp ideas and came up with the idea of building a tunnel of lights and handing out glasses so people could walk through. Seemed simple enough. We registered as an official Theme Camp and, to our surprise, we landed a primo spot right on the esplanade at about 9.00pm. We had no idea then what level of foot traffic we would see but the response was huge, wonderful, welcoming and loving. The tunnel was shit – it was built by a very stoned Mark, Jane and Ali and it looked like it had been dragged through a bush. It was about 15 feet long and contained about 20 or 30 sets of lights. We also had no idea, that first year, whether the generator we had brought would be big enough to power the tunnel and the gigantic magicglasses sign which Jamie made for camp. But sun went down that first night and we crossed our fingers and started the generator. The tunnel and sign coughed into action and, as is always the case, our ugly duckling of tunnel became a beautiful thing in the Burning Man darkness. We even got magicglasses printed up with our website address so people could send us pictures and stuff.
There are a million stories the tunnel can tell – Perry Farrell danced in the tunnel one night. Everybody has a magic story to tell about the magicglasses tunnel. We have a huge dome now, and a banging sound system and a larger family. It might be a bit longer now (the current tunnel is 40 feet long) but put on a pair of magicglasses and walk through it and it never fails to deliver. As Keith once famously observed: “Be careful with the glasses, they really are magic”. He’s right of course.
The magicglasses tunnel in its natural environment of Black Rock City, NV could not be further removed from a summer night long ago on Hampstead Heath but it’s funny how things work out.
alasdair
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