Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs – Adapted - (Lark Camp Post 1)

Stardate – August 2^nd, 2014. Now entering the second full day of life without the internet. But forge onwards I must. Everyone else has succumbed, consumed by the cavernous maw of community music. Everyone is interacting with each other, learning, copying, playing, joking, laughing, struggling. There is no hope. I'm not sure that I can last – another full six days to go before I again will have access to life's basic sustenance – a wireless internet connection. If you don't get a Facebook posting from me by 10 August, please send in the ghost of Steve Jobs, for I will have been eaten up by the non-virtual.

As an anthropological piece, and as some form of Internet Replacement Therapy, I shall type on this computer, smuggled through border security.

It's a Lark

I am trapped deep in hills and valleys, somewhere behind Mendocino, Northern California. California, ironically birthplace of the internet and all things I. Here in the giant sequoia forests there is no I. There is us. There is music. There is no internet. No Facebook. Just Faces, bodies, instruments, music.

Lark Camp shows no mercy for those virtually committed. No respect whatsoever. They have blatantly ripped off the graphical work of Jurassic Park, and made stickers and t-shirts to create Jurassic Lark. Here be hobbits and Morris Dancers, swaddled in music, from communities around the globe.

Camp One

I'm not sure I'll venture there. I believe much alcohol is consumed therein, with Irish sessions 24/7 (literally 7. This is a 7 (seven! SEVEN!!!!) day camp). Legend has it that a tunnel / time port exists there (perhaps only for the ale lines), directly through to the Temple Bar district of Dublin. As a mere tippler I fear I do not have the fortitude to enter this land of beer, Celts, and many headaches.

Camp Three

Somewhere lost betwixt One and Two (strange I know, but that's how it is). They have no dining room or hall, only a reverentially whispered cafe, which cooks mystical pastries and sweets, and ferries said contraband to Lands One and Two. I hear they play mostly Balkan.

Balkan, Eastern, 9/8 time signatures. Erghhhh....dare I enter that strange non 4/4 world?

Camp Two

We are here. Cabin 32. Our Cajun tutor flatmate ordered a transfer out as soon as we arrived. We have the cabin to ourselves. A refuge from the constant sounds and learnings of the main camp area.

Guitarron. Amazing. I want one.

Camp Two has Aloha Ville. The JF Center (note American spelling for a brief moment). A fire. Tents. Cabins. Toilets (sorry, my bad... Bathrooms) on the hills. Communal showers. Even hours for men. Odd hours for women. After ten is a shower free for all. No sex. Delineation. Contra dancing. Mexican bands. A giant guitarron (beautiful!). Exactly roughly executed Mexican trumpet. Massages. A jazz standards tent. Ukulele everywhere.

The smokers

And the strangest strangest thing. Galician pipes, who play in the gulch, so they and only they, are permitted to smoke whilst playing, for one hour, each afternoon, permitted to assault us with their smoke belching excuses for bagpipes. From the Gulch no less. In Australia we'd call it the dry creek bed. But this is California. It's the Gulch.

Our home for 7 days and nights

The bed

The sleeper

The dark at night is ink. But that is the only way home.

It's 4pm. Time for a shower. I'm not going after ten.