Sandy called my attention to a couple threads on this tribe asking about the future of the Xara Dulzura event. I do feel that I should offer some kind of answer, because the whole festival had always been a collaborative dream. To cut to the chase, I really cannot imagine producing that festival again.

Some of that has to do with the neighbor problems and then the fire that burned out the monastery. Some of it has to do with the difficulties of producing noisy festivals at all. But the biggest part of it is the true-but-crazy fact that the Xara muse itself says the festival accomplished what it was supposed to do and needs to move on. It has actually been saying this since the morning of May 1, 2006, at the end of the last Sunday night of the last Floralia at Xara Dulzura. This continued and rose to a scold during the months we were preparing to produce the event in 2007, so that when the totally unexpected news of neighbor problems arose with the monastery, it came as a gift and a relief - like the work of invisible hands.

For better or worse, when I speak of the Xara muse, I mean it very literally. Xara has always come to me from somewhere else, delivered in finished words heard, and pictures seen, in my head. So much so, in fact, that I have come to think that Xara is a little bit real, reaching back into the present from the future, tugging and poking at all of us, trying to come into being. This is where the story gets really weird and is probably the point I should end it.

So what does this bitch want now? I'm keeping watch on the chrysalis, waiting to find out. It might be more accurate to describe myself as the chrysalis, feeling this new thing growing inside me - all bliss-y and winged, but itchy and impatient and uncomfortable. I am getting hints, but it doesn't seem like another XD-type event is in the cards any time soon.

Mark