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Success! The giant head finally picks its nose
The Richmond designers of the Disgusting Spectacle, a 23-foot head that picks its nose, solved their snafus and got the contraption to work at Burning Man.

The finger now twists and rises deep into the head's right nostril when a Burner runs in a giant hamster-wheel. Problems with the pulley system that transfers power from the wheel to the hand -- not to mention the wheel's annoying habit of occasionally dumping people on their heads -- stymied the designers for weeks.

"All we needed was a simple design change, which we discovered after my friend who is an engineer took a look," said Don Bruce, who was worried his first effort to create a large public art sculpture would bellyflop on the playa. He and his wife Tracy Feldman started work on the Disgusting Spectacle in January and were still working out the kinks a month before Burning Man.

A simple see-saw lever between the pulleys connecting the hamster wheel to the arm riser did the trick.

"Step right up, if you think you can handle it!" shouted Feldman, who served as carnival barker. She enjoyed harassing the volunteers as they ran in time with the '80s acid rock songs they blasted into the playa night.

"It's just a thing of beauty, isn't it?" she said, gazing up at the glowing head picking its nose. -- Meredith May

It's all right. They're our decoys. we got the idea from Saddam Hussien. That way It is harder to pin the blame.

Especially since, when everybody was heading for the burn, Don and party took a microphone to the roof of it, and started announcing that the burn was cancelled until the morning and that any refunds could be had at 1st camp with free hits of GHB.

We then claimed that the burn could not happen because the LLC had run out of gas, as they had all huffed it the day before.

We then demanded that the burn couldn't happen until everybody yelled freebird. we got a good response on that one.

One guy was overheard saying that we ruined his burn experience.