Lonnie Hamargren: Las Vegas Nevada’s Stonehenge

photo from Rare Visions & Roadside Revelations, with permission

Imagine that you are the neurosurgeon to the stars and that as you work with stars the concept of celestial stars begins to fascinate you. You have money and a place on your roof beneath the dry clear skies of Vegas that has room for a planetarium, and–hey, why not?–a pyramid, and–what the heck!–Stonehenge. What do you know: you must be Dr. Lonnie Hamargren!

Of course, there are a lot of other random, amazing, bizarre pieces of culture in his collections, but we leave others to reveal those. For us the point of interest is what we believe to still be  his work in progress on the roof: a Stonehenge replica. When we last checked, it was unfinished, pending a shipment of copper plates (!?).  You can see what exists of the replica so far on the roof in the photo above. A little short of halfway down the page at this [link], you can see his hand with a sign saying, “Stonehenge wasn’t built in a day!”

It’s always difficult to score an unfinished replica. We’ll give him 5½ druids util he can show us a completed structure. We are happy, though, to post our first Silver State Stonehenge replica outside of Burning Man!

Back to Burning Man: Dead-computer-tower henge

photo by dratomic2012, with permission (free electronica music at link)

What is it with Burning Man? It seems that the link between the ancient or third-world shamanic mystique and modern cybertechnology, which  many instinctively feel, rises to the surface there (much as it does in some of the henge works of Simon Burrow).  Here we see an installation from the 2006 gathering–a Stonehenge replica made of dead CPUs (central processing units) or computer towers.

Lighting creates much of the drama here, with the red implying activity inside while cool green, which also lights the seared earth, illuminating the inactive. It gives the feeling of a structure in which the parts consult with one another, burning with a common fire.

Score: 6½ druids for this striking vision created from everyday junk that once was wondrous technology and now is coaxed into an ancient form of great psychological power. Modern life is complex!

Stonehenge at Burning Man, Nevada

Stonehenge at Burning Man 2004

This replica, referred to by some as Sol Henge, was built for the Burning Man Festival in 2004. It is actually a sound system, a henge of giant speakers built by Sol Systems, a group of entrepeneurs who tell the story of Sol Henge at this link. See another picture here.

If you don’t know what the Burning Man Festival is, this post is not the place to learn it, but we will say that giant lit-up speaker-henges are probably one of the more pedestrian things about it. There does seem to be an affinity between Stonehenge and Burning Man. In other years there have been a Twinkie Henge (“just like Stonehenge but it will last longer”–2000) and a MudHenge (1996).

As for Sol Henge, it’s difficult to score. It seems to have an opposite effect to the original, not quiet power but fantastic effect, as if it is meant to point one’s attention at oneself instead of outward, and more about the senses than the yearnings. Of course, it may just be a more roundabout route to the same goal. No doubt it depends on the perceiver. Score: 5½ druids for the henge in the desert, lit from within.