(The link above goes to a big download file (about 28 MB)
that is intended for high speed Internet connections. Allow time for file to download in the background.)
I now have
an appreciation for what my Burner friends have told me for years: you can not
have an understanding of Burning Man without immersing yourself in it for its
full week on the sun-scorched desert playa of Nevada. If you come open and willing,
it will impact you. You may leave to create art, build friendship-based community,
and appreciate ways of life outside of your regular 9to5. You may also get angry,
be tested, wreck relationships, and leave early because of a particular bad experience.
Each person brings in and takes out something different. It's nature versus nurture
at its finest convergence.
What is Burning Man? Certainly hard to categorize and summarize... It started
in 1986 on a small scale in California and then moved out to the inhospitable
Nevada desert in 1990. The dry, cracked lakebed of the Black Rock Desert playa
provided the perfect place for burning things, making very loud noise, and guaranteeing
privacy of bacchanalia from the far more repressed outside world. It also provided
a highly unlikely place for human beings, with tens of thousands of dust encrusted
bodies fighting off dehydration, heat stroke, and general physical and emotional
burnout at a place not intended for people to live in, especially when they stay
out to past 4 every morning and then roll out of their tents bleary eyed when
the tents turn to toaster ovens as the sun rises above.
Burning Man is a one week event supported and organized year-round with a platoon
of volunteers plus paid staff that start planning for the next year's Burn as
soon as the embers grow cool from this year's Burn. Many months of hard work among
a tight yet international community of people creates a circular city spanning
5 square miles in the middle of the playa, complete with maps, newspapers, medical
services, surveillance, cleanup crews, and emergency support.
However, even with this basic infrastructure, there is one thing that is both
very important and very different about Burning Man: you are absolutely expected
to be fully self-sufficient for your entire week there. Only the "cafe"
area sells drinks and ice (to support the local high school; the money helps keep
up the community relations for all the trouble that the annual parade of costumed
freaks causes the closest little town, Gerlach). Beyond that, there is absolutely
no vending or exchange of money allowed, and this indirectly forms an important
backbone for the best qualities of Burning Man.
Except for large events such as the Burning of The Man, the entire spectacle is
contributed by the people who pay to attend. Every performance, costume, theme
camp, art car, sculpture, and service is provided by the participants to the other
participants, with no monetary compensation whatsoever except for occasional grants
from the Burning Man organization. It is a gift economy, and unless you have something
to contribute, you are essentially just a taker and a tourist, and not an active
participant in the Burning Man community.
"Contributions"
span a very wide range of interpretations. Most popular and most visible are the
large installation "theme camps", which range from rave-style techno
dance clubs to funny rides to performances to whatever you want to conjure up.
Our theme camp was centered around the cheesy 1980 Olivia Newton John disco movie
"Xanadu", and we created a full roller rink (complete with 60 pairs
of skates for all comers), dance club lights, 2 geodesic "pleasure domes",
black light reactive flowers, and a thumping sound system. Others provided rodeo
rides on a mechanical pig, Mad Max Thunderdome fighting, interactive video feedback
systems, giant Lite Brite, Ms. Pac Man and Foosball games that were human sized
and you were the game, an observatory where the "telescope" was actually
looking at your ass (which was frequently bared upon realization) and then later
observed by everyone else in a separate room and then later yet the observers
themselves are observed in yet another room, and thousands of other random creations
from the minds of people that come from all backgrounds and locations. Several
elements seemed consistent across the Burners with these camps: an enjoyment of
building and creating things, revelry in public self-expression, and a desire
to have fun in a way that the rest of the world does not provide a forum for.
In
addition to the theme camps, the art cars are an important part of the pageantry
and moving mayhem on the playa, with nearly all open to any costumed (or naked
or whatever) passenger that can jump on and overload their creaking suspensions.
The "cars" are really motorized platforms of expression, frequently
accompanied by booming music: flame throwing deathmobiles, bunny slipper golf
carts, 4 story high Spanish galleons that eerily glide across the desert expanses,
fire breathing 4 car dragon trains, motorized living room furniture, roving black
light bars that serve drinks to all comers, kinetic art, rolling music bands on
flatbed trucks, 40 foot long whales and sharks and animals of every kind, and
many many other interpretations. There are hundreds of these plying the playa,
adding to the visual and audio entropy.
At
night, while standing out in the moonless dark of the playa and looking around
at the encircling city of pulsing energy, it all comes together. Lasers shoot
across the sky above interactive sculptures being visited by marauding partiers
dressed in flashing lights, leaping from some motorized fish and running to the
next spectacle of blinkies and sound, like moths to a flashlight pointing toward
exploration of the unknown.
As
a part of the ingrained Burning Man ethic of giving, participants also have camps
that provide services for the rest of the community. For our part, we provided
a "Snowball's Chance in Hell" snowcone stand to the many hot and thirsty
people that passed by. Depending upon where they landed on our wheel of chance
("spin the wheel of sin") and to make the experience more devilish,
they were asked to tell us a fun/interesting past or future sin (a future sin
is on their "to do list"). We then served them up one of our dastardly
flavors: Dante's Inburno, Devilicious Delight, Rawberry, Purple Pain, Marshmisery,
or Screamsicle. We were, of course, dressed in Devil costumes to encourage the
free expression of sins.
Many
past sins centered around sex and fantasies, cheating in relationships, lying,
stealing, and being secretly dastardly in some way. They ranged from burning an
ex-friend's house down who did not repay him a loan, to back stage antics with
a small time rock band, to sliding around naked in a room full of pudding with
30 other people. Most interesting were the sinners that seemed to view it as a
confessional, and some even said they felt better after admitting their sins to
us. Others even wanted to offer up multiple ones, both past and future. One particular
sin was quite hilarious when the sinner admitted something that had been an ongoing
mystery to his friends for over 8 years, but he had lied about it to them all
along. However, he finally admitted it publicly to us and all bystanders to get
his snowball, and his friends were flabbergasted by the revelation. He seemed
to have gained relief in the confession and putting an end to the lie, and the
snowball was just his spiritual chaser.
Other
acts of service by Burners were all over the map. I had my hair washed by Dr.
Dirty Bastard. Others went to the Full Body Wash where dozens of naked people
lined up at a time to have their bodies scrubbed assembly line style. We enjoyed
the pool and shower provided by the Black Rock City Beach Club; the pool was filled
by the fire department pumper truck that the pool owner bought just for the occasion.
I was given a lesson in circus trapeze technique and swung on a full professional
trapeze setup 50 feet above the ground, including a hand release and hanging by
just the back of my knees. Others provided sushi, fruit, drinks, massages, foot
washings, videotaping, Internet access, sprays of cooling water, iced tea, photo
ID badges of your genitals, body painting, glass mosaic, tantric sex classes,
S&M/B&D tryouts, yoga, positive acknowledgment of your good deeds and
self worth, give-a-gift/take-a-gift exchanges, chocolate, pancakes (IHOP - Intergalactic
House of Pancakes - served pancakes to thousands of people every morning, each
filled with M&Ms, fruits, multi-colors, and more), bicycle repair, chances
to learn dance/karaoke/choir singing/drumming/throat-singing/monkey chant/performances
of all types, KittyTrim by Bushwhacker (a guy who trims anyone's pubic hair),
soulmate connections, beaver eating contest, henna tattoos, photo exhibits, do-it-yourself
fairy wings, and on and on and on with the creatively shared visions of over 30,000
people trapped together in a desert. If you came to BM with nothing except a ticket
(which is definitely discouraged since it does not support the community and is
unsustainable for everyone else), you could survive the entire week based just
on the gift economy; all the essentials of shelter, food, water, and massages
are available and are freely shared with anyone that asks. This makes it unlike
anyplace else and changes the mindset of everyone there, at least for their week
away from the rest of the planet.
Although
I've described a very few morsels here, Burning Man really is only something to
be experienced, and not described. It has it's bad points as well as it's good
points, but they all combine to make an excellent statement of the human condition
and human aspiration. Some of it's cheesy, some profane, some is like a beer chugging
fraternity rave party, some is aesthetically beautiful, some inspiring, some uplifting,
and some that makes you question yourself and your outside world. Most importantly,
it resets things and transforms ideas. Anyone and everyone is artist, contributor,
center of attention, and giver of attention. And, for those who can find the real
value in it beyond the free-for-all of fantastical and splendid community partying,
it offers the opportunity to take it all home with you and realize the potential
of ideas during the other 51 weeks of the year.
