Burning The Man #1

Wherein our protagonist attends his first Burning Man and offers this modest report:

Getting close to the entrance you could see the "playa"; this huge, ancient, alkali lakebed. There was already a biblical-size dust plume reaching about 2000 feet into the sky. Then you entered it and it strengthened. There were white-outs so bad you couldn't see the end of your hood - no exaggeration. It was 95 degrees and if you left your window open, dust would fly in by the handfuls. The cab was trashed already and I wasn't even in yet. If you rolled your window up, the temp. would rise to about 110. If you turned on the AC you would probably ruin it.
Finally, somehow, I found the camp. The very first problem was that my good goggles were packed away because I didn't think I would need them that soon. So, my eyes were filling up with alkali dust. The wind was blowing so hard I couldn't set up the tent or anything because it was like wrestling an octopus. So I ended up standing with my back to the wind for an hour with my eyes and mouth closed thinking what a stupid idea this was. What was I thinking?!!
After awhile it calmed down and I was able to proceed. For the next three days, it was beautiful.

The techno-beat started off in the distance and would remain the entire time like aural wallpaper. Since they weren't too close, it was tolerable. I don't know about anyone else but I didn't dislike it; it was the heartbeat of Burning Man.
As the sun was setting behind the local mountain, the entire camp of 40,000 began to cheer it down. This happened every day we were there. Then you could feel the energy rising all around you. Music intensifying, background noise increasing, people cooking dinner and getting dressed for the evening.

In darkness I rode to the esplanade; the inner avenue of the Black Rock City arc. This where many of the rave sites are and so the beat would change every hundred feet as you rode along. In the dark it was imperative to decorate yourself with lights so as to avoid getting run into. People and bikes had on every imaginable, and many unimaginable, light configurations. Lighted "El Wire" wrapped around themselves in patterns. Some sewn into clothes. Flashing signals, special spoke lights that created patterns as they rode. Hats, masks, body painting, glowing pants, hats, beards, etc.
Art cars or mutant vehicles in shapes you would not have imagined: a thirty foot long Cheshire cat, a twenty foot high duck that was actually a little scary. Motorized couches, picnic table with chairs, a twenty-foot perfectly constructed red phone that was steered from behind the handset.
My jaw dropped about every hundred feet. I saw an organ of fire that was built from metal organ pipes welded together. They were sounded with gas but the gas was on fire. In hell, when they are pulling your skin off with red-hat pliers, this will be the background music - or maybe it's just the doorbell. It sounded much louder in person.

Organ of Fire

Burning The Man #2

The Man looms in the middle of the Playa and nobody seems to talk about him much. He seems a little ominous but in the background the whole time. Maybe it’s something to do with the knowledge that his days are numbered.
Beyond him another quarter mile is the Temple. All I’ve heard is that when someone (apparently with money) lost someone they loved, they decided to build a temple dedicated not only to the lost loved one, but to all that are lost. The tradition is for anyone to write on the wood inside of the building a message or poem to someone in your own life that you’ve lost. The inside is covered by the end of the week with messages of all sorts. And the day after the Man burns, the Temple is burned and the messages are sent to the sky. Then another is built again the next year. I’m sure the plans are already underway.
It’s a beautiful building of original architecture: gaudy and nutty and exquisite. Hundreds or thousands of hours obviously went into it with full knowledge of it’s pending demise. I love this spirit that is reminiscent of some Buddhists and some Navahos that work for days building unbelievably beautiful sand paintings on the ground only to destroy them after a set time. In a way it’s pure art in that it is made not for money or fame but just for the joy of giving it away. And it speaks of the temporal nature of the world in that nothing lasts.
On the Black Rock City map the farthest item out by the “trash fence” is “The End”. One morning I decided to peddle all the way out there to see what was there. I was not disappointed. There was a simple 20 foot, plywood sculpture that spelled out “The End”. Of course. What else?
I was told that the playa usually gets some rain before the event so that the playa surface is fairly hard. When it’s firm you can ride like you were a kid again peddling fast and then holding your legs out with your head back. But this year it had many sift spots and when you got going good you would invariably hit two or three inches of soft sand and come plowing to a halt. More than one person has been through as if from a high-spirited pony. After a few days you could imagine those thigh muscles getting hard as rocks. I’m sure that by the end of the week I could crack walnuts between my knees.

Burning The Man #3

One afternoon, right at sunset, some yelled to look and about 14 or 15 sky divers were parachuting down together into the playa. I turned around and saw a huge smoke ring that had been generated by some machine. It was black and about 50 feet across I guess. They picked the right day because the ring kept it shape for almost a half a hour and doubled in size. At the same time the fire cannons were going off randomly – whump, whump. Then some lights came drifting over slowly, following each other. I realized someone had done what I had heard about years ago and wanted to do myself; You can get the plastic “bags” that come with dry cleaning. They are very thin. You can tie the corners with string to a little platform and mount a small candle on the platform. The bag will fill with hot air and the balloon will lift up and float away. As it rises into the sky, it is slightly lit by the candle. People have done this in the city every now and then and the phones usually light up about flying saucers.
Anyway, they did this at the same time as the rings and skydivers. This highlights
A recurring theme. Everyone, from each person to groups and art cars and art installations, puts together their “displays” just for the sake of blowing you away. And some people go to great lengths. You wonder how they could spend so much money for just a week and you wonder where they store some of these things. I will always be amazed.
You can only buy two things there; ice and coffee. No other sales are allowed. Even bartering is discouraged. The spirit of the place is to give when something is needed. This, to me, is they legacy of the hippies; to sidestep the regular commerce of the world. The day that corporate logos show up and licensed venders begin peddling crap there, it’s all over. Fortunately the people that run it are totally committed to this creedo. I worry a bit that it will became too successful and deteriorate in some way or collapse from it’s own weight. But this last one registered 49,000+ people and everything went well.
But the hippie thing is mildly frowned on. The mix also includes art, punk, rave, general danger, and beach mindsets and a few others I haven’t articulated. I kept thinking about movies I’ve seen and what came to mind was “Bladrunner”, “Mad Max”, Dr. Suess and “Tron”.
I imagined that when I got home I would forget it after a few days, and I did. But then I began to get flashes during the day. Something would remind me of a mutant vehicle or the dust or the peculiar background noise. I’m finding out that this is common. Burners tend to gather together after the event is long gone. And indeed, I have been contacted by friends I made there and I have already attended two afterburns. I now have more friends than I have had in years. Who knew?

Burning the Man

Here are a few poor photos taken with throw-away cameras of my recent trip to Burning Man:
The Road to the Man	The Man, medium shot
The Man, close up	Dart St. morning
My Hovel	Portajohns
Horse Car	Boombox Car
Ship of the Sand	White Temple
Dart St., morning	Barbie Death Camp
Hummer Monument	Dust Storm
The Temple, wide shot
The Temple, inside	Sofa Car
The Temple of Tetris	Smoke ring
Smoke Ring #2	Burning Bird
Pylons	Statue
Statue foot	Crowd waiting
The Man burns	The Man burns #2
The Man falls	The Man burns #3
The End