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Every year, in the week leading up to Labor Day in the USA 45,000+ artists, musicians, clowns, Santas and other counter-culturalists converge on Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the annual Burning Man festival.
A Week at Burning Man As I arrive at Black Rock City, Nevada, gushes into my car thru the air conditioner as Don McLean plays on radio. Up ahead, the skyline of a mirage city rises from a primordial, now dry, lake bed. I'm driving on this talcum-like dust path towards my home in Hushville for the coming week. This is the playa, the hard-pan. Over the week I will come to love and accept dust in every meal. I'm traveling at about 5mph behind an already dusty vehicle with an image of a face and big tongue drawn in the dust, accompanied by the tag line ... "eat dust, man". Oh, yeah, baby, we're all gonna eat a year's worth of dust in the coming week! I pass through its gritty veil into the outskirts of Black Rock City, a fleeting settlement that didn't exist a week ago and won't exist a week from now. A city emerging from a swirling dust storm, the first of many I will witness passing thru in the coming week. Along with more than 40,000 other people from around the world, I have come to witness the Burning of the Man, a primitive ritual started on a San Francisco beach in 1986 by Larry Harvey. The vehicle in front is stopped for security check and the driver is a first time burner, thus gets the virgin's welcome. A scantly clad dominatrix encourages him to let loose and he takes her challenge to heart, ringing the welcome bell as loudly as he can, then picking up the dominatrix and doing a little boogie-woogie with her. "Welcome Home", says the greeter. Complete is the initiation of yet another Burning Man rookie. Welcome to the Burning Man Festival - surreal experiment in ritual and tribalism. A sprawling camp in Nevada's Black Rock Desert resembling a desperately desolate Disneyland. A post-apocalyptic playground where absinthe is more valued than gasoline, and water more valued than absinthe. This is a golden opportunity for all social renegades to actually feel like they belong to an accepted social group. Burning Man doesn't just show people how to live outside the box of compliance, it shows there is a box! But, Black Rock City is not a box. Black Rock City is one of the few opportunities in the world for people to think outside the box and not be judged for their thoughts, dress or general weirdness. In the center of an isolated horseshoe in the middle of the Black Rock Desert stands the doomed man. The streets radiate out from The Man like the hours on a clock from 2am to 10pm. All roads lead to the Man from Rational to Sacred, from the Real Promenade to the Absurd Promenade. Personally, I have come for the art. But, no matter whether you've come for art, love, sex, drugs, sunburn, intoxication, inspiration or just conversation, it's all here. And, to combat the results of numerous dust storms there's even a free hair shampoo camp. Everyone comes for something different. Everyone experiences something different. Later I will compare the photographs I've taken here with a fellow burner, and think we were at two different events. The golden rule of Burning Man is "no spectators." However, it's impossible not to look. After all, radical self-expression requires an audience. Participants come from every state and many foreign countries. The largest contingent are dot-comers and techno-geeks from California's Bay Area, with a scattering of survivalists, nudists, artists, children and drag-queens, to name just a few. They come in every size, shape, age and color with the majority being white aged between 30 and 60. All are thrill-seekers. Just as in the real world, campers gather in "neighborhoods" to share food, water, conversation and suffering. I'm camped in Hushville, with the Alternative Energy Zone on one side and the Infinite Oasis on the other. The entire city is housed in either tents, caravans, U-Haul rental trucks, or RV's for the week. Everything is trucked in by each individual. Your money is only good for survival necessities -- coffee from Center Camp and ice from Camp Arctica. Burning Man operates on a gift-economy, so everything must be bartered for. Participants make up new names, new lives, new stories. When the goal is radical self-expression, truth is illusive. I have my laptop with me, and while I want to resist connecting, I'm intrigued with the prospect of accessing the outside world via free wireless internet in the middle of the Black Rock Desert, miles from civilization. After connecting, I realize how unimportant the "real" world is when the Burning Man world is available for only one short week per year. Burning Man is not a cheap vacation. For the week, I spent US$1,000. My ticket was $225, food, water, gas, camping gear, wild clothes from the Goodwill shop and trade goodies to share with newfound friends makes up the balance. Many "Burners" spend way more. Few spend only the price of a ticket and a little food. Artists haul humungous artwork in semis. Hard-core party-goers haul in their own dance clubs. Survival skills are necessary with day-time temperatures over 100F and nights plunging to the low 40'sF. The sun is relentless on the treeless playa. The dust storms are even more relentless. I was caught out in a dust storm without my goggles or dust mask and couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of me. Rain, although unlikely in late August, turns the playa into a slick chocolate skating rink making biking and walking impossible. Whatever you're looking for it's on the playa. You can run naked behind the water truck for a traveling shower. Visit the Island of Misfit Strippers at Giggsville for Canada's most infamous and delectable pastime, the Great Canadian Beaver Eating Contest. Skip the light fandango in a hundred all-night raves, or just hang out with new-found friends. Burning Man provides a safe environment in which to learn and do new things. You can practice harmonic singing at Throat-Singing for Tadpoles and Frogs, get your fix of morning Yoga with the HeeBeeGeeBee Healers, "become juan with everything" at Father Juan Nelson's Buddhist Tequila Cantina, and the women can rush on over to the Pasty Camp, the playa's premier supplier of breast adornment to prepare for the Annual Critical Tits Bicylce Parade with its chant of ... 123 Thrust! 456 Bust! 789 Dust! Yeah, Critical Tits! ... 'cause you're never gonna get to ride topless down Main Street, Anywhere, The World, again. Despite some of my friend's warnings of a rule-less society, this radical community does regulate itself. Volunteer Rangers patrol. Signs warn you not to burn yourself, and each porta-pottie repeatedly reminds users to be excrementally correct and men not to "hover"! And citizens enforce their own dress-codes on the spot. For instance, someone advertising anything is scorned by Burners because corporate advertising is the bane of the real world. But, a man in a pink dress and high-heels is merely expressing himself. When it comes to dress-code, anything goes provided it doesn't advertise anything in the real world. After an hour of fire dancing and fireworks, The Man burns on Saturday night. Towering 70 feet over the playa, the Man bursts into flames. The intense heat spawns small tornadoes as glowing embers dance around like crazy fireflies. When The Man finally collapses into a red-hot heap, the crowd rushes forward to dance around His cremated bones. And, like any good wake, the party lasts all night. Sunday morning brings out the clean-up party as the Playa must be left free of MOOP - Matter Out Of Place. Volunteers walk the playa collecting MOOP in big black garbage bags as other burners pack up and head out, crossing that invisible threshold back into the real world with their dust laden vehicles targeting them as this year's Burners returning to the real world.
What I learned at Burning Man
Burning Man Survival Guide Important stuff to bring! Setting Up Camp Personal Care/First Aid
Clothing
Food and Cooking
Bicycle
Miscellaneous Stuff to Bring
Burning Man Websites  Sunrise at the Temple. There's a constant stream of people, no matter what time of day or night. Many of the participants here at this time of day have been up all night.  Crowds gather during the day at the Temple and there's a steady stream of people climbing the stairs around the clock.  Sunday night the Temple burns. Made of discarded plywood (used for making models) the fuel-laiden structure makes for a pyromaniacs dream come true. |
