What is Burning Man?

[RantyDave]

I just put this up as a blog post and ego dictates I put it here as well. Besides, you might like it.

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As some of you may know, I just returned from a week in Nevada attending a 'thing' called "Burning Man". Before going I promised, on my return, to report on just what Burning Man is. Unfortunately, it is said that fully explaining Burning Man to someone who hasn't gone is somewhat like explaining a rainbow to a blind man. None the less I found the process of working it out and discussing it with others to be cathartic, interesting and (occasionally) the source of a badly needed reality check. So, just what is Burning Man?

Burning Man is an experimental community.

Burning Man is Black Rock City - the fifth largest city in Nevada (pop 50k), while in existence. It is built in a week, occupied for a week, removed in a week and leaves no trace once gone. None. Nothing. Not even a cigarette butt.

Freed from the need to either produce or be sustainable, society is based on a new set of rules:

* The society is based on enjoying itself.
* We all try being nice to each other for a change.
* No money changes hands and, in fact, there is no trading at all. (mostly)
* Instead the city operates under a 'warm fuzzies' economy: Do something nice for someone, get warm fuzzies, do more because it's good.
* The single biggest sin is dropping litter.

The fringes of society ... homosexuals, polyamorists, nudists, men that like to wear nappies ... are welcomed with open arms. Quite literally. Similarly any form of self expression through art, performance or gifting is welcomed and encouraged with there being very little leeway for criticism of any form. Interestingly it can be concluded that certain sections of mainstream society, those who believe that men who screw other men are going to hell (for instance), are not specifically excluded but would probably not enjoy the event anyway.

Despite all this, Burning Man makes no attempts to hide the more basic instincts that govern society in general. It is, for instance, very much a society with winners and losers. There are the young and beautiful (god, are there) and those who are not so. The fun and charismatic and those who are less so. The creative and the bland. The sexy and the plain. And, just as in the real world, it can feel like the winners like the losers to be around just long enough to make them look and feel good ... but no longer. There can be clear, albeit polite discrimination. And, as with all competitions ... explicit or not ... the simple truth is that it is better to either be a winner, or be regarded as one.

Since the pace of social interaction at Burning Man is so much higher, so first impressions count for more. New participants need to be aware that they are joining, basically, the largest costume party on earth - something my camp-mates clued me in on and helped me with considerably to my great relief (thanks, Kim). Non-participation makes it look like, well, you're not participating. Add a video camera and slightly aloof attitude and you have just become a tourist, the most invisible although not exactly reviled of all social classes and efforts to become integrated will take more time.

Burning Man can also be arguably regarded as a playground created by an educated and fundamentally rich elite for their own enjoyment. While this may be true, the key to enjoying Burning Man is to not notice it.

But all this is starting to sound harsh. The people at Burning Man are warm, friendly, open, interesting and only very very rarely are anything other than the greatest of pleasures to meet. Black Rock City rules.

[RantyDave]

Burning Man is a damn big party

BRC's nightlife consists of, perhaps, 20-30 sound stages of various forms. Everything from the big budgets of Opulent Temple (huge, mad max'y outdoor club ... video projection, two floors, the works); the domes at gravity point (complete with acrobats who descend from the ceiling); the "United Nations" (my favourite club in the whole world, now disassembled, clearly); through geodesic domes with open mic rappers; tiny corners of acoustic music and a dedicated stage for fire dancers.

This is enhanced by a similar quantity of art cars: Everything from a double decker bus decked out in fur, neon lights and a fog horn; through fire breathing dragons; ships that look and behave as a party boat except on land; and a healthy number of just hugely big portable stereos that can be driven to wherever deafeningly loud dance music is required.

Finally BRC has a large number of more specialised clubs, that become bars, that become 'chill out' rooms, that become various dens of iniquity such as the utterly beautiful "Home", the infamous "Geisha Lounge" (thick red carpet and Sake), whatever the outdoor pole dancing was called and down to the BRC equivalent of a small suburban drinking holes like the "Moonshine Tavern" that delivered me an almost fatal nightcap one evening. Finally as the evening winds down there are numerous public fire pits - huge metal troughs filled with burning wood where stories can be exchanged, hands can be warmed and the eventual victory of sunrise over the night can be discussed.

The observant will read the above paragraph and conclude the existence of limitless free beer and tequila. In a word: absolutely. The same cannot be said for illegal drugs. While I was offered (and accepted) a few tokes on the Playa, anything harder has to be bought in and taken discreetly. Burning Man's reputation as a hotbed of drugs has not escaped the attention of the feds who have been known to use undercover officers, night vision goggles and just plain kicking the door down in their efforts to ... well ... enforce the law, actually. None the less, the same basic rules apply - just don't take the piss and you'll probably be fine. Probably.

It this point it has to be said that I have a lifetime aversion to dancing and my "aim" for Burning Man was to finally, once and for all, get over it. I am proud to announce that we are "mission accomplished" in this regard and I had a good many heavy nights out bouncing up and down in the company of others. It was, to be quite honest, great fun. Best party on the planet - believe the hype.

Burning Man is an artistic event.

One advantage of an almost limitless quantity of playa is plenty of space for sculptures. Now, I have taken to liking modern sculpture very much and while the sculpture at Burning Man lacks the pristine and carefully curated quality of (say) "Structure of Light" at SFMOMA, the more clued in artists use the space, brutal weather conditions and large number of curious art lovers as a resource. A giant bird cage sits in the middle of the desert inviting us to climb, swing or sleep on it. The deserted village of "black rock east" makes us wonder what happened. "Bummer" asks questions of the American gas consumer culture or, alternatively, makes us think "cor blimey, a really really big Hummer". And way way way out there sits a desk with a book. Its contents is for me to know and you to find out.

While sculptors get the limelight at Burning Man, the city is obviously covered with artists, dancers (some great dancers), photographers (check out Nato Tuke) and musicians. Music was, for the most part, a disappointment - except the apparently Finnish DJ chick who was awesome. And the guy who played in "Home".

[RantyDave]

Burning Man is a challenge

Survival at Burning Man, purely at the physical level, is a moderately daunting challenge. The only facilities that are provided are the (actually very good) toilets. Everything else you ship in *and* you ship out. Water comes in. Grey water (washing up etc) goes out. Food comes in, packages go out. Leave no mark. Temperatures go north of 100 degrees during the day (camelbak is your friend) and surprisingly close to freezing at night. The playa is covered in a layer of unthinkably fine dust - the infamous "playa dust" - that goes everywhere, in everything, turns to a thick gelatinous goop on contact with water and destroys mechanical *anything* within a few days. Oh, and it's alkaline too - strong enough to eat away at the flesh of any cuts, scrapes or blisters. By Thursday I had the very marvellous Lesa, one of our next door neighbours, pouring hydrogen peroxide into the holes in my feet to dissolve the dust. Fizz fizz fizz, ouch ouch ouch. Next time, big boots and socks.

Under the circumstances it may come as no surprise that relationships get strained, characters get tested and tempers get frayed. Mine did, anyway.

But the real challenge is to survive and flourish when all links with the familiar have been removed. And to do it quickly - your time in BRC is limited. I'm not the most terrifically confident, outgoing or naturally interesting man in the word (see: "losers" above) and to push through and over this while away from my home, family, friends, clothes that I would normally wear or any sense of familiarity or safety whatsoever was, for me, the most major challenge of the whole thing. People who go as couples, IMHO, miss this. The tourists don't even know it's there. But to get anything from your time at Burning Man it is a hurdle that must be cleared. Do or die. I did, which leads to the final and most important thing I want to say about Burning Man:

Burning Man is a place to grow

Cliché cliché cliché, but true. I changed at Burning Man. I don't know in what way, and I'm terrified of the modern world taking it from me again, but I returned a different man from the one I left. There's a whole raft of things I just don't care about and I find it focussed my attention on the things that truly matter to me: Love; Friends; Music; And a worthwhile vocation. Strangely neither money nor sex made the list.

You don't go to Burning Man, you participate. This is very important. If you just go, take some pictures, tick the box that says "been there, done that", then frankly you'd be just as well served by typing "Burning Man" into flickr. You have to participate. You have to find ways in which you can participate. Some will arrive on a plate, some you should make yourself. Your time, your companionship and your skills are the base components of successful gifting in Black Rock City. I got huge mileage out of teaching people to fly kites, for instance. Some sing. Some dance. Some fix up broken feet, or massage a sore back, or dress as a clown. Use your initiative and you'll find that Burning Man acts, primarily, as an enormous amplifier for Karma. Give unto the community and it will give back. In spades. We depend on it.

Through these simple things I got to meet some amazing people. I met a man who lost a leg when hit by a drink driver at twelve years old. He spent two years in hospital and afterwards, more or less, dedicated his life to teaching maths, and teaching the teachers to teach maths. I met an (unthinkably gorgeous) playwright, writing a play about the rebuilding of New Orleans. I met a hard core burner, wandering the town at night in her lingerie ("what costume, this is what I wear") there with her four year old daughter, conceived at Burning Man. I met an angel when I needed her the most and no demons. Ever.

Then there are (some of) the things I found myself doing:

* Being eleven stories up (on "Babylon") whooping and hollering as a dust storm slammed in.
* Witnessing the terrible echoes of pain and loss scrawled on or pinned to Basura Sagrada.
* Being asked to jump a mountain bike into a pile of cardboard boxes while wearing only sandles, a sarong, and unbuttoned shirt (and accepting, of course).
* Drinking Tequila for breakfast.
* Kissing anyone dressed as a cat.
* Teaching a huge Irish barman how to fly a kite.
* Being woken up mid afternoon to effect rapid structural changes to a shade in the process of being torn to bits by a sand storm.
* Explaining quickly yet clearly to an early teenage boy that Burning Man was made better for all of us by his attendance.
* Meeting Debbie Dallas. Yes, that one.
* Regretting taking mushrooms.
* Seeing a naked girl, painted gold, roller skating at a disco in the middle of the desert ... and not finding it strange in the slightest.
* Making new friends.

And yet, with all these words, I have barely scratched the surface of my Burning Man experience. And my time at Burning Man barely scratched the surface of what could have happened, or what could have been done.

I watched no TV. I didn't access the Internet. I didn't use a mobile phone. No money exchanged hands. I changed, and grew, for real. So go ahead. Scoff. Laugh. Make crass remarks about smelly hippies and ugly chicks while surfing for porn in another window. Burning Man actually relies on this sort of thing to keep the lamers and tourists away. Call it Dawinism for experiences.

I was greeted with the words "Welcome home, man", and left with a sense of great loss but the best conclusion I can draw was written for me on the walls of the temple.

[Skyryder]

Sounds a bit like a Hi Tek 'happening' without the drugs.



Skyyrder

[portokiwi]

That mate sounds sooo COOL. You did somthing alot of us only dream of doing.
i ame one day to go somewhere like that. Just got to get the balls to do it.

[Swoop]

Moderation of KB turns a new corner.

[Zapf]

love reading this RD. I had a mate that went last year and your report just re-enforced and expanded what he said. Sounds like a real must go event and grow your mind.

[cs363]

Sounds interesting to say the least.

Now, can someone explain post #7 ???

[AllanB]

Burning Man is the morning in the loo after last nights curry...............

[Headbanger]

Now, can someone explain post #7 ???

Its a bot advertising a farming service, which is where you pay them to do continuous menial tasks in an on-line game to make you rich or talented (within the game). Apparently its a billion dollar industry.

[cs363]

Its a bot advertising a farming service, which is where you pay them to do continuous menial tasks in an on-line game to make you rich or talented (within the game). Apparently its a billion dollar industry.

Well, I'll be How does a bot join KB? Would have thought there were preventative measures for that. At the very least shouldn't he/she/it/them/whatever be banned?

[Big Dave]

Burning man reminds me of Arthur C Clarke's 'The City - The Stars.'

It kinda lost me at the Nappies.

[Okey Dokey]

Well, isn't the world a strange place? I can't see myself ever being interested in something like this. I guess "normal" life is enough for me.

It was good to hear about it from someone who had actually attended, however. I'd never heard of it before.

[Hitcher]

Fifth-largest city in Nevada sounds like fun. Apart from Las Vegas, most of the other big towns in that state have little to commend them, other than the ubiquitous pokie machines and the occasional brothel.

[Big Dave]

Fifth-largest city in Nevada sounds like fun. Apart from Las Vegas, most of the other big towns in that state have little to commend them, other than the ubiquitous pokie machines and the occasional brothel.

What is it when it's not a brothel?