About a man
This year’s Burning Man shows that the event has reached maturity. Is it possible to keep the party from stagnating?
I’m a Burner. I think we should have that straight from the outset.
I wasn’t always a Burner. For several years after my first trip to Burning Man, I maintained a more or less objective viewpoint. Even when I went to the playa weeks before the event and helped construct various stages, roads and towers, I was half uncertain whether the event would survive its periodic attacks by the various governments that regulate its existence. There were times when I wasn’t even sure it should survive.
Now I’m convinced the event should and will survive, although it may evolve. Actually, my theory is that the event must evolve or it will collapse under the weight of monotony.
This is a theory that won’t be tested under any scientific rigor, but my belief is that this is the year that Burning Man grew up. It reached and probably slightly surpassed 30,000 attendees, the number that has often been bandied about by organizers as the end of population increase, the organizational endpoint of this party on the Black Rock Desert. If that’s true, then this year was the first true representation of what the Burning Man Festival will be until the fire’s put out. But I get ahead of myself.
OK, so what’s a Burner?
A Burner—and I hope those readers who’ve been reading about Burning Man or attending the event for years will bear with me—is a participant at the Burning Man Festival.
OK, so what’s a Burning Man?
Burning Man is a counter-culture, anti-consumerism art event that happens up near Gerlach every Labor Day weekend. It attracts artists and people who like art. It doesn’t generally attract the kind of artists who make paintings you’d hang on a wall in a museum. It attracts the kind of artists who build fanciful, thought-provoking and inspirational artifacts of steel and gas and light and wood. Especially wood.
Because wood burns.
The festival used to culminate with the burning of a large wood-and-neon man. Hence the name.
Burning Man now crescendos with the burning of a temple. Don’t let anyone tell you different. There are more people to watch the Man burn, but the night that follows when they burn the temple and virtually all the large installation art tolls a clearer tone.
The event has been going since 1986, when founder Larry Harvey burned an effigy on Baker Beach in San Francisco. When the event got too large and attracted too much official attention, it moved to the Black Rock Desert playa, about 120 miles north of Reno, in 1990. In years past, local governments castigated event organizers for allowing too much freedom, too much nudity, too many drugs, too few rules.
The governmental hassles still continue, with Washoe County commissioners refusing a special-use permit to organizers, disavowing a Regional Planning Commission recommendation. Organizers want to have a year-round working ranch near the playa in the remote desert. The ironic thing is that the special-use permit is probably unnecessary, since the county codes already make exceptions for such things as artistic events and camps. Burning Man slapped the county with a $40 million lawsuit, and it’s difficult to see how a court is going to interpret the law in favor of the county—but then, stranger things have happened.
Back in the day, local businesses accepted the participants’ money, but behind their hands they’d often call participants hippies, druggies, weirdoes, freaks, pretty much anything except what they were: artists and tourists. But that was when the participants numbered in the thousands. Now the event is a financial windfall, bringing $10 million, according to some estimates, into the local economy every year.
There was a feeling, in those early days, that people from Reno weren’t particularly welcome at the event. Too much local media attention attracted more official attention and the focus of fraternity boys from the university who came out to gawk at the naked women, get drunk and screw up.
It’s 6 p.m. Friday night, the night before the burn. It’s the latest I’ve arrived at the event in several years. Kathleen, my honey, arrived earlier, set up camp. I’ve got to go to Center Camp to Playa Info to find out where our camp is. It’s the easiest trip to the event—meaning smoothest travel from Reno—that I’ve had for years. I rumble down the graded road, and a greeter tears my ticket.
“Welcome home,” he says smiling.
“Man, it is good to be home,” I reply.
“Have you been here before?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. Don’t put anything that didn’t come out of your body into the portapotties. Don’t drive more than 5 miles an hour. No video or digital photography.”
I nod, so happy to be here that I don’t mind the formalities.
“And one more thing. I order you to have a good time. Too many people come here and get so caught up that they forget to have a good time.”
Oh, man, he could have said anything but that. I was somewhat surprised by the greeting. In years past, I’d been instructed about everything from avoiding dehydration to which side of the camp was quieter to how the roads worked to picking up every scrap of refuse.
This year, the rules imposed by the organizers were more important than the rules imposed by the environment, like drink plenty of water or, if lost in a sandstorm, sit down.
I think back to 1995, when a greeter named Abernathy gave me quite a list of things to be aware of and all I gave him was some lip, complaining about the ticket prices. I remember them being $35, although Kathleen remembers them being $65. (This year tickets ranged from $225-$300.) At the time, I wrote that he was high as rent, but I was told later, by someone I trusted, that Abernathy never did drugs. I guess I’ve felt guilty about that comment for seven years now.
Saturday, I read a rant in the Black Rock City’s non-official newspaper, Piss Clear, that organizers were putting too much emphasis on the themes and by doing so were excluding artists. This year’s theme was “Beyond Belief.” To simplify, themed art nodded to the concepts of spirituality vs. rationality.
I’d disagree with the writer, at least to some extent. I think the organizers are quite wise in restricting art to that which fits the themes and in holding high standards to what meets the strictures of the themes. It all goes back to the theme of this essay, “Burning Man grows up,” and my theory that Burning Man must build in a system of change or possibly die of apathy.
A part of good theorizing requires backup from observation.
It was my observation this year that a good deal of the art, particularly the “art cars” that prowl the playa at night, was recycled art from last year’s theme, “The Floating World.” Of course, there’s at least one car—one covered with buttons, dolls and other doodads—that’s been going to the event much longer than I have. The repetition wasn’t just my impression; it was often remarked upon.
This is not to say that there was less jaw-dropping art than there has been in years past, although I heard people say that, too. The Great Temple was simply beyond belief. There was a sculpture with suspended stones, the Temple of Gravity, that evoked pride in my humanity and amazement at the things a person can conceive and execute. The Man’s base, the Great Temple, was bigger, with a substantially different look. The Man is now almost 80 feet tall. The camp where the dominatrixes were whipping the bare bottoms of bad little boys and girls, installing vibrating cock rings on the men and kisses on the girls, held my attention for some time, as did ThunderDome, as it has for several years running.
Now, accepting that financial times have been difficult for artists, it’s no surprise that some years will be better than others. But how many artists noticed the same things that I did? I’m not an artist, but I know many, and all of them go to Burning Man to see other artists’ work at least as much as to offer their own. If they aren’t seeing new art but are expending the time and effort to create new stuff, they may decide to stay away—just for one year.
Does the repetition of art diminish the experience for Burners? Not for first-timers.
I posed this question to several people: If Burning Man were exactly the same next year, would you still come back? Every single one said he or she would, that the event was just too big to see in one year. Opinions reversed when the question was extended another year into the future and added a ticket-price increase.
The question of whether Burning Man will be able to attract 30,000 first- and second-timers will remain moot, as long as Larry Harvey and company can keep the themes and the art fresh.
“Can I tell you my Burning Man story?” the man, who was wearing short, tight shorts and a ruby hue, asked in a soft voice.
I was sitting on a tractor seat that was hooked to a ladder by a springy piece of metal, suspended about 10 feet in the air, kicking my feet while Kathleen, my partner, looked up, considered making the climb, but mostly decided against it.
Our friend climbed up the to the other tractor seat. The sky that early morning was clear blue, the deep azure that you get over the playa.
“Did you ever hear about the installation of a bicycle and a skeleton, way out here on the perimeter?”
Kathleen and I said no, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“Well,” he said, bouncing up and down on the seat, “I think it’s kind of an apocryphal story or rumor or something, but I decided to go out and look for it, so I could take a picture. So, anyway, I’m way out there…” he gestures to the orange fence that delineates the Black Rock City limits. It’s circles within circles, and miles outside of it there’s a brown-gray, jagged mountain range that borders the non-Black Rock City part of the playa. “…And I see this bicycle. And just beyond it, there’s a thong. Then there’s another thong, then past that, there’s this body laying there.
“So I go up to it, and it’s, I mean he’s, alive. Some raver went out there and passed out. He’s all, ‘Uhh.’ I helped him in. He’s sleeping in the urinal. If you go over there, you might check on him. His name’s Doug.”
The “Burn,” the night the Burning Man lived up to his name, was another illustration how things have changed and what they might become.
We and some of our friends had arrived more than an hour early to get a place up front. Our friends brought their bikes. We sat, stood and shuffled around for quite some time before a Black Rock ranger came and told us that bikes were not welcome up here, and if we wanted to stay, we had to take our bicycles behind the perimeter made by the art cars.
“Those bikes are too dangerous,” he said.
Bike theft was pretty rampant, and we weren’t particularly inclined to leave the bikes unattended. So we watched the Burn from behind a van whose only artistic statement was that spray paint is cheap. A man on the roof rearranged ladders so people could ride around the playa after the burn on top of his van.
That automobiles would take precedence over bicycles blew me away. As far back as I can recall, every serious accident at Burning Man was caused by an automobile. The only death thus far this year, a 20-year-old woman, involved an art car. I remember times when they talked about banning cars altogether. Most of the other major accidents this year involved airplanes.
It was moments before the Burn that I experienced the strangest moment of my time on the playa this year. Kathleen and I had walked away from the Man, perhaps 35 yards back toward the Esplanade. We were there only moments before turning around and discovering that somehow we’d ended up on the exact opposite side of the Man. We’d been on the side of the Man with the broken neon, and when we turned around, we were on the side with the working neon. Needless to say, we weren’t on any drug more illicit than a judicious amount of alcohol. I have no explanation of the phenomenon, except to say that that’s the kind of stuff that happens at Burning Man.
Organizers’ timing has become more sophisticated. The drum procession and fireworks were better timed, and the moment the crowd’s frenzy reached apogee, the man caught fire. The pedestal burned quickly, and despite the disappointment of one arm and some neon tubing malfunctioning, it was a Burn that was worth waiting a year for.
This year’s crowd was better managed than I’ve ever seen it. A couple years ago, when Black Rock City’s population was doubling every year, fully half of the mob did not, quite literally, know how to act when it came to these big burns—so they went nuts. Now, it seems, nearly everyone knew when to run around the fire and when to stand still and shout. It’s remarkable, really, Larry Harvey’s masterpiece.
Back in 1995, Harvey told me that his art, the thing that most interested him about Burning Man, was the movement of people, the art and science of how to motivate and control crowds. At the time, I didn’t truly understand what he was talking about, but Saturday I think I did. It was beautiful and frightening and a hint of things to come.
“So how was your burn?”
“I only ’ave a minute to speak,” replied our neighbor Christian, a set designer from Hollywood with curly hair and rheumy eyes, “because we are going to buy ice. But I will tell you.”
Christian, at the event with his son Mattias, speaks with a thick French accent. “I’ve been practicing meditation for 30 years, and when he burned, I reached the place of inner light and energy. You know the world is made up of energy. You and I, we talk now, and when my energy is gone, we won’t talk because I’ll be dead. When we meditate, we try to become one with the universal energy. When we meditate, we don’t get what we desire, we get what is offered to us. I’ve only reached this state once, very early on in my meditation practice. I reached it again last night when the Man burned.
“I’ve never seen anything like this place, how they do everything with love. Next year, I will bring my wife—she does not like to camp—and I will tell her that Burning Man isn’t about camping and dirt and heat, but about love.”
I’ve seen more children and elderly people this year than I’ve seen in years past. Other people tell me I’m wrong, but if there are not more children, then the children that are here are being brought to more of the performances and are out riding their bikes and playing in community areas without adult supervision.
I think I understand the reason for this. In reaching maturity, Black Rock City became a safer city. I don’t have a feeling for whether drug use has increased or decreased this year. I do feel that users are more discreet. I know drugs are there; I see people on drugs, and I hear people talk about having been on drugs, but nobody offers me cocaine or acid or mushrooms, and the smell of burning herb is infrequent. I’ve also heard many comments that the police presence has increased this year, but I don’t really see evidence of that, either.
Anyway, this is a peaceful city by almost any definition. While bikes are stolen with frequency, apparently often by people who just want to get somewhere fast, who then abandon the bikes, there isn’t the kind of violence you’d associate with a rock concert, street festival or classic-car event.
So the festival is safe enough for children and elderly people. Society generally suggests children and elderly require more in the way of comfort than 30- and 40-somethings.
The answer to this, and another way the event has evolved over the years, came in the numbers of recreational vehicles, which appear to me to have increased disproportionately to the increase in people. Children and elderly people can wait out sandstorms and the heat of day in the air-conditioned comfort of their Pace Arrows. And if that isn’t good enough, they can fire up their portable generator and drive their charmingly painted, generator-charged, battery-operated golf carts to their friends’ RVs.
Sunday afternoon, the wind has kicked up the dust and gusts of 50 miles per hour create playa-dust-fueled havoc. Kathleen and I are buying latte and chai in Center Camp, the groovy place that more than anywhere else reminds me of the community I found when I first started coming to Burning Man. As I recall, though, the first year we were here, I bartered a banana for a cup of coffee. Under the encompassing cloth ceiling, we are surrounded by people who are juggling, singing, drumming, walking on glass, painting nipples, reading, dancing, connecting, chatting, volunteering, and like us escaping the madness of a playa dust storm.
The wind lulls, and we head over to the camp where my niece, Jessica Lunsford, whom I hadn’t seen in a couple years, is camped. (“Don’t you love an event where families can come together?” she said, with hardly a trace of irony.) Jessica and her friend are going to meet us at our camp, to watch the Temple burn that evening and caravan back to Reno on Monday.
Their camp is directly across the playa from ours. The moment we are past the Esplanade and into the sort of “central park” area with no landmarks except the installation art that rises out of the ground like barrows, the wind comes back up. It’s got to be 50 miles per hour, although there’s no way to truly gauge it. Fortunately, I’ve been playing with my GPS unit since we arrived, marking our camp, our friends’ camps and the Burning Man as waypoints. It’s the best way to negotiate Black Rock City’s miles of roads, particularly when road signs have been stolen or in the face of a potentially life-threatening situation. We follow the arrow into the wind. I foolishly left my dust mask back at the camp, and laboring against the wind fills my lungs with the alkali dust. I have goggles, but nothing can repel the dust driven by the wind, and my contact lenses feel like they’ve been etched.
It was only six-tenths of a mile between us and the tent, but there were times that the choking dust forced us off our bikes, walking into the wind. We quite literally could not see five feet in front of us. Neither the danger of the desert nor the safety of the RVs is illusory. People die here, but it’s the risky living that makes us feel young, redeemed and alive.
It’s difficult to say where Burning Man will go from here, assuming it gets past its most recent onslaught from Washoe County government. Recent published interviews with Larry Harvey have suggested that he will integrate this Burning Man with the other ones that happen around the world, bringing together a very large community of people who think life should mimic art, instead of the other way round. Maybe he’ll be able to institute some political and social change. I wouldn’t be surprised.
I don’t know; my job won’t change, and nearly every year I’ll continue to write these essays. It’s obvious why I do it—Burning Man is the largest cultural event held in this neck of the woods. More important, though, is why does anybody care to read this stuff? People don’t look at other events like Hot August Nights, Artown or the Nugget Rib Cook-off with a critical eye, inquire into finances or question the quality of the art.
The reason people want to read about Burning Man is because Burning Man matters.
At least it matters to us Burners. And there are a lot of us.