dBMblog
An Oral History of Burning Man
"This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words. And indeed in thought." —T.E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
It took some convincing to get me to Burning Man, even though—or because—friends couldn’t shut up about it. Their pictures were intriguing, sure, but the camp back then resembled nothing so much as the costumey parking lot of a Grateful Dead show.
Not a sell for me. And I like people fine, but when I go camping I generally hope to see fewer of them. Finally, worn down by heartfelt entreaties—and especially the assurances from my great friend John Law, a main mover in the festival’s start-up era—I drove overnight from San Francisco and made the Black Rock Desert shortly after dawn.
What I will never forget about that first trip to northwest Nevada was striking out onto the playa, the vast, vacant deceased lake bed. It was 1994—the ninth Burning Man, the fifth in the desert—a time before cell phones, and the map of the area I was headed to was blank. Directions? Look for the second traffic cone and a line of those small red-flag wire thingies. Leave the road. Drive eight miles, turn right for two more. Really, that was it.
Five minutes out, I found myself in an alkaline whiteout, partly of my own making because of the rooster tail of dirt I was kicking up. When I finally made camp it felt like an achievement, and I had adrenaline to burn. So, despite being sleep deprived, I wrapped a kaffiyeh around my head and took off on a walk.
Immediately, I started to get what I’d been missing: the almost gravitational communal spirit (needed for survival) and the permission, even insistence, to get your freak on. Everyone seemed busy: erecting tepees, hanging wind socks, painting their bodies. It was Montessori for grown-ups, in the most astonishing void.
Eighteen years later, tens of thousands have made the pilgrimage, some a bit too avidly, it’s fair to say. As the event grew, a pop-up metropolis formed—Black Rock City, whose population this year may top 60,000. The outfit that stages the festival, Black Rock City LLC, is now a $23 million-per-year concern with 40 full-time employees, hundreds of volunteers, and a non-profit arts foundation that doles out grants. Demand for tickets is so great, the organizers used a lottery system this spring. That turned out to be a mistake. Big-time artists and veteran volunteers were shut out, while scalpers ran the tickets ($250 face value) up to $1,000 on eBay.
For Burning Man’s principals, the ticket fiasco was merely the latest crisis they’ve had to overcome to keep the dance going. They’ve been faced with such challenges every year, it seems, and somehow they’ve always managed to meet the task—or to finagle someone who could.
In this light, Burning Man is partly the story of a half-dozen eccentrics—an unemployed landscaper (Larry Harvey), an art model (Crimson Rose), a struggling photographer (Will Roger Peterson), a dot-com PR gal (Marian Goodell), an aerobics instructor (Harley Dubois), and a signmaker (Michael Mikel)—who made good. Less charitably, it’s the tale of a group of slackers who grabbed hold of the one thing that brought them notice—and, eventually, a paycheck—and have ruthlessly ridden it for all it’s worth. The truth contains elements of both, of course, but one thing’s for sure: it’s never boring.
IN THE BEGINNING: 1986–1989 Before it drew thousands of determined pilgrims to the Nevada desert, Burning Man consisted of a small group of friends torching an effigy on San Francisco’s Baker Beach, just west of the Golden Gate Bridge. Was it a summer solstice party? Guerrilla art? Or, as legend had it, one man’s attempt to exorcise his heartbreak?
LARRY HARVEY (co-creator and executive director of Burning Man): My friend Mary Grauberger had done a celebration down on Baker Beach for years. In 1986, she’d decided not to do it again, and I thought we’d recreate that, but in our own way. I really wasn’t an artist. I was hanging out with these famous latte carpenters, all of whom, in their spare time, were writing novels or painting pictures or playing music. I think Jerry [James] may have asked me to repeat my statement on the phone so he understood what I was telling him: “Let’s burn a man on the beach.”
JERRY JAMES (co-creator): There wasn’t much more to it than that. Larry called me and asked, “Do you want to build a figure and go burn it for the solstice?” OK, sure.more…?
5 Ways to Make Your Life More Like Burning Man
by Steve Bearman and Troy Dayton for Burner Love. Photo by Spenser Jones.
So you’ve been to the playa, and you’ve seen the promised land – the promise of freedom, of self-expression, of immediacy and creativity and community. The playa fed you, and it changed you. It provided you opportunities for growth, you took advantage of those opportunities, and you came out the other side more the person you’re here to be in the world.
But then Burning Man ended, as it must. It was burned down, dismantled, packed up into dusty vehicles and carted away. Now, you find yourself without the the steady flow of magic that helped you become more yourself. You’re “home” (in the traditional meaning of the word), and you’re probably wondering whether you can still be the person you liberated yourself to become at Burning Man.
You can be. All you need to do is to make use of these 5 principles:
1. There is no default world
2. Expect more from strangers
3. Form your camp
4. Be part of the generosity economy
5. Embrace impermanence (at least for now)
1. There is no default world
Burners have come to use an unfortunate term when referring to life after Burning Man. They call it the “default world”, as if magic only happens in the desert during one week of the year. This is particularly unfortunate because there is one great secret to bringing everything you love about Burning Man into the rest of your life and to making the rest of the world more like Burning Man. What secret, you ask? As it turns out, there is no default world.
We’ll say it again, because this really matters. There is no default world.
If it helps, you can think about it this way. Some art installations are just too big to bring to the playa. They need to be left out in the rest of the world. In fact, really the whole world is just one, big, world-sized, interactive art installation. It’s all just a series of temporary encampments in which humans have, through their ingenuity and creativity, figured out how to interface with the wilderness and live together in clusters. Just like the street clock and the open playa, the rest of the world is available to explore and interact with and play with while wearing one costume or another, playing one role or another. There is no default world.
When you start to recognize the true, interactive nature of what we’ll call “the extended playa” (that is, the world-sized, extra-playa art installation), you’ll find that so much more is possible.
2. Expect more from strangers
In a community like Burning Man, you can assume, even assert, the right to approach any random person and have an interesting interaction. There’s room to transcend the ordinary superficial greetings and interviews. You can introduce yourself effervescently, or oddly, or launch right into the middle of the conversation you wish you were having with someone. You can overtly express interest and curiosity. You can play. You can do all this because you expect, more often than not, that your enthusiasm and curiosity will be met with the same. You expect people to be interesting and to be excited by your invitation to play with them.
It’s no different on the extended playa. If you give people a chance to be their more expressed, more playful, more connective selves, more often than not, they’ll take you up on your offer. Everyone everywhere wants deeper connections, more meaningful interactions, less seriousness and more play. If you expect this of the people you meet, you’ll be right more often than not.
Hugs and affection are a particularly important domain in which to expect more from strangers. We all need love, and hugs are one of the best ways to deliver it. Take the risk to go in for a hug. You’ll be surprised how many people reciprocate. Of course some people will be hesitant. They may not even know that hugging is an option! Or they may just be plain scared of hugs. That means it’s your job not to be scary. You can pull this off by hugging people in a way that demands nothing of the huggee. Practice being sensitive to where the other person is at while still expressing your affection and admiration. If you get it right, you may notice them releasing and relaxing. Hugs bring us together. You are just the right person to initiate them.
Not only is there no default world, but there are no normal people. There are, however, many people who have gotten good at projecting the appearance of normality. At Burning Man, the endless parade of people flaunting their unusualness brings joy and excitement. The unusual is both delightful and challenging, enticing and intimidating. Out here on the extended playa, people love the unusual just as much as you love it at Burning Man, but there is such a constant press to conform to social norms, that we sacrifice our wonderful weirdness, our playful impulses, and our freaky freedom just so we can fit in. Without even realizing it, you have probably come to participate in this system of socialization, subtly and continuously discouraging people from coloring themselves outside the lines.
It takes some deliberate effort to reverse that tendency. Part of expecting more from strangers is noticing the weirdness in others and encouraging it to express itself. When you encounter someone who is already weirder than you, instead of looking away or otherwise indicating disapproval, remember the courage it takes to break with norms, and you’ll realize just how valuable that smile or that nod can be. Say “yes” to the strangeness of strangers.
Remember, nearly everyone you know was once a stranger. Expecting more of strangers increases the likelihood that the people you meet will become a part of that sometimes elusive network of connections we call community.
3. Form your camp
more…?
Burning Man in the Age of Rick Perry: Revelation, Pluralism, and Moral Imperative
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power… You must change your life. —Excerpt from Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo”
At this moment, over 50,000 people from around the world are gathered, again, in a temporary city in Nevada’s Black Rock desert. By now, I suspect most RD readers have heard of Burning Man, though the nature of this temporary city—please don’t call it a festival—remains elusive. Some call it a Temporary Autonomous Zone devoted to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance. Others call it a utopian experiment in commerce-free living. Others, well, others call it a festival.
Like any pilgrimage site, Burning Man is less a destination than a pretext for the journey. These days, of course, flying into Reno isn’t so hard—but actually opening up to whatever Black Rock City has to offer… that journey can be arduous. If you go looking for a festival with sex and drugs and dance music, that is all you will find. But if you pause to wonder why there’s a temple in the middle of it, why people come back year after year even if they don’t do drugs, or, for that matter, how it is that the art, community, and culture of Black Rock City is constructed without a Them putting on entertainments for Us, much more can be received.
Generally speaking, those who intend to be open in this way come away changed by the experience. I’ve been to dozens of “festivals,” and some of them have been very cool. But they didn’t inspire me to change my life. Burning Man did, when I first went to it in 2001. What it presents are ways of being that most of us never imagine. It’s possible to be like this, it says, to live so richly and creatively and expressively and sensuously, to be this in love with life. And once one has really seen that such a life is possible, one cannot go back to how one was.
Torsten's playa bike
TORSTEN HASSELMANN (12 years at Burning Man)
Origin of bike: I built and welded it and myself out of the town dump when I lived in Wyoming. Among other things the handlebars used to be a shopping cart frame.
Accessories: Minimal, just the bike here, though I used to enjoy EL (electroluminescent) wire so I put some on the bars for lighting back in 2004 and still use it to not get run over.
Advice for last minute bike builders: Start earlier next time and make it fun for everybody.
Tips for riding on the Playa: Keep it upright.
Most important in a Burner bike: Hopefully it’s not just fun for you, but brightens other peoples’ experience as well.
More profiles at http://www.7x7.com/fitness-outdoors/burner-bike-diy-tips-playa-pros
Black Rock City 2010 Yearbook
Browse the gallery of all the freaky beautiful amazing Burners, or download a pdf version of the yearbook, here. Here’s a small sampling of what goodness is in store for you.... <3
Of course, this awesome project reminds me of another awesome project that I have been working on since my first Burn in 2007: The Playa Portrait Project!
"I have one life and I would be damned if I live as a fool "
Many, many more at http://www.sunflowerrobots.com/timelovememory
Defining Moments, 2009
This Burn was my third (nonconsecutive) pilgrimage to the playa and the most powerful by far. Seeking a way to ground my energy and emotions upon returning to my homeground in the Pacific Northwest, I headed out to the San Juan Islands last weekend to visit two dear friends at their home on a cliff above the wild shore. I told stories about my experiences at the Burn for hours; a few days later, one of the friends commented "you seem humbled by your Burn this time around." That is a perfect description of my current state: humbled. Also: in awe. thankful. blessed. in love. connected. pregnant with possibilties. floating in a state of grace, not fully existing in this world or that.
"Tell us about one of your defining moments on the playa this year …" is the question John Curley posted on the Burning Blog last week, and over 75 Burners fresh from their Black Rock City tenure answer with stories that are moving, hilarious, sacred, bittersweet, transformative and heartfelt. I connect to the thread of humility that is braided through the many impressions shared. I feel waves of playa-love pulsing through my newly-reinvigorated heart as I read these personal reflections. I hope you can feel them too, and I invite you to share your own defining moment in the comments at the end of the post.
* * * * * *
One evening early in the week, as the sun was setting, I walked out into the desert alone, behind BRC, where there was no one. I was utterly alone, no other humans near by. I asked my creator what I should do. My creator informed me that I must lose the costume first…and so away it went, layer by layer, and then the jewelry, and necklaces…all of it off, I stood completely naked, bathed in the blazing colors of the setting sun. I walked away from my belongings, and my footprints appeared in the cracks before me, before I stepped into them, the footprints appeared. They were already there, waiting for me to fill them. My body found a rhythm and I intuitively moved in a kind of slow ti-chi-yoga dance, that let my joints crack and free themselves of their restrictions. I have been in several accidents, have broken many bones and have limited range of motion, but I felt freed of all of it. Free of pain, regret, fear…..FREE. With my creator that evening, I found myself once again. A child, an embryo, a man, a woman, all together, all encompassing, a creative being of light….free to BE… as I was gifted this life to be.
Later that evening, a fellow burner gave me a bumper sticker that says ‘Fear is Funny’.
And I have not stopped smiling since.
* * * * * *
I decided to trek to the temple alone on Saturday afternoon after much debauchery. I was delivered into a dust storm on the way, and couldn’t see a single structure or living person at first. Rather than feeling worried it was the most peaceful experience of my life. Later, I would come apon pockets of people and art that would recede into the dust again like apparitions. I finally made it to the temple and cried like a little girl- for me, for loved ones, for everyone there. It was like my soul was wiped clean for the very first time. It was so stunning and surreal.
* * * * * *
Watching the temple burn with friends, we were awestruck when a phenomenal cellist humbly played next to us. We listened for a half hour while he drew all the sorrow, love, yearning and spirit of the temple through his strings, and then moved on. I am so grateful for that beautiful experience.
Also, I got to surrender to the moment many times this year – going with the flow, against my programming and typical behavior or responses, I got to experience immediacy more than I ever have before in 10 years of participating in Burningman. Here’s to playadipity!
* * * * * *
2 years ago I was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. Last November, after a year of radiation and chemo I was told I only had ‘weeks or months’ to live. Being at Burning Man again this year was a triumph for me and an affirmation of life. When I put a message on the temple I started to cry because I suddenly realized I had changed from thinking about dieing to thinking about living. That was a moment I will never forget.
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"The Life Lessons of Burning Man"
Read the entire article, alongside many other first-hand reports and interpretations, on the "What is Burning Man?" page in our "About" section. Alright then.
"Yer goin' where? To do what?"
Photo by John Curley; The Man 8/26/2009.
Some last thoughts before leaving for Burning Man 2009
1.) Camp dBM location : Because of our (hopeful) partnership with another larger camp that we're drawing power from, we ended up involuntarily situated at the far edge of Black Rock City -- 2:15ish and Lineage, or on the perimeter out by walk-in camping. AKA, the Boonies, or as Torsten called it, The Frontier. This is exciting for several reasons. First of all, I wonder: what the hell goes on way out there??? I've camped near Center Camp and the Deep End (accidentally) and on the Esplanade, and so have always been, for better or for worse, close in to the downtown BRC action. What will it be like on the Frontier? Will there be periods of peace and tranquility? Does anybody wander by out there? What's it like trying to get around on bikes from way out there? And just what exactly are those walk-in campers up to? With all of these questions unanswerable until we strike camp and find out, I am psyched to be getting a new perspective on the city. I can't fathom that there's a "bad spot" to camp -- except for a few camps I wouldn't care to be next to -- only different spots, providing for different perspectives. Sounds like a good way to keep the Burn fresh! Secondly, which leads me to...
2.) the natural vibes of the Black Rock Desert. I expect the Frontier positioning, with our camp facing outward towards open playa and the hills, to allow me, for the first time, to try and discern some aspect of the natural vibrations of this special place. I typically move through the world attuned to the natural world around me, noticing the birds and plants, reading the landscape. Down at Burning Man, this hasn't really been a part of my experience -- in part because there doesn't seem to be anything living for several miles, as well as because the humanoid stimuli is so overpowering! Imagine bird-watching during Carnival or Mardi Gras, netting butterflies on the Las Vegas strip, Id'ing fungi in Alice's Wonderland. Not likely. I do remember, in 2007, taking a personal timeout one night and biking out to the trash fence on the edge of Deep Playa, sitting down and gazing out at the desert. I felt an electric charge when I slowed down and focused on the vastness of open space out there, how far the playa stretched on to the horizon, how incomprehensibly vast the cosmos above was and how many stars it held. I think that it is the only time I've dialed in to the natural powers of the Black Rock, and I look forward to making more of an effort to do so this year. Another way to keep it fresh.
Speaking of nature...
Burning Man iPhone app
I found a very cool new iPhone app featuring sumptuous photos from the playa, plus a how-to playa photography guide, links collection and other swag, made by Seattle's own Matt Freedman and available at www.monkfishlabs.com. It'll costya $3.99, but then you'll have the playa in your pocket for any time you need a quick escape!
Are you ready to Evolve?
Thoughts on the forthcoming Burn from www.examiner.com:
"For this year's theme, Burners are asked to contemplate three questions: What are we as human beings? Where have we come from? And how may we adapt to meet an ever-changing world? There is perhaps no better moment in time to ask these. We stand at a unique epoch, amidst a world in turmoil that is transforming literally before our eyes. How will humans evolve to meet the challenges of a world besieged by war, overpopulation, economic depression, climate change, and over-consumption, yet one that has never been more consciously aware and interconnected? A world daunted by convergent crises, yet equipped with tools and ideas unimaginable to generations past? Will we find a collective pathway out of the morass, or will we end up our own worst enemies and seal our own fate?
For Burners and the vast culture they have spawned, the key to surfing the apocalypse (from the greek meaning "lifting of the veil" or "revelation") is creativity and community, and the endless ways that each are continuously reinvented...."
More here.more…?
Adam Lambert : Bringing the Burn to mainstream America
On Jun 10, 2009, at 9:38 AM, moontroll wrote:
Subject: "I realized that we all have our own power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen."
I don't know this guy, never even seen "American Idol" once, but can appreciate his awakening at the Burn: NY Daily News.
* * * * * * * * *
On Jun 10, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Edub wrote:
Subject: Re: "I realized that we all have our own power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen."
"Drug fueled" Yeah, that's there, but we all know there is more to the Burn than that! Through portal we come face to face with the Pure Power of Potential. How we choose to harness it - on the playa and in the default world, is up to us. In the immortal words of Master Yoda, "Choose, but choose wisely."
Onward toward the Burn. May the Force (i.e. the Pure Power of Potential) be with us.
~ Master Doobsauce
* * * * * * * * * more…?
Burning Bookshelf: Books about Burnign Man
In less three weeks, the Man will burn. Over 45,000 revelers, seekers, artists and freaks will gather around an effigy on a remote, desolate, dry lake bed in a forgotten corner of Nevada to drum, dance with fire and lose their minds to the magic of the moment. The energy of Burning Man 2008 is growing in strength daily, and Burners the world over can feel the pull to the playa.
In 2007, I went to Burning Man with a large group of Bellinghamsters organized under the Boogie Collective umbrella. We built a 40-foot tall Boogie Pyramid, threw all-night dance parties and lived communally beneath a billowing green parachute for ten days. While it has long been obvious that I wouldn't be returning to participate in The Event in the Desert this year, I have to admit that with the arrival of August, Black Rock City's invisible, inevitable gravitational forces are agitating my soul. I have other projects I am dedicated to this year, but that doesn't negate my natural affinity for ritual and release, intentional gatherings, inward reorientation and creative pranksterism.
I might seek for a vicarious Burn instead, browsing the many different books about Burning Man published in recent years.
Jessica Bruder's "Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man" (Simon Spotlight, 2007) is a dizzying piece of artwork, a shuffle-play of favorite Burning Man deliriums throughout the years, designed by the venerable collagist Martin Vensezky. It features photo contributions from hundreds of playa snapshooters and loads of playa ephemera, like reproductions of tickets and maps from past Burns, stickers and buttons from different theme camps and all the little trinkety stuff that are gifted out and circulated throughout Black Rock City.
The trajectory of the book is shaped to represent the journey to and through Black Rock City, and thus early chapters include drives through Gerlach and the first burns in San Francisco before introducing you to playa legends like Thunderdome, Dr. Megavolt, Contessa and the Belgian Waffle. There are chapters on music, vehicles and costumes/identity before the reader is brought face to face with the Man and his many inflammations. The end of the ride lands softly with a retrospective of David Best's temples and closes with a look at the city's dissolution in the chapter "Leave No Trace."
Dale Pendell's "Inspired Madness: The Gifts of Burning Man" (Frog Ltd., 2006) is a loose interpretation of the tribal, post-pagan gathering told through short, abstract episodic vignettes and sketches, which could be hell to read if Pendell wasn't such a interesting storyteller wading up to his eyeballs in the spirit and joy of each moment.
"This is Burning Man" by Brian Dogherty (Benbella, 2004) is much less abstract and subjective, and less fun too. It seeks to tell the story of what BM is, where it came from and why it is what it is from a journalist's perspective, though Dogherty claims no impartiality: he has been burning for over a decade. Warning: knowing *too* much about the people pulling the levers behind the curtain can spoil the fun and dull the mystery. Mostly, Dogherty does a fine job of translating the untranslatable and he has a deeper grasp than most on what draws so many diverse people to the desert gathering year after year.
What happens when a bunch of academics go to the Burn, drop acid and start taking notes? You end up with the book "Afterburn: Reflections on a Burning Man" (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2005), offering essays like "Utopia, Social Sculpture and Burning Man" and "Fires of the Heart: Ritual, Pilgrimage and Transformation."
Finally, I love the exquisite collection of black & white photos presented in A. Leo Nash's "Burning Man: Art in the Desert" (Abrams, 2007.) Nash's is an unusual look at Burning Man – his colorless, arid photographs focus on the diversity of art that is brought to the party. His camera is trained on the sculptures, interactive installations, vehicles and structures that populate the empty playa on the outskirts of the city. Nash has a natural gift for composition and capturing detail, though it is unsettling to view these otherwordly, fantastical dreamworks frozen in time and outside of their original dusty context. Rich and mysterious.
If you are a Burner left behind this year, you might consider buying or borrowing something from this reading list to keep your soul in alignment in the dim days of the Default World.
How to enjoy the Burning Man Experience from the Comfort of your Own Home
Burning Cartography
Here's an amazing hand-drawn map of Black Rock City 2005 by Lisa Hoffman.
and here's a map of Black Rock City 2006: Hope and Fear done in "Acid Deco" style.
I found both via the website info gargoyle. The guy who wrote the posts is very serious about his cartography -- it is the gift that he brings to the community: "This year, I'm seeing more and more people come together with their interest in cartography than ever before. The sponsored mapping group, PlayaInfo is also expanding their geographic reach by supporting a GPSDrive friendsd server so that participants with art cars can broadcast their location to the main map. Seems like a perfect fit for cyborgs and technomads alike!"
He's got an interesting slideshow too right over here.
Notes from the unfolding adventure