Travel With Reason

[Black Rock City, Nevada] I went on a trip. Or was it a dream? On this trip-dream, I pitched a small tent in the middle of a harsh desert. Suddenly, for one week only, 50,000 people appeared from nowhere, to join me. Some were in tents, others in RVs, and many more in elaborate, bedouin-style camps – strewn with couches, rugs, pillows, hammocks, a carpeted merry-go-round, trucked thousands of miles across the world for … what, exactly?

In huge circus tents, trapeze artists juggle flames. At midnight you stumble across a ballet stage where a troupe of 20 pirouettes around an open, arid Carnegie Hall. (Want some free ballet slippers? Try some on and take them home.) A pyrotechnic rock opera is staged on a Mayan pyramid. There’s a roller disco, a mini-golf course, costume shops – why not? You need a costume or two, right? Huge outdoor discos fill with revelers, seemingly round the clock; drinks are free to those who bring a cup, and they groove to world-class DJs, caring not that the floor might be just hard desert dust, or even the deck of a 3-story, animatronic, flame-throwing rubber ducky.

A Thunderdome appears, directly out of Mad Max. (Yes, fights take place at night, as  cheering crowds clamor atop the structure. I didn’t get the night shot I wanted but here’s a cool one I found on Flickr.) Like sets from the Mel Gibson trilogy, Black Rock City (the name of this place that appears only one week a year) is part ragtag kingdom, part psychedelic slum. You are momentarily on another planet. But it’s not just post-apocalypse Australia. Tattooine, maybe? Jabba’s sail barge or a landspeeder or a Jawa sand crawler could come gliding by at any moment and no one would bat an eye … a cantina band could strike up an alien tune. But this Star Wars is a galaxy far, far away, as guest-directed by Dr. Seuss, Felini, Cecil B DeMille, Deepak Chopra and Greenpeace. It’s Cirque du Soleil meets Outward Bound for a Macy’s parade at the Playboy mansion.

Thousands are on bikes, around the clock, but more exotic vehicles steal the show. Elaborate, colorful, customized scooters, cars, lawn mowers, buses, and semis are pimped out as fire-spouting dragons, ducks, sea anemones, spacecraft. Many of them double as party barges, some multi-level. A half-size replica of a 16th-century Spanish galleon comes cruising across the desert at night, floating, ghostly, illuminated, as does a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. Want a further surprise? Open the door to one and a full-on jazz band is in full swing. They maneuver about the open desert outside the city proper,  touring dozens of art installations, including the six-story sculpture of the Burning Man, whose celebrated immolation will cap off the week on Saturday. Farther beyond, the Basura Sagrada, a wondrous, emotionally moving two-story temple to life and death is made entirely of recycled materials. It will burn the following night.

Miles out, someone has set up a neon-lit diner, where waiters appear to take your order for grilled cheese from sundown to sunrise. A first-time visitor wanders around this strange planet in a daze, exclaiming “what’s this?!” about every five minutes.

“What’s this” is not a dream, but a trip in every sense – it’s the Burning Man Festival, an annual experiment in community, art,  evolution and expression held in the middle of nowhere (3 hours north of Reno, to be more precise). It’s daunting if not impossible to describe the experience sufficiently/accurately – the Wikipedia entry (linked below) says it’s “a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind” – though this desert adventure is no mirage as I found out in a last-minute trip just finished. I had read a bit about it, was a bit perplexed about the weird stew of camping and culture, and when opportunity arose, I said what the heck and dove in to find out for myself.

No cell phones, no texting, no email. A week of this would be a nightmare for some people I know; for many others like me, worn out by “the culture of the always-on,” it’s a fantasy come true. Imagine, actual interactions with human beings who are at the moment connected with you, curious about you, concerned about you, and not monitoring their doings with others, or eager to rush to do so, via the latest trendy gadget. (I’m as guilty of this as anyone, and now home, trying to curb it.) There’s no judgment, no hate, no prejudice, no ageism. Kooks are celebrated. Coloring – and living, dancing, being – outside the lines is encouraged. Generosity rules.

Complete strangers make you delicious French crepes in the morning, serve you snow-cones or margaritas to beat the mid-day heat, and one night invite you to a gourmet sirloin dinner. No payment accepted or expected. You have something to swap? Okay, sure.

You notice a distraught woman in the dark near your tent; you say honey, you look like you need a beer. She tells of a big fight with her boyfriend, something about a punctured air mattress and the prospect of sleeping on hard ground for the week. Your camp-mates give her their spare mattress. The next morning she glides by on her bike, with her boyfriend, thanking you for possibly saving the relationship. She later gives you each a sweet hand-carved Burning Man necklace. Bling!

Wanna practice exotic forms of yoga or massage? Join a band? Volunteer? Take a drawing class? Learn survival skills or circus talents? Hundreds of workshops, lectures, parties take place throughout the week. You can sample them with gusto, or sit and do nothing. You can wander around and chat up strangers or steal away and meditate on it all. Artists, photographers and fans enjoy dozens of mind-blowing installations, many interactive, out on “the playa” (the deep desert where art appears like random ghost towns).

Like life, Burning Man is what you make it, and hard to pigeonhole, label, define, or limit. Not for the faint of heart, it’s described as “a week of radical self-reliance,” and the fact that wimps are weeded out builds camaraderie among those who make it in. You are thoroughly prepped to bring all your own food and 1.5 gallons of water per day, as well as proper clothing and gear for extreme heat and cold, and … sandstorms.

As promised, there were sandstorms. A big whiteout on Monday delayed our entry into the festival for six hours as we, and thousands of others, sat in our cars and stewed, eager to set up camp late at night. Then came Tuesday – sunny, 70-ish (though probably hotter, the lack of humidity made it bearable), breezy. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday too. Huzzah, we lucked into the perfect week!

Then Saturday, mid-day, dust devils appeared in the desert. Sorta cool, in a way. Onward we marched through an impromptu biking tour of the art. We find an outsider-ish sculpture of old drums, cymbals, urns and trashcan lids inviting passersby to stop and join in for an impromptu jam session – which occasionally sounded quite tuneful! There’s a dreamy, 2-story metal birdcage to climb into if (if only that topless woman would get off the swing). In the distance, the amazing Basura Sagrada temple – worth a third visit of the week, to see tens of thousands of more inscriptions and mementos to lost loved ones … so moving. (See my separate blog entry on that.) And then … the big whiteout hits.

We trek back to the tents to make sure they’re not gone with the wind. They aren’t, but things are getting messy. Our cheap tents in no way seal out the fine, relentless sand. We need a rest and though it’s windy, it’s hot as heck; sweat mixing with this fine silicate dust turns to clay-like mud on my sleeping bag. It’s gross and annoying and one wonders, if it keeps up or intensifies, could it be life-threatening?

We pack up the tents and consider bailing one night early, but just in case, chill out with our neighbors Brian and Aaron for a bit. (They have two hammocks and five chairs!) Before sunset, the storms mostly clear. We are excited (with 50,000 others) to gather in mid-playa for the “big burn” and watch the six-story Man fall in a blaze of fireworks and controlled explosions. We are told an artist connected with the event who had recently died was being cremated in the structure as well. (Imagine the laws that must have been dealt with, or skirted, to make this happen.) Overall it’s a solemn, amazing, experience. An international crowd at the world’s biggest bonfire celebrates this weird Halloween, New Year’s Eve and 4th of July … on Mars.

What if real like were more like this? Not the sandstorms (please!) but the generosity, the curiosity, the spontaneity, the involvement and connection of a place not ruled by technology, ego, exclusion, class and race divisions, big government, bureaucracy? People picking up after themselves, being responsible for their survival, not putting foreign objects in the toilet?

It’s all food for serious thought, as is the underlying message of non-attachment and impermanence. Over seven days, life appears from nowhere. Magic takes place. Then it all vanishes with the dust and wind – in some cases, purposely destroyed by its creators. Why? To heighten our appreciation of wonder while it exists … to make room for more great fun in the future … to leave at least a small patch of earth as we found it … and to wipe clean the big metaphorical canvas that anyone attending can imagine putting their own stamp on.

Such is my attempt to describe the undescribable. After hearing some of this, a big question from my friends seems to be: Would I do it again? God! This must be like asking a woman whose given birth if she wants another one. Wait a little bit before you force me to answer! In the meantime, if you have any other questions about this weird week, feel free to toss them at me. Leave them in the comments section (I have to moderate to screen out the spam) and it might make for a fun followup post. And thanks for checking in with the blog!

Burning Man links:

My blog entry on visiting the fabulous Basura Sagrada temple

Considering going? My blog entry with thoughts for first-timers

My Flickr photo album – Burning Man People and Places

My Flickr photo album – Favorite Burning Man Art

My Flickr album – Burning Man’s Basura Sagrada Temple

The Burning Man official site (with beginner’s guide, history, etc)

A Burning Man guide to some of this year’s art (with links to previous years)

A recent New York Times article and slide show on the preparations of an NYC collective headed to the playa

Extremely thorough Wikipedia entry about Burning Man.

Fascinating lecture by founder Larry Harvey,  “A History of Burning Man.”

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