Shel Kimen
Expository Writing
Monroe/Hitchens
December 17, 2002
He handed me a small black card that read "An invitation to resist." On the back it listed things one might resist against: Hierarchy, Racism, Classic Thought, and Corporate Culture. It also listed things one might overcome: Apathy, Fear, Complacency, Greed, and National Pride. The windstorm had just died down and he offered me ride in his car, an army jeep wrapped in electro-luminescent wire with various blinky bits and a cow skull on the hood. A ride was a generous offer as we stood before miles of desert in all directions, a desert people call "the city," high and flat, packed with alkali dust, the kind used to make drywall. It is nothing like the sand you might imagine in a desert, rather a fine powder, pressed tightly, cracking at the surface. This city was littered with hundreds of art projects, temporary social clubs, tribes of drummers, and bicycles and "art" cars darting every which way. The sun had set, the sky was dark, and sound traveled from hundreds of sound systems at the outer edges to us, stars in the most unusual and chaotic orchestra never imagined.
I wandered off into the fire.
...
I came to this place for the first
time in 1995, over Labor Day weekend, clueless about what I'd find. Some people
told me it was a rave. Others said it was camping. I only knew I had to have
clothes for the heat and clothes for the cold. I had to bring all my own food
and water. I should have a hat and long tent stakes. Karin and I packed the car
outside our home in San Francisco, we called in sick to work, and drove to
"Black Rock City," a temporary village in the real village of Gerlach, Nevada,
about 100 miles north of Reno.
We packed granola bars, peanut
butter, crackers, sunscreen, toilet paper, flashlights, sweaters, halter-tops,
and a camping stove. We drove across the golden gate bridge, through Marin,
past Sacramento, to the sierras. I'd never seen the sierras before, or any real
mountains for that matter. I felt the immensity and smallness of the world, of
earth, of the relationship between rocks and grass and deer and me, and my
little car chugging along, barely able to climb even the smallest of hills. On
the backside of the sierras (or the front depending on which way you're
heading) is Reno. There we picked up ten gallons of water and headed for exit
43, highway 447, to Wadsworth and Pyramid Lake.
Highway 447 is one of the most
beautiful roads in North America. I've since been through forty of our fifty
states, forwards and backwards, up and down, and clear across Canada, including
the Rockies and ice fields, and still, nothing compares probably more because
of the emotional weight it holds than the land itself, though the view is
profound in its sameness. Gentle hills of varying shades of beige, subtle and
thoughtful, rise to a desert, with nothing, I mean nothing, except a few darker
beige tumbleweeds. Then, after 45 minutes of rolling monotone, blank blankness,
beige beige-ness, you wrap around a sharp corner, and there appears the bluest
of blue lakes ever, Pyramid Lake, which is where my car finally broke down.
Some people I knew from San Francisco stopped to help us and invited us to camp
with them. After a few adjustments to my distributor cables, we followed.
We got to the entrance, nothing
more than a hand-painted sign and some orange cones, gave someone $35, and
drove off the highway into the desert. There were no roads, or lanes, or really
any markers, and the dust that ruffled beneath the tires of our cars
sufficiently obfuscated any view of any camp out there that might exist. Behind
the milky white film on my windshield I sank into a fuzzy dream, and lost in
the most fantastic of my imagination, I stopped the car.
When the dust settled I could see
the sun about to set. The sky pink and orange, and a ring of mountains
surrounded a vast beige-washed plain. We were in the center of some circle that
I later came to know as "center camp" and people were running, dancing, riding
bikes, some naked, some painted, some in feathers, some in black leather biker
gear, all laughing or screaming, or staring wildly at the many many things
available to stare at: fires, people with guns, odd constructions made from
metal, wood, and Astroturf.
Confounding.
We continued to follow our friends
to a circle not far from center camp called "Spiral Oasis," where a number of
other people I'd known in San Francisco were busy preparing for the evening's
festivities.
Something integral to the idea of
this city is participation. There are no spectators, only spectacles. For this
reason people spend weeks, months, or even all year preparing special treats to
wear, to build, to give to the others who come. Karin and I, of course, had no
idea. We had normal clothes and brought no art, no gifts, no drugs, nothing to
entertain ourselves or others. Our camp, consisting of many who had been going
for years already, took us in graciously, dressed us up, fed us some acid, and
sent us on our way. Certainly silly bewildered girls in funny outfits on acid
will be amusing to some; it's a nice enough gift.
The sun dropped below the
mountains, the air cleared, the cars had stopped, and a few thousand people had
set up camp, all self-organized. Karin and I crouched at the side of a trailer,
convinced we hadn't eaten enough acid, so we took more, and found ourselves at
a mini golf course, a farmhouse with cardboard chickens, on a giant piano with
keys larger than me, in a human size Mousetrap game, swing dancing on Captain
America's moving living room (a flatbed trailer, motorized, with couches, lamps
and a sound system), tripping over wires and scraping our ankles on rebar. A
quick word about rebar. Rebar is the most useful accessory of all in Black Rock
City. Winds can exceed 90 miles per hour and tent stakes are useless for the
large-scale art installations people make. Consequently most structures and
projects are bolted deep into the ground with three-foot long stakes of rebar.
Often people don't bury it deep enough and others cut themselves or trip. You
learn to be careful. At Black Rock City you are responsible only for yourself.
Speaking of windstorms, the storms
there are strong and wild. They come suddenly because of the oddness of the
land in composition and geography. We were enjoying a punk rock polka band,
called PolkaCyde, when screams echoed over the microphone, "The storm is
coming, take shelter." The polka band, not seeming to mind, continued to play.
We didn't take it seriously either. The colors, lights, sounds, and drugs kept
us busy until we could feel the wind, and then the rain, and when lightening
filled the sky we realized we should find somewhere to go.
We ran inside a sculpture. It was
big enough at the base for eight people and about forty feet tall. Some people
had brought whiskey, which we all shared, and we lit a few candles, which
someone miraculously had. You'll find someone always has something you need.
Always. Meanwhile, tents blew away, sound systems collapsed, and all that fine
alkaline powder turned to thick, impossible, clay-like mud. The whiskey boys
got rowdy, the candles went out, and Karin and I, overcome with fear, ran. We
ran. And ran. Looking for home. Incidentally, the next day we learned that the
sculpture was a giant penis, built of metal, and packed with explosives.
Finding home was not easy. There
were no roads, no signs, and the only visual clues were the various blinky
lights on tall poles, mostly indistinguishable to characters in our condition.
We asked people to help us, and they tried, but mostly we just had to walk, and
walk, for what felt like days. Eventually we sat down by an unknown fire
lost, confused, humbled, and paranoid and considered our fate. Just then our
friends appeared, "We've been looking for you!" It seems we'd perched in front
of our own fire and not realized it. We'd also only been gone for three hours.
There's something about losing and
finding in that place. Everything I've ever lost, I've found. Besides time,
there are people, things, and those inner workings like spirit and soul. You
head out with a group of ten, lose four, then two, and find all six a few sound
systems away. You drop a sweater, remember it several hours later, and find it
in an exact spot you only recognize upon arriving. The culture and very essence
of this place is whole and vast. You leave only with what was yours, plus some
mementos you've exchanged (lighters, pictures, necklaces, stickers, etc.). It
fits neatly into those travel memoirs where the protagonist searches the world
to find what he always had.
At some point we fell asleep and
awoke to the next day, Saturday, which in all honesty I barely remember. It's
not that I was particularly high. I was just overwhelmed, and after years of
summers like this it all sort of blurs into a single recollection. I apologize
now to those of you who have spent time in Black Rock City. Some of the names,
years, and projects are apt to be confused. But of that Saturday specifically,
I remember colors and trailing lights, the heat, it was so hot, the rain, it
rained for an hour, and having to get inside our tent so it didn't blow away. I
remember seeing motorcycles race along, carrying drivers armed with rifles and
machine guns, shooting at targets like a giant recreation of Barney, the TV
star, and an old-time salon with
strategically placed bottles. Someone in our camp had a wall, six feet wide by
eight tall, decorated with firearms we could borrow. I didn't take any, but I
enjoyed asking questions. Someone else in our camp acquired a dozen magnesium
bicycle frames, which we burned at night this, our camps contribution to
please the nomads and party seekers. Magnesium burns bright white and is
actually pretty dangerous to look at, so we handed out special glasses. We also
held a cocktail party before the Opera.
Saturday night had been
traditionally the night for The Opera, which was put together by a sculptor
called Pepe, from San Francisco via Argentina. Pepe was also the artist behind
the wire frame penis Karin and I used for shelter the night before. Something
about the opera made me nervous. I didn't want to go. I was afraid and didn't
make it much past the gate. All those people. Thousands. In a tangled mess of
melting reality. I couldn't stay. But the opera is an important event, for the
community, and for the artists. They work all year on setting a theme, a cast,
costumes, props, and theatrical backdrops. They are in the desert months ahead
of time building, and they rehearse for weeks. It's a place to gather,
something common in all the chaos to talk about, something that highlights
culture and the role of public art. The opera is also interesting because it
asks the questions: What is culture? What is high art? Most people have a good
time dressing up for the occasion, chattering in fake, droll, English accents,
"Are you going to the opera tonight?" Or "Darling, what do I have that I
could possibly wear to the opera tonight?" It reminds me of the card I
got in 2001, "Resist classic thought." We all pretend we are rich, even those
of us who are, and we parade around in full regalia looking for the best seat.
We have conversations later about the theme, the meaning, its role in
philosophy and history conversations I've never been able to have because
I've always been too afraid to go. Oh well.
...
A lot of the art in Black Rock
City is designed to amuse people in altered states, and altered doesn't
necessarily mean "on drugs," though many experiment. The heat alters, hard work
alters, as do lack of food, severe weather, and endless displays of creativity.
The art is built to play on heightened senses. It's often simple. There's soft
fabric to touch, pieces to put together, mazes to crawl through and scaffolding
to climb on. Things move around and everyday imagery is slightly modified.
There are clubs that require secret passwords, houses built upside down, and
tents where you lie on your back, listen to ambient music and watch stars and
stripes circle the ceiling. All these spectacles dance mad, swirling, tangos on
the mind, with or without drugs.
In those days the festival
culminated on Sunday night with the burning of a multistory effigy in the shape
of a man, sort of. It's constructed out of wood and packed with explosives. It
looks kind of like a beefier stick figure with a diamond-like head, and burns
spectacularly. The event began on Baker Beach in San Francisco in 1986. Some
guy lost his girl to another guy, and made a wooden sculpture to burn on the
beach. Some friends came for the party. They danced around, drank, made merry,
and so on. The next year they did the same thing with more friends. Others made
other things to burn. This continued annually until the police interfered. So
in 1990 they moved to a desert in Nevada with 80 people. By 1995 there were
3,000 participants and a nominal cover charge. By last year, 2002, nearly
30,000 people trekked out from all over the world, some paying as much as $250
for a ticket, in addition to accommodating all their individual expenses to
travel to the event, buy supplies, build art, construct theme camps and
villages (clusters of theme camps).
My relationship to "the man"
itself has always been antagonistic and complicated. Part of it has to do with
the overwhelming male energy represented at the event. Guns. Punk Rock.
Motorcycles. Power tools. Giant penises. Giant men. It felt, then, a lot like
Blade Runner or Mad Max, which isn't to say there's no room for Tank Girl. But
the machismo can be daunting, even if I drive a big truck and have my own
cordless drill. More so, the man's religious aspects put me off. Icons.
Institutions. Pilgrimages. The founders call it the spiritual center. Its placement
is based on astronomy. And when people arrive they shout, "Let's go see the
man" or "Have you been out to the man?" My rule, or my religion, is to refuse
this offer. I tend not to go near it, before it's set on fire, and luckily
there's room in this culture for many faiths or lack thereof. No one really
cares how much you love or hate anything in Black Rock City, so long as you
don't try to interfere in someone's fun. If you don't like something, you go
away. No whining.
This first Sunday, this first burn,
surprised me beyond anything I'd already felt beyond. It began with a
procession, each camp in line, each person bringing in some offer to burn
signs, mementos, whatever. We marched around the desert, across the playa (the
playa is a space dedicated to only art, and the man, no one camps there), and
filed into an area around the effigy. We were followed by a parade of fire
artists dancers, twirlers, breathers, and so on. Eventually we all sat down.
There was no speech (that I can remember) and no triumphant music (which I
appreciated), and someone, possibly Larry, the original love-lorn creator, set
a blowtorch to the base. Up it went. First burning, then exploding, then
burning again, until the mass reduced to a single pile of flames 30 feet in diameter,
with fire in the sky as high. We all ran around the fire, in a circle three
bodies deep, a screaming mass catharsis that could symbolizes anything.
Drummers, singers, and all the tribal characters from thousands of years caught
the spirit, fed it, and kept it alive with us.
Then the whole of the camp went up
in flames. People burned everything, well all the art, everything they worked
so hard to make. People tend not to burn each other's tents and cars and such.
But burning the art is a celebration of all that's temporary, all that's
momentary. Nothing is scared, or rather, everything is. And most importantly,
chaos wins. It was the largest party I've ever been to. Everyone made of joy.
It didn't matter who you stood next to, who you danced with, who you hugged or
kissed or had sex with. We were all of the same family at this point, we all
loved, and we all reveled in the magic we could create and then take away and
create again.
Scary, huh.
The next day everyone cleaned up.
All the garbage, all the ashes, all the feathers, all the nails, paperclips,
scraps of paper, empty food cartons, everything. The group shared an unspoken,
collective understanding to Leave No Trace, which in later years as the event
grew became codified to teach those less familiar with the natural laws of
respect for the land. I didn't know then that 1995 was the last year for
anarchy at this event, Burningman, and I'm grateful I had a chance to see it
work.
In 1996 I went back. Better
prepared I had crafted items to give away to strangers, plenty of costumes for
myself and others, and I created a nail painting salon area for anyone
interested in getting their fingers or toes made up. The event had grown to
support 4,500 people and a modest infrastructure developed, including a number
of radio stations, newspapers, and Internet access. Some organizers requested
that people who wanted to bring art at least talk to someone about where it
should go and theme camps were placed on a map, that more or less had roads.
Even with these controlled systems the event managed to preserve a sense that
anything goes, including firearms and spontaneous explosions. This year our
group presented an elaborate laser show of the Wizard Of Oz, accompanied by
some DJs.
It's an important detail that
Burningman was born in San Francisco, home of the original hippie, and next to
the hotbed of technological development, Silicon Valley. Mixed in with all the
ravers and punks was a healthy dose of high tech wizards and luminaries, whose
income grew with every year because of the dot.com boom. I happened to be
staying with one of the richer groups at the time, a cluster of virtual reality
guru's who'd written books, traveled internationally to lecture, and invented
hardware and software that changed computing. I knew these people because I was
a technology journalist.
Groups like ours worried little about expense the bigger the better, spectacular, more spectacular while others worked with found objects and could barely afford food. Over time the number of upper and middle class technology people eclipsed the raw squatter and artist culture and the years 2000 and 2001 are marked as the most decadent displays of indulgence this community had ever, and probably will ever, experience.
Employees from one high tech firm
brought a gourmet chef to cook for dozens. Others gave away raw tuna slabs.
Someone brought a refrigerated truck with snow and dozens of groups brought
enormous sound systems, international DJs, and extravagant light shows
recreating something like Las Vegas. One man with connections to the government
donated laser lights to shoot across the sky uniting nearly two square miles of
villages, camps, discos, and hand crafted amusement parks, beneath streaks of
reds and greens rivaling Aurora. Never mind the people that flew in on private
planes and landed at the site, the parasailors, helicopters, hot air balloons,
and the fire breathing dragon train that could hold 75 people. Someone buried
thousands of LEDs into a circle around The Man that blinked in sequence, while
others, including myself, built giant party domes with video projections,
seating, and carpet. If anything epitomized the hope and delusion of the
dot.com economy it was these five days in September of 2000 and 2001.
It's been remarkable to see the
city grow culturally, sociologically, bureaucratically, politically,
economically. Of the economy, nothing is for sale. There are no vendors. There
are no commercial sponsors. All press must be registered to take photos or
write stories, and it's never been broadcast on MTV. The culture is explicitly
a "gift culture" though many speak in degrees of barter, "Ill give you this
bottle of wine if I can use your drill for two hours." In the last few years a
cafι, operated by Burningman LLC, generates revenue for permits and licensing,
and ice is for sale benefiting the local girls basketball team. The corporation
has formed a non-profit, the Black Rocks Arts organization, that funds art both
at Burningman and in San Francisco. The Black Rock Arts organization now gives
more money to artists than the City of San Francisco does. There is a board of
directors, regular newsletters, a website (I helped develop in 1998), and a few
paid staff. There's also an office in Nevada used year round to meet with local
officials, police and fire commissions, and most importantly the BLM, Bureau of
Land Management, who is responsible for granting the event's permit.
The organization itself has
several departments Media & Communications, DPW (Department of Public
Works), Rangers, Greeters, Lamplighters, Medical Staff, Earth Guardians, and
Art Curators, to name a few. These people make roads and large structures, run
electricity, welcome people 24 hours a day to the event, make sure the entire
site is spotless within 30 days after the event, ensure the toilets get
cleaned, the dust gets watered, and guard the general safety of now near 30,000
participants.
Additionally, Burningman has
transcended the borders of Black Rock City into everyday life. Most major cities
have a local community, which organizes regular events ranging from gallery
shows and lectures to enormous Burningman-like parties, the last of which in
New York attracted nearly 2,000 people. In Ohio a group produces an annual
summer gathering called Burning Corn and in Austin another group sponsors an
event, which changes its name each year. There are websites, mailing lists,
newspapers, meetings, and weekly socials all across the country, and in some
cities in Europe, all for people who share this common experience of running
around crazed and wild for two days to three months.
It's all a bit daunting for
someone like me, a lover of chaos and spontaneity, a detester of institution.
It's frustrating to listen to people bicker about what sign should go where and
how to deal with the police that now patrol, and sometimes arrest people on
drug charges. And then there's the in-fighting and back room politics, the
who's who hierarchy, the overbearing religiosity, the reprimanding of practical
jokes played on the organization, the 4,000 word newsletters, and the bizarre
and absurdly complicated ticket structure: Mail your check for $75 before
January 6th, but include a check for $110 in case you aren't
selected for the first round prices, which increase incrementally every three
weeks, and so on. It's too much, I say, too much.
But when I find myself most
frustrated, I step back and reflect. Though it appears that chaos has conformed
to the dubiousness of traditional bureaucracy and politics its important to think
about all the ways it's also transformed people and even society on a certain
level. Sure there are directors and offices, but they wear cowboy clothes and
speak gutter punk as well as they speak police commissioner talk. There's no
advertising, and as mentioned, almost nothing is for sale. It's fueled art
communities all over the world. Its helped change the drug laws in Nevada,
previously the harshest in the country. It's built parks, funded schools, and
given a small town something to laugh at, or enjoy. One local man, Gerlach Bob,
says he's waited his whole life for something like this, and he spends several
months a year helping to get the event ready. And the absurd ticket pricing is
only an attempt to keep things as low cost as possible to sustain the event.
Bureaucrats will eek their way into any system, they need systems to stay
alive, but the core and integrity of this event is based in powerful values
play nice, share your toys, be involved in your community. It's worthy of
support.
When people grumble about how this
and that has changed, how it used to be different, how "back in the old days"
blah blah blah, I get tired. Everything changes. And because of that change,
because of how much it's grown, more people than ever have had a chance to
experience it. I've seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of people transformed by the
possibility of a new world. "Next year I'm bringing my kids" some have said,
"Next year I'm going to make a big sculpture" some have said. And every year
they do. They bring their friends, they participate more, they share and they
play. The culture rewards people who contribute. The more work you do, the more
you are valued. The more you give, the more you are received. People realize
this is not a life exclusive to Burningman. They take these ideas home with
them. They are stunning realizations.
...
In recent years the night of the
burn changed from Sunday to Saturday. This was an attempt to thwart day-visitor
plans to jet in and out for the spectacle of naked people and fire, though
there really aren't that many naked people, sorry. Spectators often drive, or
fly in, set up lawn chairs and watch the show, which frustrates people who have
worked so hard to build and live in a community. Also for this reason, tickets
"at the gate" are not for sale the night of the burn, and if they are, they are
extraordinarily expensive. Switching the burn to Saturday and raising the last
minute ticket price didn't really stop the tourists, but it did usually mean
they would leave by Sunday, which now hosts a quieter, more spiritual burning
of some other large piece of art. We share our party, but reflect among
ourselves, which is nice.
2001 offered a particularly
emotional Sunday. The art selected for that year's burn was called The Temple
Of Tears, a three-story cathedral built of plywood discarded from a puzzle
factory (imagine one hundred little dinosaur shaped holes on every board). All
week people had been writing notes, building alters, and leaving pictures to
shed memories, knowing the piece would be burned on Sunday. Not being
particularly religious, it's significant how divine I felt this place to be,
how I cried when I read about her father or lover, how the light of sun
glistened through a thousand tyrannosaurus rexes, how the candles at night
stayed lit even in high wind. You could see it from very far away.
On Saturday night, after the burn,
a man died in an auto accident while leaving the site. It's unclear if he was
intoxicated, or tired, or if something else went wrong with the car, and really
it doesn't matter. He died and it was tragic for a number of people who knew
him, including his wife. Sunday was particularly windy and we'd experienced
white outs for most of the day and into the evening. After sunset a few
thousand people walked out to The Temple of Tears. A friend and I climbed on
top of some structure or another and could see over the crowd, but really there
was nothing to see. Dust choked the air. It was also cold, maybe 50 degrees,
and drizzling. The wind eventually calmed long enough for two people carrying
the belongings of the man in the crash to place them inside. They cried. And
when the temple caught fire I wouldn't be exaggerating that one in every three
people cried with them. Then we sat and stared in silence for a few moments
before the drums began.
...
Love and pain. Life and death.
Build and burn. Work and rest. Living is all these things, and more so the
in-between, the less easy to explain, the less obvious. Burningman exploits the
extremes to highlight possibility, making room to change the everyday. It takes on highs and lows I never expect,
even after so many times out there.
Sunrise is my trusted reference
point. It's a constant among all the waves. And a Thursday sunrise in 2001 was
especially perfect.
I'd been out all night, just
wandering around, and got back to Disorient's Dome at maybe 4am to a dwindling
crowd that was exhausted from hours of drugs and dancing. I, however, was clear
and sober and ready to relieve the DJ, ready to send these people to the sugar
plum fairies they deserved. I played slow, psychedelic, ambient textures,
layered and sculpted, crafted special for their dreams. I tossed records for
nearly five hours as people drifted in and out of sleep and I loved it. I could
see them smile, and through a doorway in the dome I could also see the sky turn
from black to twilight to pink to bright blue. No lights, no crazy techno, just
people with smeared make-up, missing clothes, with new lovers, stuck together
with sound and sun.
...
A lot of people going for the
first time ask me for advice what to bring, what to expect. I never have much
to say about expectations, it's a wide field, but I have scores of practical
tips to make the overall physical experience more pleasurable. The general list
contains: utility knife, portable water bottle (with string or strap), chap
stick, sunscreen, a hat, duct tape, toilet paper, flashlight, gifts (chap stick
and lighters are best, but bracelets, necklaces, or anything you make is
special, just because you made it), lots and lots of water, at least a gallon
per day, something that makes you feel safe like a favorite sweater, a
stuffed animal, or a book you love to read a notebook (though you'll probably
never write), glitter, goggles, baby wipes (there are no sinks), a scarf to
cover your mouth and nose during a dust storm, two pairs of shoes in case one
gets wet, lots of socks, minimal clothes, and anything else that makes you feel
pretty.
Pickles are also important because
they have flavor, hold lots of salt, and keep well in any temperature. Food, in
general, is important, but keep in mind that after a few days of trying to cook
and looking for various utensils and products, battling camping stoves and
wind, intense heat and perseverant dust, the desire to put together good meals
fades away. For this reason it's best to have lots of convenient just-add-water
or eat-out-of-a-can nourishment like beans or Raman. It's easy to get stuck in
a pattern of eating only one thing all day, for days at a time because its
convenient, because you are too hot and exhausted from working on art projects
in the sun and then staying up all night for the party. This is why foods like
pickles are almost holy. A pickle is a burst of flavor amidst all the beige and
browns of beans and Raman and playa dust, it stays sealed in a jar, it's
crunchy. Offer anyone a pickle and they'll be a lifelong friend. The same is
true for olives, pitted maraschino cherries, and lemonade, if you can find a
way to keep it cool. To this day people at home still come up to me and shout,
"Pickles, thank god for pickles!"
I didn't know how fused with
Burningman my identity was until I didn't go this last year, which would have
been my eighth consecutive trip. Almost every day of that significant week,
which for me has turned into two or three weeks, I ran into someone in New York
who asked "Shel, what are you doing here? I thought you'd be in the desert." At
first I was angry. I am more than Burningman, I thought. I am more than the
desert, I thought. Later though, I came to almost appreciate these questions as
a badge of community.
There were a number of reasons I
didn't go, partly because I was starting school and broke, but more so to check
my faith, as I do with anything I feel too attached to. It's important to step
back from the things we love to reflect, to rediscover the reasons we love
them. I was afraid of the religion and the permanent effects of what had
previously been a temporal situation. I was afraid I lost my chaos and that our
weekend get-a-ways were the equivalent of a church social.
I learned some of those things
were true, and that some of those things, in moderation, like anything, can be
fine and good.
I have a community. We employ each
other, feed each other, and encourage each other's art. We date, fall in love,
and break-up or get married. I will never starve or be homeless. I'll never be
bored on a Friday night. I've had incredible conversations and we've sparked
other, potentially powerful movements that have nothing to do with Burningman
except that we met there. All of this overshadows the dogma and rhetoric, the
bureaucracy and petty-ness, the zealous religion that sometimes ensues. The
annual pilgrimage out west is only one way to celebrate all these things, and it's
a celebration worthwhile.
Next year I'm going to build a
ferris wheel. It came to me in a dream a while ago. It's got two wheels, one
inside the other. The inner wheel has seats that face outwards, while the outer
wheel has seats that face inward. They spin opposite each other, very slowly.
As you ride you see new people, some you probably know and many you probably
don't. You have time for small conversations as you go which will probably vary
in depth and meaning. It reinforces the idea that we can be individuals and
groups within a single structure. Our relationships can be temporary,
repeating, or everlasting. There can be structure in chaos and vice versa. And
we can have fun, feel wonder, embrace, and resist, all at the same time.
It will be especially fun to burn
it down.