raverpup (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} raverpup) wrote,@ 2006-09-25 16:30:00 |
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Afterburn
It’s now been almost two weeks since my return from The Burn. I started my new job at CNET the Tuesday after our return, and it’s taken this long for the thoughts to settle in my head and for me to find the time and mental energy to write them down. Instead of the long, chronological series of posts I started last year (and never finished), this time I’m going to try and get down more to the essence of the experience.
Society of the Spectacle
Before I left I wrote up a typically cynical and suspicious post about the nature of Burning Man. I have not returned with a newfound fascination for the event, nor am I quite as critical of it as a whole as I was when I left. Instead, I have learned to look at Burning Man as a true city, one that presents as much spectacle, and as much quiet beauty, as any other.
Last year the spectacle of Friday night sent me running for the shadows and quiet spaces, and this year it had the same effect on both Jeremy and myself. We had started out watching the fireworks at the Serpent Mother (accompanied by the most incongruous smooth jazz chanteuse I could have imagined) before gathering around the Space Cowboys Unimog. We lasted there for about a half an hour before something about the hugeness of the crowd sent us off, along with J and Kitty, in search of other entertainment. We went and looked at some of the sculptures (the War of the Worlds tripod with its willing captives was particularly spooky and fun), but it wasn’t long before we were heading back to the tent. After some chillage and some deep breathing I convinced Jeremy that we should all go for a walk, and there, among the small sights and random interactions, we finally found the Burning Man that we had come to experience. Off in the distance the phasing and intermodulations of the sound systems made me think of a gibbering monstrosity being summoned from the Abyss, but among our friends it was like we were in a different world. For me, what was happening out around the Man was spectacle for the masses, a money sieve like Las Vegas or Reno, but one that was there to help finance this grassroots world we were exploring – all those people who had paid whatever exorbitant amount at the gate had made it possible, after all, for people like Jeremy to come on scholarship tickets. Later, as Jeremy and I walked onto the deep playa to watch the sunrise, he said that the art cars hovering around were the beasts that had been summoned, and on Saturday, as they circled around The Man for the burn, it was like the ritual was about to be performed that would send them back.
The burn itself provided a moment in which I fully realized how little interest I had for the big spectacle. After a long 24 hours of psychedelic experimentation we wound up at the burn behind a dickhead in a stupid wide-brimmed hat (at night) who had mounted a digital video camera on a tiripod, completely blocking the view of everyone behind him. Despite attempts to get other people to sit down, and despite our making it obvious that we all thought he was being a dickhead, he and his thuggy friend continued to fuck with our experience. My remonstration was “stop filming and start watching,” but obviously getting his shot was far more important than the experience of anyone around him. So much for “no spectators allowed.” I was so angry and strung out that I almos started a fight with him, but then, afterwards, we went back to camp and had a great last evening of sitting and drinking with our campmates and friends, and random passersby who wanted to tell us how much they had enjoyed our camp. This, I thought, is what I really come to Burning Man for, not the spectacle, not the party, not even the art (much of which was frankly mediocre this year), but for the social interaction it affords me, the ability to let go and find some other aspect of myself than what I need to keep in operation in the default world.
The Birth of the Desert Fox
This was Jeremy’s first year at BM, and naturally this added a certain amount of tension to the experience for both of us. On Sunday evening after our arrival we went out to The Man on our bikes with J, and it was only then that the scale of it really hit him. It’s easy enough to look at a number like 38,000 people and think, wow, that’s big, but until you’re on the playa and actually start riding around do you get any indication of the physical reality behind that number. At various points throughout the week, as the crowd grew and the general cacophony increased, he told me how much he admired me for having been able to come last year “alone,” and how he would never have been able to cope without me there for support.
There were some real challenges for both of us this year, often involving both crowds and intoxicants, as described above. But no matter what his psychic state, Jeremy always looked fabulous, like a post-Apocalypse anime boy, and in my psychedelic vision he became The Desert Fox. Early in the week we had been out by the perimeter fence and came across a fake National Forest-style sign explaining the origin of “the fence.” While most people thought it was there to keep people without tickets out, it informed us, it was also put up to keep people in, largely as the result of a burner attending a shamanistic transformation workshop and believing he had the ability to transform into animals. Thinking he was a desert fox, he wandered out onto the deep playa, only to be returned to the “festival” three days later by a farmer from Elko.
That he spent a couple days walking around wearing goggles, a camouflage bandanna, and khaki shorts certainly influenced my perception, but we were both amused by the dual qualities of folly and genuine transformation inherent in this tale, and I think, in some ways, it really did pertain to his experience. I would like to think that, no matter how ridiculously hedonistic aspects of our experience were, we both experienced something that was transformative for ourselves individually and as a couple. After our long trip on Friday and into Saturday night I know that I felt we had come through a bonding experience. Of course, The Desert Fox was a better playa name to have bestowed upon Jeremy than the one he started the week with – Sunscreen. This was because he got badly sunburned on Monday, and everywhere we went for the rest of the week people kept saying “hey, do you have sunscreen?”
Furchtbar Techno
It’s really too bad that, for a large portion of those in attendance, Burning Man is the only place where they get to hear electronic music, because much of what is played is simply awful, and played in an equally awful way.
Burning Man is certainly the home of big penis art, and much of the music played there partakes of the same aesthetic, though where trance once ruled the playa, now it seems to be all about breaks. As an example of the truly horrendous things the average burner has to endure, consider The Alien Love Lounge, which was camped a good block away from us, but whose sound system (in blatent disregard for the sound rules laid down by the BORG) could clearly be heard in our camp. From early morning to deep into the night these guys played the most horrible, most inappropriate music possible. There was no thought on the part of the DJs for what might be appropriate morning music, or what effect their ridiculously loud system might have on the camps around them. As a result, all Saturday afternoon, while tripping balls in Kitty’s tent, we had to listen to the most gawd-awful, ghetto-booty breaks ever committed to wax. At one point there was a break, and I heard the Pink Panther theme come on. Thank god, I thought, that jackass done waving his penis around, and now we’ll have some nice Saturday evening lounge music. Moments later, somehow, this gentle lilting melody was crushed by the idiotic bassbooms of breaks. I wanted to go find the guy and roll a hand grenade under his decks.
When we did our camp party on Thursday night I was pleased to note that our system was clear, but not necessarily very loud outside our immediate borders. When I played I tried to be conscious of how our music would be heard by passers-by and those in the camps around us, and I think it went over okay. I even had two genuine “chills down my spine” moments as I DJed. On Thursday I played a progressive trance set that managed to draw in numerous random folks, and at the end I threw on the Son Kite remix of Analog Pussy’s “Future,” which has a huge anthemic lyric about “Face this dying world/write your name in water/they try to take us down/but we will not surrender/we are the world/we are the future.” Cheezy, but I knew that the one place in the world where I can get away with playing that track is BM. I got out from behind the decks to dance to it, and it gave me absolute chills. Everybody loved my set, and I really felt that I had done something special.
Then, on Friday afternoon the gear was still set up, and Jeremy and I each took a turn at playing some chill tunes for happy hour. Standing behind the decks I could see the golden light of the setting sun on the Black Rock Mountains, the lamplighters walking by, everyone getting ready for their night out. I put on “The Difference that It Makes” by The MFA, and it was one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed from behind the decks. A hippie boy on a bike was riding through Neon’s mylar rain sculpture, and as he zoomed by he caught my eye and gave me a thumb’s up. I wonder how many other DJs got that kind of acknowledgment for making a moment of magic.
Looking back overall to this year’s experience, I came closer to finding out what I enjoy about BM, and what I don’t. Having really come to think about it as a city rather than event made a large difference, since a city is about going out to explore and find what you want, while an event is something programmed that you either participate in or don’t. I’m probably willing to do it a third year, but have some questions about whether or not I want to do it with Comfort and Joy again, hook up with another camp, or go independent – there were times this year when I found the large number of different personalities within our group a bit too much to deal with, and as I thought about, I realized that I’m much more comfortable being there with a group of friends whose company I enjoy than a large group that seems to have been brought together simply because they think it’s a cool camp. Of course I still have my issues with the general atmosphere of the event, the constant sex-and-drugs aesthetic, a lack of substance, and the penis-waving. But having survived a second year, I’m now starting to feel like a veteran burner, and see it as a place where I can go and be another version of myself for a while. That’s a very difficult thing to give up once you’ve really gotten a taste for it.
It’s now been almost two weeks since my return from The Burn. I started my new job at CNET the Tuesday after our return, and it’s taken this long for the thoughts to settle in my head and for me to find the time and mental energy to write them down. Instead of the long, chronological series of posts I started last year (and never finished), this time I’m going to try and get down more to the essence of the experience.
Society of the Spectacle
Before I left I wrote up a typically cynical and suspicious post about the nature of Burning Man. I have not returned with a newfound fascination for the event, nor am I quite as critical of it as a whole as I was when I left. Instead, I have learned to look at Burning Man as a true city, one that presents as much spectacle, and as much quiet beauty, as any other.
Last year the spectacle of Friday night sent me running for the shadows and quiet spaces, and this year it had the same effect on both Jeremy and myself. We had started out watching the fireworks at the Serpent Mother (accompanied by the most incongruous smooth jazz chanteuse I could have imagined) before gathering around the Space Cowboys Unimog. We lasted there for about a half an hour before something about the hugeness of the crowd sent us off, along with J and Kitty, in search of other entertainment. We went and looked at some of the sculptures (the War of the Worlds tripod with its willing captives was particularly spooky and fun), but it wasn’t long before we were heading back to the tent. After some chillage and some deep breathing I convinced Jeremy that we should all go for a walk, and there, among the small sights and random interactions, we finally found the Burning Man that we had come to experience. Off in the distance the phasing and intermodulations of the sound systems made me think of a gibbering monstrosity being summoned from the Abyss, but among our friends it was like we were in a different world. For me, what was happening out around the Man was spectacle for the masses, a money sieve like Las Vegas or Reno, but one that was there to help finance this grassroots world we were exploring – all those people who had paid whatever exorbitant amount at the gate had made it possible, after all, for people like Jeremy to come on scholarship tickets. Later, as Jeremy and I walked onto the deep playa to watch the sunrise, he said that the art cars hovering around were the beasts that had been summoned, and on Saturday, as they circled around The Man for the burn, it was like the ritual was about to be performed that would send them back.
The burn itself provided a moment in which I fully realized how little interest I had for the big spectacle. After a long 24 hours of psychedelic experimentation we wound up at the burn behind a dickhead in a stupid wide-brimmed hat (at night) who had mounted a digital video camera on a tiripod, completely blocking the view of everyone behind him. Despite attempts to get other people to sit down, and despite our making it obvious that we all thought he was being a dickhead, he and his thuggy friend continued to fuck with our experience. My remonstration was “stop filming and start watching,” but obviously getting his shot was far more important than the experience of anyone around him. So much for “no spectators allowed.” I was so angry and strung out that I almos started a fight with him, but then, afterwards, we went back to camp and had a great last evening of sitting and drinking with our campmates and friends, and random passersby who wanted to tell us how much they had enjoyed our camp. This, I thought, is what I really come to Burning Man for, not the spectacle, not the party, not even the art (much of which was frankly mediocre this year), but for the social interaction it affords me, the ability to let go and find some other aspect of myself than what I need to keep in operation in the default world.
The Birth of the Desert Fox
This was Jeremy’s first year at BM, and naturally this added a certain amount of tension to the experience for both of us. On Sunday evening after our arrival we went out to The Man on our bikes with J, and it was only then that the scale of it really hit him. It’s easy enough to look at a number like 38,000 people and think, wow, that’s big, but until you’re on the playa and actually start riding around do you get any indication of the physical reality behind that number. At various points throughout the week, as the crowd grew and the general cacophony increased, he told me how much he admired me for having been able to come last year “alone,” and how he would never have been able to cope without me there for support.
There were some real challenges for both of us this year, often involving both crowds and intoxicants, as described above. But no matter what his psychic state, Jeremy always looked fabulous, like a post-Apocalypse anime boy, and in my psychedelic vision he became The Desert Fox. Early in the week we had been out by the perimeter fence and came across a fake National Forest-style sign explaining the origin of “the fence.” While most people thought it was there to keep people without tickets out, it informed us, it was also put up to keep people in, largely as the result of a burner attending a shamanistic transformation workshop and believing he had the ability to transform into animals. Thinking he was a desert fox, he wandered out onto the deep playa, only to be returned to the “festival” three days later by a farmer from Elko.
That he spent a couple days walking around wearing goggles, a camouflage bandanna, and khaki shorts certainly influenced my perception, but we were both amused by the dual qualities of folly and genuine transformation inherent in this tale, and I think, in some ways, it really did pertain to his experience. I would like to think that, no matter how ridiculously hedonistic aspects of our experience were, we both experienced something that was transformative for ourselves individually and as a couple. After our long trip on Friday and into Saturday night I know that I felt we had come through a bonding experience. Of course, The Desert Fox was a better playa name to have bestowed upon Jeremy than the one he started the week with – Sunscreen. This was because he got badly sunburned on Monday, and everywhere we went for the rest of the week people kept saying “hey, do you have sunscreen?”
Furchtbar Techno
It’s really too bad that, for a large portion of those in attendance, Burning Man is the only place where they get to hear electronic music, because much of what is played is simply awful, and played in an equally awful way.
Burning Man is certainly the home of big penis art, and much of the music played there partakes of the same aesthetic, though where trance once ruled the playa, now it seems to be all about breaks. As an example of the truly horrendous things the average burner has to endure, consider The Alien Love Lounge, which was camped a good block away from us, but whose sound system (in blatent disregard for the sound rules laid down by the BORG) could clearly be heard in our camp. From early morning to deep into the night these guys played the most horrible, most inappropriate music possible. There was no thought on the part of the DJs for what might be appropriate morning music, or what effect their ridiculously loud system might have on the camps around them. As a result, all Saturday afternoon, while tripping balls in Kitty’s tent, we had to listen to the most gawd-awful, ghetto-booty breaks ever committed to wax. At one point there was a break, and I heard the Pink Panther theme come on. Thank god, I thought, that jackass done waving his penis around, and now we’ll have some nice Saturday evening lounge music. Moments later, somehow, this gentle lilting melody was crushed by the idiotic bassbooms of breaks. I wanted to go find the guy and roll a hand grenade under his decks.
When we did our camp party on Thursday night I was pleased to note that our system was clear, but not necessarily very loud outside our immediate borders. When I played I tried to be conscious of how our music would be heard by passers-by and those in the camps around us, and I think it went over okay. I even had two genuine “chills down my spine” moments as I DJed. On Thursday I played a progressive trance set that managed to draw in numerous random folks, and at the end I threw on the Son Kite remix of Analog Pussy’s “Future,” which has a huge anthemic lyric about “Face this dying world/write your name in water/they try to take us down/but we will not surrender/we are the world/we are the future.” Cheezy, but I knew that the one place in the world where I can get away with playing that track is BM. I got out from behind the decks to dance to it, and it gave me absolute chills. Everybody loved my set, and I really felt that I had done something special.
Then, on Friday afternoon the gear was still set up, and Jeremy and I each took a turn at playing some chill tunes for happy hour. Standing behind the decks I could see the golden light of the setting sun on the Black Rock Mountains, the lamplighters walking by, everyone getting ready for their night out. I put on “The Difference that It Makes” by The MFA, and it was one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed from behind the decks. A hippie boy on a bike was riding through Neon’s mylar rain sculpture, and as he zoomed by he caught my eye and gave me a thumb’s up. I wonder how many other DJs got that kind of acknowledgment for making a moment of magic.
Looking back overall to this year’s experience, I came closer to finding out what I enjoy about BM, and what I don’t. Having really come to think about it as a city rather than event made a large difference, since a city is about going out to explore and find what you want, while an event is something programmed that you either participate in or don’t. I’m probably willing to do it a third year, but have some questions about whether or not I want to do it with Comfort and Joy again, hook up with another camp, or go independent – there were times this year when I found the large number of different personalities within our group a bit too much to deal with, and as I thought about, I realized that I’m much more comfortable being there with a group of friends whose company I enjoy than a large group that seems to have been brought together simply because they think it’s a cool camp. Of course I still have my issues with the general atmosphere of the event, the constant sex-and-drugs aesthetic, a lack of substance, and the penis-waving. But having survived a second year, I’m now starting to feel like a veteran burner, and see it as a place where I can go and be another version of myself for a while. That’s a very difficult thing to give up once you’ve really gotten a taste for it.
