― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link
Don't disagree that yes it is largely a 24/7 bacchanal of booze, drugs, nudity, S&M, public sex, and bad art. Altho I'd add the caveat that in a good year there is also a fair amount of good art, and the public sex isn't really all that public in most cases.
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:18 (seventeen years ago) link
(uh you are aware that LEAVE NO TRACE is one of the central catchphrases of Burning Man...? You can find moments of contemplation and serenity out there for sure, you just have to walk a ways away from the rave camps)
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm with you on this - I don't go anymore. The first year I went there was no layout, no map to get there, you could still get away with firearms and explosives, there was WAY better music, and all the raves were restricted to a rave camp 2 miles away from everything else.
Maybe I'll go back when I'm 75 if its still happening, just out of curiosity.
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link
i'm sure it is, and i'm guessing that there are many people who show up who have no interest in adhering to this, and that the people in charge can't entirely clean up after them. i'm also sure that however-many-thousand bodies and automobiles collecting in a place has an impact that doesn't disappear overnight even in a desert.
You can find moments of contemplation and serenity out there for sure, you just have to walk a ways away from the rave camps)
not anywhere i can see or hear rave camps
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link
"If there is anything worse than a pervert, it’s a self-righteous druggie pervert, dressed as a chipmunk, offering unsolicited fashion tips. If you want catty advice on how to dress from a crowd of Rocky Horror Picture Show rejects, Burning Man is for you."
"Any random collection of Toto and Yes album covers would contain better trippy art than all of Burning Man."
Funny!
― shookout (shookout), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link
But one of the coolest things about it that I enjoyed is that the environment is SO extreme - there is literally nothing there but hard-packed dry-as-bone dirt that stretches for miles, its like being on an alien landscape in a lot of ways. Although I've been to Black Rock at non-Burning Man times so this impression was perhaps made more profoundly on me then... and yes this impression can be mediated and diluted by throngs of naked idiot ravers with their shitty music.
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link
Only if they were also FIFTY FEET TALL! Burning Man art is all about scale.
I didn't get all the way through that blog entry, when the dude started complaining about being tired from the heat and the dust I gave up (that's why everybody sleeps during the day there - get one clue)
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:33 (seventeen years ago) link
Prior to him going, he'd come up to our place, constantly remind us that he was older than us and we'd learn how to make wise decisions when we were his age (28 I think), make sure that we weren't going to be amking any noise after 10pm on a weeknight, wander in and out of my roomate's studios making negative comments on thier works-in-progress, and complain about the string of visitors coming and going from our place.
After BM, he was still constantly dropping by unnanounced, but instead it was just to make sure we all "felt good vibes" and to just check in to make sure we knew that "everything is cool now." Dude got seriously evangelical about how BM changed his life.
So, while I've never been, (and I used to spend hours looking at people's pitcures of BM on-line while I was a College Freshman in 1998, hoping and praying for the day I too could go) I'd say it's a draw.
― researching ur life (grady), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― researching ur life (grady), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― researching ur life (grady), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― researching ur life (grady), Friday, 6 October 2006 19:57 (seventeen years ago) link
-- Tep (te...) (webmail), August 11th, 2003 11:15 AM.
otm, btw
― gear (gear), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:01 (seventeen years ago) link
Every year I went there were at least 3-4 art pieces that were truly mind-blowing. Sure, this isn't a great ratio, but who cares?
And as far as the "I hate raving partygoers/weirdos/hippies" crap, when did you all turn into reactionaries (this is where one of the assholes pipes in with '2001! No! 1997!")?
And really, the trick to avoiding the more beer-guzzling obnoxious side of Burning Man is to leave on Friday. The weekend DOES turn into something a little ugly and scary. If I hadn't gone with a theme camp (and had to clean it up on Sunday), I would have left early, for sure.
― schwantz (schwantz), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:20 (seventeen years ago) link
And the blogger linked on the revive eventually said this:
UPDATE #2: It’s rather apparent from the comments that many readers did not understand the satircal nature of this review. This review contains a large component of satire.
For what that's worth. Apparently he was writing from a "character's" perspective rather than his own, and exagerated much of what he experienced.
― nickn (nickn), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― nickn (nickn), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:52 (seventeen years ago) link
In terms of how they treat the land, I'd venture that its true a lot of BMers seem to be rather careless about their commitment to "leaving no trace". The BM organization themselves, however, are uber-hardcore about it and tend to do a pretty phenomenal job of going over every inch of the playa and picking up cigarette butts, ashes, etc.
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 6 October 2006 20:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 7 October 2006 00:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― researching ur life (grady), Saturday, 7 October 2006 01:23 (seventeen years ago) link
Premature combustion
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 00:50 (sixteen years ago) link
What kind of hippies call in The Man?
― milo z, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 00:56 (sixteen years ago) link
This is his mug shot -
http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/4362/baburningmanburner104zh2.jpg
― svend, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:36 (sixteen years ago) link
HERO
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:38 (sixteen years ago) link
They could just rename it this year and call it Burnt Man
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:39 (sixteen years ago) link
burning man is really the lamest thing i can think of
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:40 (sixteen years ago) link
Our grants manager is out this week because she's at burning man for the 5th year straight. She's a hoola hooper. Blech.
― ENBB, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:41 (sixteen years ago) link
why?
xpost
― chaki, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:42 (sixteen years ago) link
naked self righteous hippies, aweful art, radical self expression, dust, etc
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:46 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.damer.com/pictures/events/burningman99/people/Image34.jpg NIGHTMARE VACATION
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 01:51 (sixteen years ago) link
I can think of a few lamer things.
U R HATAH
― schwantz, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:01 (sixteen years ago) link
. "Everyone is looking at it this morning, this big black figure in the sky and that wasn't supposed to burn, saying 'Now what do we do?'"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:05 (sixteen years ago) link
no really it sounds so terrible to me
the desperate search for meaning in some indulgent desert bullshit is really sort of icky
at least thats the impression ive gotten from every attendee ive ever spoken with
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:06 (sixteen years ago) link
Where does a hyper-jaded cynical person like you ever come into contact with all these wide-eyed naifs? I gave my real take on Burning Man WAAAY upthread, so I won't repeat myself, but I think that you are (probably deliberately) getting a weirdly skewed take on the whole deal.
― schwantz, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:21 (sixteen years ago) link
it was good drunk fun in the desert the one time i went. i can't understand the vitriol of someone who has never been.
― jergïns, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Searching for meaning is like, so desperate.
― schwantz, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Where does a hyper-jaded cynical person like you ever come into contact with all these wide-eyed naifs?
ha perfect! funny how closely radical inclusion, immediacy, civic responsibility, whatever; resembles bitter accusatory escapism.
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:32 (sixteen years ago) link
zing!...?
― schwantz, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:34 (sixteen years ago) link
to answer yr question i can think of 5 people i know who are repeat attendees. and im sure ive talked to some others at parties or something.
the search for meaning isnt necessarily desperate, it's actually pretty much universally human. but in this case it does look pretty pitiful. sort of a christian rock concert vibe in it's aggressive abandonment of critical intelligence and intense devotion to concept.
as for the it's just a big party argument. im sure you could just go for the fun. but it seems most burning people do attach way more importance to the thing. most parties dont have manifestos.
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:40 (sixteen years ago) link
also i just have a really hard time w/hot dusty environments and loud freeeaaky people
― jhøshea, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:43 (sixteen years ago) link
fair
― jergïns, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Speaking of The Man
Wall Street executives at Burning Man? You bet. Though there’s nothing farther from the cutthroat, moneymaking world of Wall Street than the anticapitalist, anticorporate festival of radical self-expression known as Burning Man, we found several New York business executives and Wall Street types who are heading out West this week and staying through Labor Day. In the dusty, storm-ridden desert flatlands north of Reno, Nevada, is a place dubbed Black Rock City, home of the biggest little countercultural festival in the world.“I first went out there in 2003 because a classmate from the Stanford Business School had an art project on the playa,” says a senior executive for a major Wall Street company, who asked not to be named. One of the main draws for him and most of the other 50,000 participants expected this year are the massive collaborative art projects, like last year’s giant Belgian Waffle or the 50-foot stick figure that gets torched at the end of the week—the burning man that gives the festival its name. “That’s the attraction. You create something from nothing, it’s remarkable for a short period of time, and then it’s gone,” says the executive, whose own participation includes cooking gourmet meals and distributing them for free to the masses. Other attendees contribute three-dimensional creative works, all of which result in a temporary psychedelic city of art and theme camps on “the playa,” the ancient lakebed where the event is held.The Stanford classmate in 2003 created a multimedia installation that paid tribute to the sun, with trapeze artists performing at sunset, music synchronized with the sunrise, and, thanks to the creative tinkering of a couple of Silicon Valley engineers, a sound system with light projections. “You could actually watch the sound emanating through the light across the playa.”But this is hardly the first time business people have attended the festival. Past attendees from the business world include Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt, among others.Of course, because the nature of Burning Man is to leave all commercial trappings behind, the organizers of the event are loath to tally the number and type of professionals in attendance, although a spokeswoman noted that “we do have a large group coming for their corporate retreat this year. They are building an art project.”And the business folks who go (albeit anonymously, in the spirit of the event) say they get something out of this nonhierarchical, open-society environment. “When I return, I think I’m a far better executive, in terms of innovation and creativity,” says the senior executive. “And each year that I come back, I’m better for it. I think my team and my company are better for it. I stay creative and expose myself to new ideas.”Leslie Bucksor, a partner in a New York financial-consulting firm, and his wife, Cory, will be camping out with his business partner this year; this will be his 10th year on the playa. And he may do business, if the necessity arises. In 2002, Bucksor left the camp three times to work on patent applications at Bruno’s Casino and Country Club, a nearby desert dive. “If it’s the only way I can be there, I will do it,” Bucksor says. “It’s such an important experience for me.” Leaving the playa is the only way to conduct business in this commercial-free zone. Cell-phone coverage and internet access are very limited, and there’s no commerce whatsoever. The mini-countercultural civilization survives on gift giving; even bartering is not allowed. But if no cash changes hands on the playa, it certainly does ahead of time. Going to Burning Man is not cheap, with presale tickets starting at $195 and going up to $350 at the gate. Plus, attendees have a massive preparation list: food, water, tents, sleeping bags, glow-in-the-dark anything, bikes, and goggles and dust masks for surviving the dust storms. And more and more participants are stepping up the experience with decked-out R.V.’s and luxury camps equipped with extensive high-tech elements and semipermanent buildings. James Okura, who runs his own art-production company, sets up an air-conditioned fake-fur-lined tent and tunnel system he calls the Geisha House. “We provide chilled sake in an office watercooler and Japanese snacks. Our motto is ‘You are your own geisha.’ ” “People have definitely stepped it up for luxury,” says a hedge fund trader in his thirties, who’s going this year with some heavy hitters in media and finance. “This will be my first year going in an R.V.: The Four Seasons version of Burning Man.” Newbies are in for an exercise in surviving in a very noncompetitive, open atmosphere—attributes that are exactly the opposite of the Wall Street and hedge fund worlds. It’s not for everyone.“The Wall Street crowd at Burning Man is very small,” says the hedge fund trader. “I would not encourage anyone I work with to go. I see how people are in this business, and I would not trust them to engage the experience as it should be engaged.” He went for the first time in 2001 with friends from San Francisco. The trader is afraid the playa will be polluted with what he refers to as the “aggressive indulgence that is part and parcel of New York City, particularly of those in high-powered, high-paying jobs.” Such people may have the wrong idea about the festival. “People think it’s a big drug-sex thing out there when it’s really, really not,” the trader says. “It couldn’t be farther from the truth.”Celebrities such as Sting, Courtney Cox, and Robin Williams have been known to go in previous years, but there are no V.I.P.’s at Burning Man, and that’s part of its appeal. “The Burning Man spirit,” says the trader. “I’ve seen it overwhelm people out there. If everybody went once, the world would be a cooler place.”
“I first went out there in 2003 because a classmate from the Stanford Business School had an art project on the playa,” says a senior executive for a major Wall Street company, who asked not to be named. One of the main draws for him and most of the other 50,000 participants expected this year are the massive collaborative art projects, like last year’s giant Belgian Waffle or the 50-foot stick figure that gets torched at the end of the week—the burning man that gives the festival its name.
“That’s the attraction. You create something from nothing, it’s remarkable for a short period of time, and then it’s gone,” says the executive, whose own participation includes cooking gourmet meals and distributing them for free to the masses. Other attendees contribute three-dimensional creative works, all of which result in a temporary psychedelic city of art and theme camps on “the playa,” the ancient lakebed where the event is held.
The Stanford classmate in 2003 created a multimedia installation that paid tribute to the sun, with trapeze artists performing at sunset, music synchronized with the sunrise, and, thanks to the creative tinkering of a couple of Silicon Valley engineers, a sound system with light projections. “You could actually watch the sound emanating through the light across the playa.”
But this is hardly the first time business people have attended the festival. Past attendees from the business world include Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt, among others.
Of course, because the nature of Burning Man is to leave all commercial trappings behind, the organizers of the event are loath to tally the number and type of professionals in attendance, although a spokeswoman noted that “we do have a large group coming for their corporate retreat this year. They are building an art project.”
And the business folks who go (albeit anonymously, in the spirit of the event) say they get something out of this nonhierarchical, open-society environment. “When I return, I think I’m a far better executive, in terms of innovation and creativity,” says the senior executive. “And each year that I come back, I’m better for it. I think my team and my company are better for it. I stay creative and expose myself to new ideas.”
Leslie Bucksor, a partner in a New York financial-consulting firm, and his wife, Cory, will be camping out with his business partner this year; this will be his 10th year on the playa. And he may do business, if the necessity arises. In 2002, Bucksor left the camp three times to work on patent applications at Bruno’s Casino and Country Club, a nearby desert dive. “If it’s the only way I can be there, I will do it,” Bucksor says. “It’s such an important experience for me.” Leaving the playa is the only way to conduct business in this commercial-free zone. Cell-phone coverage and internet access are very limited, and there’s no commerce whatsoever. The mini-countercultural civilization survives on gift giving; even bartering is not allowed.
But if no cash changes hands on the playa, it certainly does ahead of time. Going to Burning Man is not cheap, with presale tickets starting at $195 and going up to $350 at the gate. Plus, attendees have a massive preparation list: food, water, tents, sleeping bags, glow-in-the-dark anything, bikes, and goggles and dust masks for surviving the dust storms. And more and more participants are stepping up the experience with decked-out R.V.’s and luxury camps equipped with extensive high-tech elements and semipermanent buildings.
James Okura, who runs his own art-production company, sets up an air-conditioned fake-fur-lined tent and tunnel system he calls the Geisha House. “We provide chilled sake in an office watercooler and Japanese snacks. Our motto is ‘You are your own geisha.’ ”
“People have definitely stepped it up for luxury,” says a hedge fund trader in his thirties, who’s going this year with some heavy hitters in media and finance. “This will be my first year going in an R.V.: The Four Seasons version of Burning Man.”
Newbies are in for an exercise in surviving in a very noncompetitive, open atmosphere—attributes that are exactly the opposite of the Wall Street and hedge fund worlds. It’s not for everyone.
“The Wall Street crowd at Burning Man is very small,” says the hedge fund trader. “I would not encourage anyone I work with to go. I see how people are in this business, and I would not trust them to engage the experience as it should be engaged.” He went for the first time in 2001 with friends from San Francisco.
The trader is afraid the playa will be polluted with what he refers to as the “aggressive indulgence that is part and parcel of New York City, particularly of those in high-powered, high-paying jobs.”
Such people may have the wrong idea about the festival. “People think it’s a big drug-sex thing out there when it’s really, really not,” the trader says. “It couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
Celebrities such as Sting, Courtney Cox, and Robin Williams have been known to go in previous years, but there are no V.I.P.’s at Burning Man, and that’s part of its appeal. “The Burning Man spirit,” says the trader. “I’ve seen it overwhelm people out there. If everybody went once, the world would be a cooler place.”
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 29 August 2007 02:48 (sixteen years ago) link