Burning Man

How You Will Get Hurt at Burning Man

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do they light people on fire at this, or

roll call. my first year. who else went?

did it make you more or less misanthropic?

more like suggesting ban

this is a pretty interesting thread. living in san francisco, my reactions were similar to the bile expressed at first: even though I liked the idea, the impression given by the most vocal supporters was always alienating, and it seemed that each year the window was closing at it skewed further towards one big rave

and basically -- it's all true, every single negative thing you hear and see about it, you will absolutely encounter there, and the ugly parts tend to be the loudest and therefore provide the first impressions. but at the periphery there are still those things that can only happen in that environment, and you can only really understand what they are by going.

the first three days were profoundly demoralizing. the cost of realizing a temporary autonomous zone that lets you do whatever the fuck you want is the horror of learning what the majority of other people get up to when they get to do whatever the fuck they want. but there was much more to the festival, quietly going on everywhere. and it is impossible to sum up for you, other than when a survivalist camping environment reaches the size of a small city, there is a very different social order at work. and you can compare it to the social order of the city you live in.

and as it went on the initial wave of depravity faded a bit. the people who'd shown up for the wrong reasons were dropping away as casualties. the partying had a different feel by friday -- once the dust storms started kicking in, with visibility often going down to about 30 feet, the only people still dancing were the ones who were prepared. there are 20 stories I could tell, but in that climate, even the hedonism gained a conscious, survivalist aspect.

it's as depressing as it is inspiring, and the frightening aspects are only going to keep getting louder. but there are still things that can only happen there, even now that this festival has reached 60,000 people.

maybe a major difference between your experience and my experience, is that you actually enjoyed raves in the early 90s, and i didn't.

it was mixed, for every moment I felt somehow reassured by the fact the music has essentially remained in place since 1991-5, there were 20 moments when I felt really sad about it. the lack of diversity in what hits the loudest systems is one of the most depressing things about the festival.

we parked at the periphery for walk-out camping and pointed our tents outward, and I'll cop to it: the sound of 200-300 sound systems all merging into one kaledoscopic polyrhythmic soup bouncing off miles of flat desert & the mountains, combined with screaming and random extraneous art car / installation noises, it definitely helped that I found that sound to be truly beautiful. I wouldn't have wanted to be in the middle of it -- being too near to any one of the systems I lost interest, but as a wash it was my kind of thing

both times i went, we were near the border with the walk-out camping - being in the middle had absolutely no appeal

glad I went when I did. can't really fathom enjoying it nowadays

Burning Man becomes a hot academic topic
A growing number of sociologists, business professors and theologians view the event's mix of hipsters, artisans, zany theme camps and outdoor art gallery as more than a party. They see fertile ground for research

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-burning-man-20101020,0,3074357.story

Milton, sarahel, the music is my least favorite part of Burning Man. Other than dancing to Lee Burridge during a dust storm, nothing did it for me.

But getting lost at night on a bike with 1,200 meters of LED-lit balloons attached to the handlebars, that was pretty cool.

when I figured out that stream of lights trailing through the sky was physically attached to a single bike, that one person could actually pilot... that was a good moment

cool you got to ride the bike

xp - the music didn't do anything for me either, except remind me of some mutant version of Las Vegas. I went 10 years ago, mind you, but i had recently read Learning from Las Vegas - so I wandered around Burning Man looking for examples of "ducks" and "decorated sheds" - that was when i wasn't helping fabricate explosives.

the awful awful music is one of the things that drove me away tbh

what kind of music is there? hippie jams ?

I wish. there is practically no live music. everything is just terrible terrible techno techno techno - and often at night, at any given moment in any given place you're caught between like 4 competing soundsystems, all blaring some combo of trance or house or whatever. drove me nuts.

part of the problem is that the environment is so harsh anyone who brings anything like guitars/amps/synths/drums is totally just asking to have their equipment destroyed. so practically no one does it.

ugh, my second worst nightmare behind hippie jams.

http://www.vimeo.com/11831845

http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/nv/field_offices/winnemucca_field_office/nepa/recreation/0/slide_show.Par.18987.Image.500.x.jpg

http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/wfo/blm_information/nepa0/recreation/burning_man.html

Wasn't Gordon Levitt's brother a part of this? He died some months ago.

i am kind of starting to "get" burning man

should i be worried

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, July 28, 2011 3:19 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

http://www.fastcompany.com/1772223/burning-mans-big-plan-to-spread-its-values-throughout-the-urban-environment

Burning Man--that once-a-year sojourn to the Nevada desert--is much more than a hedonistic experiment in self-reliance, art, the sharing economy, and psychotropic drugs. It's also an event that has spawned a tight-knit worldwide community whose members have created a number of Burning Man-related organizations, including Burners Without Borders, Black Rock Solar, and the Black Rock Arts Foundation (a group that brings public art installations to cities). It's only fitting that the Burning Man community's latest do-gooder venture--the Burning Man Project--will work on revitalizing a down-and-out area of San Francisco, Burning Man's home city.

The project, which is largely funded by Burning Man parent organization Black Rock City, LLC, aims to use the 10 principles of Burning Man to change urban environments for the better. "The 10 principles of Burning Man are an observation of what happens when this culture gathers," explains Andie Grace, a PR representative for Burning Man. These principles include radical self-reliance, decommidification, civic responsibility, immediacy, participation, and gifting. How do these principles translate to the urban environment?
The first Burning Man Project effort will tackle the "civic participation" principle in the Central Market Street corridor of San Francisco, an area that borders the troubled Tenderloin district. Black Rock City, LLC just moved to the neighborhood this past May. "It's an area that's been pretty much boarded up for 20 years. We thought it was a place that could use some help and skills that the Burning Man community can bring to bear," says James Hanusa, an advisor for new initiatives at Burning Man.

The Burning Man Projec't's first grand plan is to turn Central Market into an arts and innovation district, complete with art walks and festivals, as well as pop-up retail stores and galleries (though there are no plans for a giant, flaming effigy). The organization is already in talks with the Mayor's Office of Economic Development about how to turn these ideas into reality. "The immediate idea is of cutting through systems haven't worked before for how to change an area," says Grace.

The Burning Man Project plans to spend the rest of the year on the Central Market project. But that's just the beginning. The project also envisions working on everything from a social enterprise program that teaches businesses how to employ the 10 principles (a la Toyota's Production System Support Center) to an educational program that offers certificates in dispute resolution and leadership training.

Burning Man certainly can't single-handedly transform a depressed neighborhood into a flourishing one. But the organization's influence will make the area more lively (if not more crazy), and probably revitalize local businesses in the process. And if it works in San Francisco, there's no reason why Burning Man's values can't be used to spruce up suffering neighborhoods in other cities that believe a yearly party in the desert may have something to teach them, though those cities may be few and far between.

Central Market is where out-of-town dealers get off BART and sell crack/smack/meth to homeless/near-homeless people, so good luck guys

to an educational program that offers certificates in dispute resolution and leadership training.

the drug dealers and their customers could really use this imo

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Not sure when kickoff is. Can't get any reception here.

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Aaaaannnnnd…

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It's the "I Wish These Were Brains" lady, 15 years later!

wait are you at burning man? if you aren't, can i just imagine it for a minute?

that kid has amazing hair

My girlfriend has expressed interest in attending in the future. I have resolved to check with Douglas Wolk in detail first.

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holy shit, is that a stuffed crab

And you too can have crabs after you get stuffed...at Burning Man!

well yes. i was going to make a stuffed crab joke. then i looked more closely at that picture of VD lagoon and THERE IS ACTUALLY A STUFFED CRAB IN THERE.

"VD Lagoon" XD

next to dude with ravepants and cowboy hat

oh that guy.

I don't get the "bi-racial" one. They're both supposed to be rabbits, right?

Oh wait, they're wearing each other's parts from two separate bunny costumes.

I get it.

That one was pretty close to being i don't care if you're black, white, purple

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man really does not look like fun anymore

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Danielle White isn't sure what she's going to do with her fire-spitting unicorn now

And the obligatory...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhsePT97aIs

lol

is that a lol about something specific or did u just look out the window while daydreaming and think 'lol burning man'