Burning Man

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

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/6123115607_04d4556c63.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6209/6123674395_a1875484f8_z.jpg

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

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6198/6124127188_672e6f615f_z.jpg

Aaaaannnnnd…

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6072/6123108825_f14eac7183_z.jpg

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.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/7/2009/09/500x_3893979928_cb06feeb92.jpg

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

http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_QtZZLPRSChs/Ru6YvGR2RXI/AAAAAAAAAXo/T2pyuYviU3k/DSC07263.JPG

http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200http://assets.hookit.com/rfs/headshots/0d683264-d379-4011-8e6c-031e039ff9c6.jpg?size=200

man really does not look like fun anymore

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vQFg_hTsoWI/TUytMMxvnrI/AAAAAAAAMPM/nHWptvVGOq4/174759_194728550540080_7018467_n.jpg

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'

like has someone accidentally self-immolated at burning man whilst attempting to firebreathe in syncopation with a skrillex track

No, it's just going on now and it's just lol in my opinion. I can think of very few places I'd less want to be at less.

I'm not sure that sentence made sense but you know what I mean.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/libertarian-burning-man/

http://www.ustream.tv/burningman

really looking forward to the inevitable drowning-in-a-sea-of-shit deaths of all those seasteading assholes, I must say

You know, every couple of years I think back to this thread and how someone like Geeta recommends it and I think, hmm maybe... And then:
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/09/burning-man-2012/100363/

I dunno, some of those photos are really beautiful and almost make me want to go. Almost but not quite.

Mountain Spirit (left) and Shooting Star, their Playa names, dance in the desert during Burning Man 2012, on September 1, 2012.

The Samurais dance at sunrise in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, on August 31, 2012.

Eric Yttri plays a flaming tuba in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, on August 30, 2012.