posted
Curious -- are any jatraqueros going to Burning Man festival this year? (I'm guessing not -- it's a bit freaky, and I'm definitely freakier than the average jatraquero -- but thought I'd ask.)
(Burning Man = huge arts festival in the Nevada desert that happens every year, this year it's Aug 30-Sept 5, http://www.burningman.com/ )
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
The only thing I've really heard about Burning Man was on Reno 911. And this was just the boys on the show all done up in buttless chaps trying to find it do to an undercover sting. Posts: 1294 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Didn;t Jon Stewart do a show on it too? Or am I mixing up the Daily Show's show on the Church of Universal Love and Music with Reno 911?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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When I was in high school and early college I thought that it would be fun to go to Burning Man, but honestly I don't know how much fun I would have had even then. Now...not really something I'm particularly interested in attending. I don't have anything against it, but I'm fairly sure that I could find other things to do that I would consider more fun.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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haHA! I went a few years back, and sold hippybeads with my friend from our bicycle!! It was wonderful!! ^_^ A bit warm, but still wonderful! SOmany interesting people...
Posts: 125 | Registered: Sep 2003
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There aren't bands -- at least, not officially. It's an arts/freaky people happening -- folks dress up, show off sculptures (and often set them on fire), do performance/street art... there aren't any vendors -- you bring your own food and water -- if you need something you're supposed to barter for it... one of the slogans for it is something like "no watchers -- only participants." There'll be at least 10,000 people... I've heard lots of interesting and crazy things about it and have been wanting to go to it for years now...
(Haven't planned my own stuff yet. Have been thinking about doing the Weapons of Mass Destruction easter egg hunt, that'd be fun... or it'd be fun to do some short theatre pieces... if I had the energy and materials, I'd set up an artsy mini golf course... but I'm catching a bus there, so not this year...)
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posted
Well, Plaid, how about an artsy mini miniature golf course, like the size of a notebook. You could fold it up and take it around with you. Use little Q-Tips for the putters.
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posted
There was no official stage but there were plenty of people making music, from what i remember. =)
Posts: 125 | Registered: Sep 2003
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That, coupled with whatever it is you will be contributing to the community. Like I said, we traded hippybeads for food and other things to trade for food, hehe. And 10,000 people is quite an understatement, as I do believe there will be more then twice that many people.
Just make sure you drink LOTS of water, take rests every now and then, and be prepared for both the extreme heat and cold. And bring a camera!! (I would say a disposable one, so as to not ruin a digicam or nicer 35mm with al that sand, and again with the extreme climate)
quote:[...] Like a burning man, a burning man, Like a burning man, And I won’t get enough until my legs are broken. The stars, they shine in an empty void. Life is not to fear, life is to enjoy. He’ll get you. Oh, Mr. Death catches all someday. [...]
But I guess this topic just isn't cool enough to be about Third Eye Blind.
posted
OK so I've been back from Burning Man for a long while now, and now I'm finally getting around to writing about it...
I went on a Green Tortoise bus to get there. Burning Man's out in the middle of nowhere (~2 hours NE of Reno) and hard to get to. Taking Green Tortoise worked out great. It's a hippie/alternative bus company that organizes tours to Alaska, National Parks, Mexico, etc. And Burning Man. It's about 40 passengers/bus, and the buses are set up so that they're really comfortable -- during the day you can sprawl out on platforms, play cards around a table, etc.; at night, the drivers convert the seats into tiers of bunks so that everyone can stretch out and get a decent night's sleep. Lots of interesting folks on the bus, lots of folks from abroad (Israel, Australia, U.K., South Korea, etc.)
Another great thing about Green Tortoise was that they fed us really well. They brought tons of fresh fruit and veggies, and we had water and great meals 3 times a day. Since Burning Man's out in the middle of the desert and you can't buy anything there (except coffee and ice), having water and food provided was wonderful. (Green Tortoise = www.greentortoise.com )
OK, so BM itself... what to write... I had a GREAT time. (Well, occasional sadness that my sweetie wasn't there, since we'd broken up and she decided not to come. And occasional frustration because my health isn't great and so I had to stop and rest a lot and not stay up late. But otherwise, it was lots of fun.) Lots of fun stuff, people in funky costumes driving art cars and looking at all the neat pieces of art and being outrageous...
I heard it was 35,000 people there this year. Yow. Lots to see... there's all sorts of sculptures and art installations set up around the playa (playa = the ancient lake bed -- now flat, sterile desert soil). And folks set up different live attractions around their camps, too. A lot of the fun of it is the incongruity of seeing stuff out in the middle of the desert. So, a (working) telephone booth out in the middle of nowhere. A big humming monolith, like something from 2001. A bowling alley.
I took lots of pictures, but not digital ones and I don't have a scanner or anything, so I'll link to some other websites below for pictures and describe some of my favorite stuff:
Art cars... folks driving motorized pieces of art... -- The big giant yellow ducky -- The fuzzy pink bunny slippers -- The motorized hammock -- The giant sailing ship -- The refrigerator poetry car
People walking around on stilts. People riding moveable teeter-totters. People riding bikes 10' tall. People wearing gorilla suits. The guy wearing a fishbowl for a helmet and breathing through a snorkel. People wearing nothing at all, just painted green or purple or blue...
Thunderdome. Like from the Mad Max movie. A huge metal geodesic dome. At night two contestants get into swings and hit each other with big foam bats while the crowd chants, "Two men enter, one man leaves! Two men enter, one man leaves!" while heavy techno music blares.
A funhouse, with a room full of those small plastic balls that you can dive into. Three different mini golf courses. Fire dancers. A roller coaster I didn't dare try (heard a rumor that someone lost their finger on it). The Hokey Pokey Theme Camp. Trampolines. The Orgasmatron. See saws. Roller disco. A scavenger hunt. The Critical Tits Bike Ride, with 5,000 women riding topless. The phone booth for talking to God.
Bunny bop -- an outdoor version of Thunderdome. Two people facing off against each other wearing helmets and wielding big stuffed rabbits glued onto the ends of 10' pieces of PVC pipe; while you're holding onto the end of you pipe, you try to knock off the other person's helmet. (I tried it. I was very pathetic and lost in 10 seconds flat.)
There were two big different burn events. The most famous is when The Man burns. It's a 40-foot figure (atop a 40-foot platform) made of wood and blue neon and metal. Before The Man burned there was a protest march ("Save the Man! He's innocent!"). And before the start of the burn about 300 fire dancers performed in a ring around the Man. Then the Man was set on fire and burned with fireworks going off. Once The Man fell down, folks rushed inwards and ran around and around the blaze.
The other thing that got burned was the Temple. This year it was called the Temple of Stars. It was made using the leftover pieces of wood from when toy pieces get punched out of plywood. The leftover wood has this ornate, filigreed look to it, and it was used to build a temple 100' tall, with walkways extending 500' to the side. Really beautiful. Folks left memorials to burn with it -- photos of loved ones, messages, etc, very moving. The burn itself wasn't so reverent for me -- in the patch of crowd I was in, people were playing with annoying laser pointers and saying "Hurry up and burn it so I can go pee!"...
BM has a slogan about "No spectators, only participants." My contribution was kinda small -- since I was traveling on a bus and couldn't bring much and didn't know what to expect. But I made up a few hundred "Random Cards" to give out -- they had "Burning Man Random Card" on the back, along with "Take it -- do it -- pass it on." I wrote something different on the front of each one and passed them out to people. (Messages = "Breathe with your third nostril," "Don't think of a banana," "Wiggle your ears (or if you can't, wiggle someone else's ears)," "Lose a turn," "Speak with a German accent," etc.) There were 35,000 folks there and I only had a few hundred cards, so I don't know if they got passed around much or not, but I had fun giving them out, and lots of people laughed when they got them.
The desert itself is part of the character of the place. It's pretty dusty, the dust gets everywhere (like in my tent, I just got used to sleeping on a layer of dust on my sleeping bag), and a few afternoons when the wind picked up there were dust storms. Everyone would go around wearing bandannas and goggles and dust masks when that happened... the weather was actually pretty mild this year from what I heard -- stayed mostly in the 70s and 80s, with 50s at night.
I'll definitely go again sometime. Don't know if it'll be next year, but I'll go sometime, and next time I go I'll bring more to contribute -- fun costumes and organize art stuff and all that.
posted
Orgasmatron = some folks set up a camp to look like a gas station (only instead of being an Esso Station, it was called the Asso station). They had two gizmos set up -- one was a pneumatic spanker (nope, I didn't try it), the other being the Orgasmatron, which looked like an exercise bike with a vibrator on the seat. Women (and a few guys too) would sit on it, and, well, you know... the first day I went by they had it out in front, but after that they moved it to the back for more privacy for the people who wanted to try it (and to avoid any public indecency charges probably -- everyone I saw kept their underwear on when they used it, but...) (Note for anyone squicked about hygiene: the attendants sterilized the stuff in between users!!)
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Thanks for the lowdown.
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