by tupelosue » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:37 am
Well, i've been home 3 weeks and finally have enough time and energy to report onthis year's Burningman!! It is an exhausting event to prepare for and fully experience.
This year's Burn got some advance PR as someone decided to burn The Man before his time, just for a little spontaneity.
The Man was seriously singed, but they had firetrucks out there within minutes of the Fire Alarm. It happened during the lunar eclipse, and some folks thought it was part of that somehow.
The Man was placed on a high teepee structure, that was then covered by a large tent-y thing. the Man was burned, but not his supporting structure or the tent-y thing. THey had him down when I arrived wednesday, and he was up again and intact by late thursday. I think they must have a warehouse of arms and legs somewhere... He was in fine form on Saturday night when they burned him again!!! sorry i can't post pix, my computer is in rehab, and I can't use my work laptop for pix.
Another PR thing this year was the invitation to CORPORATE to participte. Supposedly under the tent-y thing there were some displays but i honestly never went there.. supposedly displays of global warming, etc, some peope said kinda like a science fair.
To the average burner out there riding around there was no noticeable difference. Corporate (whoever and whatever) was instructed that they could display no logos, pass out literature, etc. not sure how they responded to that.
This was the WORST year in my five for dust and wind. probably 3 of my 4 afternoons were spent holding down (and taking down) my shade structure over the teardrop (i felt like Mongo's relative with structure collapsing over the TD), then sitting around wearing respirator and goggles. Also quite hot temps in the 90's most days, and fairly warm in the nights. occasional whiteout conditions, with people chasing pieces of their camp around.
The rest of Burningman was great, tho! Not as much spectacular art as previous years (altho from seeing other pics I apparently missed large swaths of the Playa). SOme of the regular events (critical tits bike ride, dancing at The Deep End) were impacted by the dust storms, altho the critical dicks march went off without a hitch, and as usual, without much of an audience...
I only saw one other teardrop, T@b, actually. I tracked down Chris and Cherie, from technomadia, mentioned in another post (saw my first teardrop ever). they are a couple who live and travel full time in their T@b. It was fun to meet them and see their trailer... they were on call as troubleshooters to a lot of T@b renters, but hadn't spotted any themselves when I met them.
For those of you who want to go, JUST DO IT!! Burningman was approx 41-45000 people this year. will only get bigger and may have to change to accomodate the numbers. There is a very little amount of nudity, sex, drugs etc going on that is in your face, if that is what makes you nervous.
On the other hand, there is a lot of wild and crazy things to see that you will not see in your hometown, even San Francisco!! (except for the Decompression events--kind of like small burningman reunions)
You don't have to throw away all your morals and scruples to attend. You can wear some tie-dye and a weird hat, put some lights and flowers on your bike, and Burn with the best of them. The sunrises and sunsets are often spectacular, the things going on are sometimes jawdropping: roller skating in the desert, skydivers dropping in, oil rigs standing vertical and available to climb--both truck and derrick, big name dj's spinning from midnight til dawn, canoes paddling past, stilt people pole dancing, thunderdome, dance dance immolation, and SO MUCH MORE!!
There was a SPECTACULAR burn of an oil derrick on saturday after the Man burn (Made the Man burn look like a large campfire...) which is now on Youtube; search for oil derrick burn or something. I will admit that altho it was truly spectacular, it made me wonder how it benefitted THE GREEN MAN movement and how large the carbon footprint woud be...
Sorry about no pics, please go to burningman.org (or .com???) and check out the galleries.
ANyone want to go next year, tix go on sale in jan or february!!
See you on the Playa?!?!?!
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour!
