Burning Man Part 2 -- The Dust

The dust is everywhere, surrounding you, permeating all barriers and entering your very being. Just like, as they taught us in church, God.

Sometimes, the dust would just kick up as you walked, turning your legs an odd shade of yellow, like you have a series of minor bruises, or like you applied spray-tan wrong. (Seasoned burners, as far as I could observe, wore cowboy boots or other high, protective footwear.)

Other times, the wind would begin to blow and the dust would form a few-hundred-foot high cloud, creating "white-out" conditions. There were moments, during one or two days, that you couldn't see twenty feet in front of you. And, memorably, on the night of the "burn," I had to shine my flashlight at the ground three feet ahead of me because that was the limit of my vision in the dust storm. I didn't want to step on anyone. The wind was powerful. It was spooky -- people appeared suddenly out of nowhere, face covered with bandanas and big goggles, like bug-eyed bandits. (I looked the same of course.) As the spirits would have it, the wind died down and the dust cleared in time for the 40-foot high neon-lit man to burn spectacularly.

Now, what remains for me of Burning Man are some great memories. And the dust. Basically, anything I brought to BM, whether it sat outside in the open or lay buried in a duffel bag, is covered in dust. My backyard looks like an exploded campsite as I hose everything down and try to get some of the dust off. It's not working. From now on, whenever we go camping, there will undoubtedly be a significant portion of Northwest Nevada dust on our stuff, reminding me of BM 2009.

Oh, and of course I'll be shitting all the dust I swallowed for weeks to come.

Burning Man Part 1

Yes -- I went to Burning Man this year.

As you can tell from the above photo, there is a certain amount of hardship involved in attending BM. It takes place in the middle of nowhere, a white dusty dried lake bed in an area of northwest Nevada known as the Black Rock Desert. Really, it's miles and miles from a tiny little non-town.

There are two principles of Burning Man: radical self-expression and radical self-sufficiency. The first means large art installations, crazy modified vehicles, nutty outfits, weird theme camps, and the occasional nude person. The second means bring absolutely everything you'll need: water, food, shelter, etc. Many people come in RV's, but many others camp out in tents, like I did. And you must leave no trace -- not even the water you use to wash with (otherwise known as gray water). Burning Man makes a big deal of "leave no trace," and most people devise some way to take showers while capturing the water to let it evaporate. I just laid out a tarp and took demure sponge baths.

I had been wanting to go to Burning Man for many years now, and only this year did my ability to go coincide with a spike in my desire. Ellen, on the other hand, had no interest, seeing as how I kept telling her about the dust and the wind and the camping out. I had a bit of trepidation -- wasn't it just a haven for hippie losers? Hey I'm no hippie! But what about the other word?

I read obsessively about it for a few weeks before going and prepared diligently. Already owned a tent, bought a tarp for shade, bought freeze-dried food and a camping stove, etc.

Then drove 10 hours to Reno NV and stayed in a depressing Motel 6 ($27.99/night) before heading out to the desert. Set up my tent, got on my bike, and headed out into Burning Man.

What a revelation. The "art cars" (moving vehicles altered to resemble fish or animals or just abstract sculpture) scurrying every which way (there had to be 70 of them), the large scale art installations, the loud dance music coming from lots of camps (and from most cars), the crazy costumes people wore, the sheer size of the place (30,000 people attend, in a huge well-laid out circular grid a few miles across) -- and the Man himself at the center of it all, 30 feet high, surrounded by a weird organic looking abstract base, made of wood and ready to burn.

And that was just during the day. The place really comes alive at night -- every piece of art, stationery or moving, had a nighttime look, lit up with neon or LED ropes. Most people and bikes had lights of some kind on them. The Man is outlined in neon, even though when he burns all that neon will be destroyed.

The whole thing felt like a combination of Who-Ville and Road Warrior and a Fellini film. It was like living in a Terry Gilliam movie.

I loved it.

Even though at least one night, the wind was 50 mph and there was so much dust you couldn't see three feet.

But that's for the next post!