SFist Raves: Burning Man
[Ed. Note: We let guest contributor Molly Go Lightly go ahead and use the first-person singular so that she could explain her very personal experiences at Burning Man over the years. Enjoy this final post in our series of perspectives on Burning Man.]
The miles between Reno and the Black Rock Desert are the most excruciating of the seven-hour drive from San Francisco. Once we turn off Highway 34 and head toward the gate, warm cans of beer are pulled from beneath the seat and promptly cracked. It is the best beer of the year.
Welcome home.
Photo by SFist Ted.
This is the first time I've written about Burning Man for a publication. I started attending That Thing In The Desert in 1998, and from 1999-2004 I was a volunteer, fielding media-related inquiries throughout the year and at the event.
Every year what amazes me about Burning Man is the scale. Standing in the middle of the open playa, far away from the horseshoe-shaped city, the spotlights and lasers and what-the-hell-is-that-thing blur into alien shapes. Everything looks absurd, yet you can't imagine seeing it anywhere else. At sunset, people start to howl. People look beautiful in the pastel light and there is electric anticipation in the air.
I've never met a critic of Burning Man who has been to the event. Sure, there are the old-timers who stopped going and say it was better back in the day, but they all have positive things to say about the experience. As for people who say they would have gone way back when but now it's too big/well-known, I am reminded of a quote from Burning Man founder Larry Harvey in the book This Is Burning Man by Brian Doherty, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he says if you consider riding on a tarp being dragged behind a pickup truck across the desert fun then yes, you missed it.
I have been a critic of the Man as well. You can't go to something for so many years and expect to have the same experience. Of course I have been let down, threatened not to return, and flipped the Man the bird. What it comes down to is that I can't imagine Burning Man happening and me not being there. This thing can't go on forever, and my group of friends won't be going out forever, and I need to keep taking this opportunity while I can.
Burning Man for me is about the kismet or "playa magic" as it's sometimes called. It's running into a friend three years in a row on a dark and empty stretch of the deep playa; it's seeing the small boy on a bike burst through the saloon doors of a camp's old-west façade and yell "Yeeehaw!"; it is clowns and santas and the ubiquitous pink fur and silver lame and confronting the things that make me uncomfortable and throwing myself even closer to their fire.
There is a lot that's uncomfortable about Burning Man, and for people who aren't willing to confront things they find ugly or hard or disgusting or sexy, well, they don't do so well out there. Seeing other people's creative sides and not liking it is hard; seeing ourselves in other people, seeing joy and hardship reflected back at you, it makes it hard to hate anyone. It is this human-ness that makes Burning Man so amazing, and I haven't had that kind of connection strolling down Valencia Street.
My first night at Burning Man, I managed to cut my foot pretty bad. It was literally my first time out, and I was probably too lost in the carnival of lights and cacophony to watch where I was going. Moments later a motorized couch zoomed up, offering help. They gave me a lift to their camp where they administered first aid and made me a cocktail. Then I spirited away, into the night, toward that blinking thing far away. To me, this is a quintessential playa story.
Yes, the tickets are expensive, but look at the art! Burning Man gives more money in art grants than the city of San Francisco. For just a few days this amazing art is there to enjoy, to be yours, if you make the effort to go out there. And when people interact and react to your art, oh what a wonderful feeling. People will shout "Beautiful! Bravo!" or "Can I take your picture?" But when a stranger walks over and wants to know how long it took to make the gothic Southern belle gown and what it feels like to walk around in it and thanks me, I know that the playa is the right venue for my art.
Yes, there are tickets. Is $175 for seven days really that expensive? If you're interested in where the money goes, there is an After Burn report on the Burning Man website that breaks it down for you. Money to rent the government controlled land, money for all the law enforcement agencies who have to be out there, money to rent the much-maligned porta-potties (better than crapping in a bag if you ask me), money for insurance. It sucks that a place where commerce is banned and no advertising or sponsorship money is taken has to charge so much. But by giving some of that money to artists, these large-scale works can be created without taking massive corporate dollars.
Honestly, we burners are a contented bunch. It's been said that people who come to Burning Man are seeking out their own community because we don't fit in to the one we've been assigned by race or class or geography, and we have found our true community and helped create it. We don't sit around and complain about the city-dwellers who poo-poo our event. We're too busy having one hell of a good time. Besides, we hear the parkingin the Mission is most excellent that week. We hope you enjoy this gift from the Burning Man community to you!