Home to Black Rock City

Finally made it to Burning Man this year. I didn't really have any expectations for it, other than that it would be hot, dusty, probably fun, and lots of oddball things to look at. I was right, but that didn't really begin to cover it.

Sunday

A loose caravan left the house. We got pretty well split up, and didn't hook up again until Boomtown, this vaguely disturbing theme complex of restaurants, hotels, casinos, and a truck stop, 12 miles west of Reno. Most of us had the buffet, which was unphenomenal, but all you could eat.

As we got closer, cars started to be more heavily loaded, and had things like "BURNING MAN OR BUST" and "HOME TO BRC" lettered on them with electrical tape. I didn't understand.

We made it to Black Rock City around 6 or so, unloaded the truck (goat and all), set up our tents, and crashed.

Monday

We assembled the goat and the communal shade structure, and our own shade structure. Did a little bit of exploring, and came home. Slow day...when Jenny got there and came over to visit, Rachel said "Welcome home!", which I didn't quite get...

Tuesday

Discovering the heat and dryness. My nose starts bleeding periodically and doesn't stop, even after I've returned to reality.

Dust is everywhere. The playa is fluffy, the most fine-grained dust on earth sitting maybe an inch deep above the hardpack. Biking is difficult in many places, sometimes impossible, and often it's just easier to walk the bicycle.

Wednesday

Thursday

Mushroom onion soup for dinner tonight. I became the Great Adventurer and strode out to the Man--in the middle of a raging dust storm. Often it was a whiteout, the dust coming out from Center Camp where it's kicked up by the human activity.

Out on the playa I look at the vast expanse of Black Rock City, and I laugh: an entire city filled with stuff to entertain people in altered states of mind. It's so surreal that the altered state of mind doesn't require substances. This place exists not for any real reason, but because it can. Because it needs to. Burning Man is what happens when we throw away all the rules and start over.

Friday

"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" on the radio.

Another late night, some more walking. I missed Lost At Last, but I had a good night anyway. Just tonight we noticed the sheer absurdity of the goat: people waited in line, sometimes for hours, in dust storms or the hot midday sun, for the privilege of sticking their heads up a goat's ass. The reward inside might be a small toy, or a sticker, or a brief conversation, but something trivial in any case. Not only did they wait, but while they were waiting, people would sit in the shade laughing at them, and at least one of those people would heckle the line with a bullhorn.

The real eye-opener was when the hecklers ordered the line to do the can-can, and they did. We were all floored by the unintended brilliance of the goat.

I understood that night that Burning Man is the holy land, Shambala, the Land of the Lotus-Eaters. It is the spiritual home for anyone who is more usually considered at least a little bit odd. That's why we say "Home to Black Rock City": Burning Man is the home of the unfettered spirit, the penumbra of the corporeal universe and the world of imagination. People spend months building massive art projects that they bring to the desert and burn at the end of the week. Here, nudity is just another way of dressing, golf carts decorated like peacocks plow through the dust, a giant neon-light Man stands in the center of the circle, filled with fireworks and ready to go up in flames. This is a place of true freedom, to be absolutely whatever you are or want to be. Once a year we make the pilgrimage, we immerse ourselves in the pure essence of being, and we take that essence back to our everyday lives.

As John put it, "Oh yeah, dude, this place is fucking Brigadoon".

Saturday

The Burn is...amazing. Hundreds of firedancers all over the place. The camps are dark and quiet for the first time all week, the only music comes from art cars and drummers on the playa. Flamethrowers shoot balls of flame dozens of feet into the air. I don't think I realized how big the Man was until I saw him on fire. The heat from the fire sent 40-foot high tornadoes of smoke swirling off in the wind.

But my feet hurt, I busted up a few toes and my heels are cracked from the dust and dryness, and the evening is mostly spent at camp, before passing out.


Chris Doherty
Last modified: Thu Sep 6 18:24:09 PDT 2001