Does anybody here go to the Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada? 

What is Burning Man?  It's kind of a Woodstock for the dark side.  It attracts everybody from performance artists and poets to frat boys and strippers.  It's all about art and radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.  Costumes are required -- you know for radical self expression -- drugs are highly tolerated and casual sex in pairs, in threes, in fours, and in groups is encouraged.  The festival mandates a gift economy everywhere in the festival except for the $300.00 admittance tickets and at the refreshment pavilion where cash is legal tender.  The Festival brings tattoo artists, smiths of clit jewelry, circus performers, spiritual transformation facilitators, guys to make the food, guys to clean up the mess, guys to make sure the fires are all set safely, guys to set the fires, performance artists, art installations (which become shelters of furtive sex), engineers to design big structures, labor to build them, guys to do the dishes, astrologers to do people's charts, palm-readers, crystal sellers, and all kinds of other stuff.

The music tends to range from Deadhead tribal stuff to Techno tribal stuff.

You can take pictures but all pictures are the property of Burning Man,LLC.  They try not to have so many college girl titty-gawkers who will  post the festival on porn sites.

http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Burning-Man.jpg

Burning Man started as an autumnal solstice festival in '86 in the desert in which some old hippies had a bonfire in the desert and burned an effigy of a giant man.  The event grew over the next 25 years from there. 

I've never been.  I've never really wanted to go.  If I could afford the time off, the 1500-mile drive, the admittance and registration fees, and the expensive concessions, that would be I woud have an extra $2500 to spend, and I wouldn't spend it going to Burning Man.

However, I know people that go and they complain of rising cynicism of the Burning Man, LLC, and how they're all just in it to make a buck as the total attendance soars over 60,000 people.  Furthermore, more psycho bikers, leering frat boys, stars of the stripper circuit show up ever year.  It feels less like a spontaneous pagan festival of the flesh than a corporate-sponsored show-me-your-tits-athon. 

I remember I did used to go to a similar event in Vermont, though much smaller and much tamer.  This was the Bread and Puppet Festival in Glover every August.  Same thing happened.  More unsavory characters showed up every year, and it was less about anti-war puppet shows than drugs and partying naked with strippers.  Then one year, I think, somebody got stabbed by a biker.  The same night a kid died of an overdose.  The city of Glover said never again, and Bread and Puppet just folded and died.

I'm afraid that's going to happen to Burning Man.  There might be a murder, a rape, an overdose death, and then a big law suit. 

It seems like every time a bunch of "counter cultural types" succeed in having a good time, the frat boys, the bikers, the druggies, and the whores show up and wreck it.

Anway, if anybody has been to Burning Man or knows about Burning Man has an opinion, it would be more than welcome!

-- Maxwell "Not currently immolating" Smart.

http://thejetpacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/burning_man.jpg http://perceptivetravel.com/issues/0109/photos/burningman_costumes_450.jpg http://www.silberstudios.tv/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/bm09-102-blog.jpg

It seems like every time a bunch of "counter cultural types" succeed in having a good time, the frat boys, the bikers, the druggies, and the whores show up and wreck it.

Anway, if anybody has been to Burning Man or knows about Burning Man has an opinion, it would be more than welcome!

-- Maxwell "Not currently immolating" Smart.

What do YOU think these declines are symbolic of? Or due to? Or anything else philosophical you would like to state about it? Any and all. ??  :)    or how could the spirit of things be maintained, and decline not happen? or did they serve their purpose and then the capitalists took over? or the baser aspects of human nature?  ???

It seems like every time a bunch of "counter cultural types" succeed in having a good time, the frat boys, the bikers, the druggies, and the whores show up and wreck it.
Of course, one man's wrecking crew is another man's good time!
8)


What do YOU think these declines are symbolic of? Or due to? Or anything else philosophical you would like to state about it? Any and all. ??  :)    or how could the spirit of things be maintained, and decline not happen? or did they serve their purpose and then the capitalists took over? or the baser aspects of human nature?  ???


I think it's narcissism, carnal lust, hedonism, and arrested adolescence.  Not much else.  It's not any more tribal or neo-primitive than an office costume party.  As far as self-expression and self-reliance go, our modern notions of these are antithetical to anything in bona-fide tribal culture.
::)

Of course, one man's wrecking crew is another man's good time!
8)

I think it's narcissism, carnal lust, hedonism, and arrested adolescence.  Not much else.  It's not any more tribal or neo-primitive than an office costume party.  As far as self-expression and self-reliance go, our modern notions of these are antithetical to anything in bona-fide tribal culture.
::)


But what are these declines into "narcissism, carnal lust, hedonism, and arrested adolescence." due to? from? something in human nature? something in US? something about capitalism?  I mean, you might take a Druid ceremony that would last for centuries (supposing) and not change.  Or is it that the seeds of degeneration were already in the original ceremonies (B&PPT  and Burning Man)  It sounded like you were saying that there was something way cool and valid about these celebrations in the beginning, but now, now so much.. or not at all. completely degenerate...?  Maybe there's just a general lack of spiritual belief? Maybe things that are basically protest just don't last? Sorry for all the rambling. I don't know!! Any more thoughts?  ::)

Yes, it's a lot more commercial than it used to be, but it was always...


Of course, one man's wrecking crew is another man's good time!
8)

I think it's narcissism, carnal lust, hedonism, and arrested adolescence.  Not much else.


It's Wasteland Weekend, but with a bigger crowd and a little more art.  So what's the downside? :)

Yes, it's a lot more commercial than it used to be, but it was always...

It's Wasteland Weekend, but with a bigger crowd and a little more art.  So what's the downside? :)


More like Satan's Rainbow Gathering. 

Of course, the azzwholes effed that all up too.  At least Rainbow was free.  Burning Man demands $300 bucks up front.  Rainbow relied on good will and cooperation, and they got it for the most part.  I never went.  Not my thing.  I know people who were regulars since the seventies.  The worst element back then were freeloaders -- hangout people who didn't put anything into the community, they just took advantage of free weed, free vittles, and hippie chicks. 

It seems like the culture changed in the eighties.  It got more cliquish with more designer lifestyles.  Then you got corporate logos, Mardi Gras beads, and beaucoup bad vibes. 

I guess the downside is...if you have half a brain and you like counter culture and performance art, you've wasted $300 plus gas money on Burning Man, LLC. 
::)

I guess the downside is...if you have half a brain and you like counter culture and performance art, you've wasted $300 plus gas money on Burning Man, LLC. 
::)


Yeah, the same thing hit Burning Man.  Ultimately, it's a problem of scale.  Even viewed from the perspective of a few years ago, it's something of a miracle that it's lasted as long as it has.  When it was 10,000 people, it was easy.  At 50,000, economies of scale outstrip the abilities of gift economies to scale.  It's damn hard to leave no trace: someone's gotta deal with all the poop, not many people are interested in doing it for free, and there's not much the 50,000 inhabitants of a temporary city can offer by way of barter.

It's also damn hard for all 50,000 people to be bringing art or something at least interesting.  You've gotta have enough wealth to have enough land and/or free time and/or trailer space to actually build something.  Even if you're just a tourist, by the time you haul your ass out to the playa (rent a car/RV for the week, because the dust gets into everything, and you'll be finding grit in places you didn't know your car had for months), the $300 entry fee is the least of the costs.

Yeah, the same thing hit Burning Man.  Ultimately, it's a problem of scale.  Even viewed from the perspective of a few years ago, it's something of a miracle that it's lasted as long as it has.  When it was 10,000 people, it was easy.  At 50,000, economies of scale outstrip the abilities of gift economies to scale.  It's damn hard to leave no trace: someone's gotta deal with all the poop, not many people are interested in doing it for free, and there's not much the 50,000 inhabitants of a temporary city can offer by way of barter.

It's also damn hard for all 50,000 people to be bringing art or something at least interesting.  You've gotta have enough wealth to have enough land and/or free time and/or trailer space to actually build something.  Even if you're just a tourist, by the time you haul your ass out to the playa (rent a car/RV for the week, because the dust gets into everything, and you'll be finding grit in places you didn't know your car had for months), the $300 entry fee is the least of the costs.


If I had the money to go to Burning Man...I wouldn't go to Burning Man.  The whole trip would cost me north of two grand coming from Massachusetts.  For that I could rent me a cabin up in the hills for September.  I'd bring some hashish and some mellow wine and and watch the sunsets over the lake.  But I'm from Henry David Thoreau stock.  As I see it, why leave the city but for solitude?

I figger if I want to be surrounded by egotistical pricks in fetish gear and crappy pseudo-primitive art and breath in smog and raw sewage, I could go round to my cousin's place in Brooklyn!

If you can live anonymously and vicariously (online) with your little icon and your assumed fake personality and spend hours of your time and probably your boss's time making wisecracks of one sentence because you have attention-deficiency syndrome, then (the internet's) a social cancer. I don't want to offend Wired readers, but you know who you are. If you fall into that category, get away from the screen. Get a life. Then come back to the screen. And then you'll know what you're talking about and you might have a sense of whom you're talking to.

Just read that paragraph.  What a patronizing piece of sh*t. 

You know something, Larry Harvey Oswald? You're describing the folks who populate your festival.  Assumed fake personalities, Wired readers, ADD, little icons, wisecracks, living vicariously, social cancer.  Sounds like BM. 
::)

Sounds like BM. 
::)


Doesn't sound like me at all.  ;D ;)

I've heard the term burning man festival before, but was never really intrigued enough to do any actual research on what it was all about.  I'm not a big crowd or drug or big crowd on drugs fan anyways, so I usually avoid concerts (even I like the performer.)
I'm not really the free-spirit that I'd like to be.
Speaking of fire and art, there was a new festival here in Pittsburgh, focusing on fire arts.  It was called Pyrotopia http://pyrotopia.net/.  I would have liked to have attended, but didn't have transport or money (and it was even in my hometown.)  ;D  Of course, it wasn't as hedonistic (if you will) as Burning Man, but it has potential.  Might go next year, if there is one and all financial factors are in my favor.  :-\\

Burning Man Festival  ???  Why not just call it what it is?  Upscale orgy.  The addition of money is just a way to legitimize it, make it seem chi-chi art, but it is spring break.

Burning Man Festival  ???  Why not just call it what it is?  Upscale orgy.  The addition of money is just a way to legitimize it, make it seem chi-chi art, but it is spring break.


It's essentially a suburban costume party thrown by people who think they're neo-tribalists because they have bones in their noses.  Nobody seems to be hip to how terribly racist it is.
::)

I mentioned it to my friend Molly and she said,
"Who's Bernie Mahon?"
:D

I know some people who go, but I don't think it symbolizes anything for them, other than a vacation/week long party.

I wouldn't go if they paid ME $300, but if you had asked me 20 years ago, I probably would have responded quite the opposite.

I know some people who go, but I don't think it symbolizes anything for them, other than a vacation/week long party.

I wouldn't go if they paid ME $300, but if you had asked me 20 years ago, I probably would have responded quite the opposite.


Me too.  Then I would have whined to go home!
::)