Mark Hewitt's Blog

Once the sun's up and the chill is off the morning, I finally get out to get some photographs of the art on the playa, and to explore some pieces I haven't seen yet.







One of the most striking for me personally is the Sapphire Portal, which I read about several months ago when it was in the planning stage.

It's a circular, matte blue enclosure, utterly nondescript from the outside. Inside it is equally simple, with a small angled shelter in the middle. People are sitting and lying all round the edges in the shade of the wall, and some under the shelter in the middle. The atmosphere is so reverent I don't like to get my camera out. The whole enclosure is filled with a powerful subsonic hum with strange harmonics, and it produces an indescribable sensation, unearthly and confusing. For the people who are staying here it's clearly very spiritual and uplifting, from their blissful expressions. For me it quickly creates a feeling of disquiet and foreboding, and I get out of the Portal pretty quickly. The feeling doesn't pass until I'm a good distance from the installation.

I stop at this year's Temple too. David Best, legendary Burning Man temple builder for many years, has stepped down this year, and the job has been taken over by the Basura Sagrada art group. In contrast to Best's sparse, delicate Japanese-style design last year the temple is adorned all over with medallions, chains, banners, wind chimes and spinning decorations. It's very Burning Man, and feels very airy and organic. This year the theme is loss (last year's was the Temple of Forgiveness), and all over it are messages from citizens to people (and places, and even aspects of themselves) they have lost. They are sad and joyful, celebratory and mourning, loving and bitter. Once again walking around it is a very moving and emotionally overwhelming experience, and I shed a few tears before I finally leave the shade of the structure and carry on across the playa.








I end up at Babylon, the ten-storey tower built out of welded steel which is visible all over the playa. It's utterly industrial-bare, just steel girders and non-slip steel plate all the way up to the top, but with occasional signs carrying messages about the project and its intentions. That it was built by a family in memory of their father is all the information that is given.



At the top is an extraordinary view of the city from 100 feet up, and a microphone which projects anything said into it, through powerful loudspeakers, all across the city. I don't feel I have any particular message to convey, and the whole installation leaves me kind of cold and wondering about its purpose - maybe it's the rumours of its origin but there is something strangely false about the project that I can't shake off.

Halfway back down I stand and look over the city again, and finally summon up courage to do something I've been meaning to do all week. Burning Man is about expressing yourself and pushing your boundaries in an environment where no-one is judging, no-one is mocking. A safe place to test your limits. And one of the most popular ways is going naked.

For me, with a long history of body issues and self-consciousness, this is a big block. I've become a lot less self-conscious this year, what with shared wash facilities on campsites, cramped space and limited privacy in hostels, and just generally being out around people a lot. But this is still a big and scary step. Nonetheless, I decided at the beginning of the week that I was going to try it, at least for a little while.

Standing on the fifth level of Babylon, I slowly slip off the silk dressing-gown I'm wearing. I'm jumpy and nervous, looking around for someone to come up or down the stairs, not wanting to be seen, until I realise...that's kind of the point! Then I just stand and look out at the city. People come and go, and the world doesn't come to an end. Nobody screams, nobody laughs. I'm just another naked guy at Burning Man.

It's enormously freeing. At first scary, then easy, then exciting. I can feel the wind and sun on my skin, I'm comfortable, it feels good. I'm not afraid. I make my way down the tower and walk back to the city. I pass people on the way and I'm still a little tense and nervous about their reactions, but they're totally cool with it. I have a couple of good conversations with people around the artworks on the way back, in fact.

I'd probably go longer, but I've run out of sunblock and it's not smart to expose body parts not used to the sun without some protection. I clothe up again once I reach the city, feeling like I've made a big step and challenged my fears nonetheless.

Soon after I get back into the city the wind picks up drastically, and ominous white clouds gather along the horizon. A dust storm is coming, and it's a doozy. I return to Center Camp as the outriders begin to turn the air opaque, and then visibility drops to zero and there's nothing but dust as far as the eye can see.

The whole inside of Center Camp is whited out, the first time I've seen it (and many more experienced Burners say the same). There's no escape. It gets into everything, squeezing behind goggles, into your ears, filling the folds of your clothing. You can't help breathing it, it coats your teeth, sandblasts your lips and skin. The heat is stifling as the dust traps it in. I've been okay through the previous storms this year and last, considering it all part of the experience, but this one finally breaks my spirit.

I go back to the Camp of Doom for company. Almost all the Doomers I know are back at camp and we dig in for the long haul. They share crisps and nuts, I dig out my substantial collection of crackers and peanut butter which have gone uneaten from my MREs. We huddle under the shade structure in goggles and masks as waves of dust sweep in and out. There's nothing to do but hold on. We tell jokes, reminisce, shout slogans, try to keep each others' spirits up. Some of these guys have been out here for two or three weeks now, helping set up the city, and they were sick of dust before I even arrived here. I can't imagine how miserable this must be for them. My camera has finally given up in the face of overwhelming dust, refusing to open its lens array.

It starts to get dark, and the question is raised as to whether the Man will even burn tonight. The staffers in the camp are radioing back and forth trying to find out what's happening. The city is shut down, all major events arrested as everyone huddles against the storm, staff being redeployed to provide information and support where it's needed. Word is that they won't burn the Man in the whiteout, it's too risky drawing all those people out into zero visibility, not to mention handling explosives and fire. But their permit only lasts till tomorrow, and they can't actually dismantle the Man now the pyrotechnics are installed.

The storm finally clears around eight, just as it's getting fully dark, and all of a sudden things are back on track. The all-clear is given over the radios and we follow the chatter as staff are scrambled to make the arrangements for the Burn. The camp split up, some are too knackered from the storm to trek out into the desert and decide to watch from the Regional Center on the Esplanade, but I, Mel and Randy and another Doomer called Amy with whom I've been chatting much of the day walk out on to the playa and head for the foot of the Man, his arms dropped in preparation for the gathering.

The art cars are already ringing the Man when we approach, a solid circle of neon and noise, pumping out a hundred different beats and melodies, crowded with cheering, partying celebrants. More are arriving all the time, boats and fish and spaceships and giant cassette players passing us as we walk in. Inside the ring is the gathering crowd, sitting behind a flashing LED-lit circle. We find a spot on the edge of a fire lane to sit down.

It takes a long time to get the event organised. Staff are still scattered, and in particular the hundreds of members of the Fire Conclave who will be providing the spectacular coordinated fire dance display before the Man goes up have dispersed all over the place during the storm and uncertainty. Slowly they trickle in, Rangers begin to line up to control the crowd, activity around the base of the Man escalates.

The crowd are tired, cranky and rowdy. The population has been swelled by hundreds of weekenders and tourists who sometimes come here just for the Saturday night (At a cost of 300 dollars - why?), who seem almost willfully ignorant of the ways of the city. I've been getting silly questions all day; "where can I buy water?", "is there an internet cafe?", "can I buy postcards?" - not silly in the context of the default world, but this is a challenging, complex event in a hostile environment which demands some preparation of participants, and many people seem to have come out here without gathering the slightest bit of information about Burning Man or the city.

People are throwing out huge armfuls of glowsticks, pure moop fodder, half of them to be dropped in the dust by the time the Man comes down. The Rangers are kept busy endlessly moving on people who try to sit in the fire lane, apparently having no idea why a wide, perfectly defined area with cranes parked all along the back has nobody sitting in it. Hundreds more try to walk straight into the circle, past the barriers. Amy finally gets up and joins the staff helping to herd these wanderers.

The noise and commotion rises, the time drags on, and I decide I don't want or need to be around this many people right now. I leave and walk out to a quiet patch of desert, out in the darkness beyond the art cars. It's calm and quiet, still warm but with a refreshing breeze blowing. I don't feel angry or disappointed, just that I've been here, it's done, I've been part of this, and my week is already complete. I have nothing I need here. I just want to watch.

Right as I sit down the Man raises his arms to the sky, and the first fireworks go up. The Conclave has been cancelled due to lack of time, and the Burn goes ahead. A series of massive explosions (petrol, I'd judge, from the red heart which emerges through black smoke into white mushroom clouds) rise up the tower and engulf the man, setting everything but his right arm aflame.

The crowd are whooping and yelling, but out here it's quiet as I look up at the huge figure slowly filling with fire. Flame licks up the tower, spreading from level to level, until it's all one inferno. Finally the man begins to collapse, bringing the levels of the tower with him, and the whole thing falls into a bonfire. I stand up and walk back to the city, feeling nothing but contentment.

A few highlights for Saturday from the Black Rock City Events Guide:

11:00am: Learn to Knit Something Fun! At 100th Monkey Camp.

12:00pm: You have Super Powers at Prometheatrics. "Magic. Luck. Whatever you call it. Come learn the secrets of your innate superpowers from the Jedi Masters of Flow Temple."

4:00pm: The Running of the Larry Harveys, hosted by Snowflake Village. "Dress in your favourite cowboy hat, khakis, and dreamy expression. The horde of Larrys will pursue a mad arsonist toward Center Camp."

Continue to day 7

Labels: art, Babylon, black rock city, burning man, burning the man, center camp, David Best, sapphire portal, sculpture, Temple