Mark Hewitt's Blog

I pack my stuff in the cool early morning, make my emotional goodbyes with the members of the Camp of Doom, grab a piece of scrap cardboard and walk out to the exit road. A neighbouring camp kindly add my one bag of rubbish to their truck (the Doomers are overloaded already) and I find my stripped-down pack surprisingly (relatively) light and comfortable.

I crouch in the dust by the side of the road as a slow stream of cars and trailers roll past me, and make my sign ("RENO. Need Blackjack and hookers.") It's only fifteen minutes before a big old RV rolls to a stop and Dr Bill offers to take me on to Reno.

Dr Bill is around forty and balding, but with the body of a weightlifter. He's been here teaching the Continuous Female Orgasm (through manual stimulation), which has been one of the most popular workshops here - he had to add an extra class because he turned away as many people as he let in. He's a sweet, philosophical guy with whom I share a lot of beliefs, and we have a great conversation as we roll out to the road. We have a great combination of conditions - getting away early, the early exodus which cleared out a lot of the city on Saturday and Sunday and clear weather this morning.

The traffic is moving steadily and we reach the fork onto the main road within an hour or so, a dramatic contrast to last year when Deidre and I spent six hours at a near-standstill in a dust storm. At the corner by the "Welcome to Black Rock City" sign we pick up two girls who are also hitching - Claudia is in her forties, blonde, thin and muscular, and builds the window displays for Macy's in San Francisco - I've been sitting in Union Square looking at her designs for ten months now. Bonny is younger, red haired and freckled and has an air of quiet calm about her.

We drive and converse, munching on Dr Bill's huge residual supply of food from the RV's fridge, stop only briefly in Empire for cigarettes (Claudia, Bonny and I all ran out a couple of days ago and we sit round a picnic table by the road puffing ecstatically) and make Reno by early afternoon.

I check back into the Sundance Motel, my post-Burn residence from last year. It's pretty grungy (it's gone downhill in the last year) but relatively cheap, and right now all I need is a bed, a shower and laundry facilities. My clothes are in the machine in half an hour and I'm making orgasmic noises in a hot shower with enough pressure to bruise the top of my head, watching layers of grey dust wash out of my skin and swirl away down the drain. My gear is strewn all over the room, everything a uniform shade of white-grey under its layer of dust.

In the evening I get a call on my cellphone. "Mr Hewitt?" "Yes." "We believe you may have smuggled a large amount of playa dust into Reno. There is a substantial portion of the Black Rock Desert missing at this time, and we believe you may be responsible". It's Mel from the Camp of Doom. Her and Randy have just arrived from the desert themselves, checked into a hotel and they've just finished their own ecstatic first-shower experience.

We meet up outside Fitzgerald's leprechaun-covered faux-Irish casino monstrosity, and I give Mel and Randy a quick tour of the interesting spots on Virginia Street, Reno's main drag. We hit a bunch of different bars carrying on a constant stream of stories and reminiscences, get Awful Awful burgers at the Gold Nugget diner ("They're Awful big...and Awful good!") and end up at Rum Bullions in the Silver Legacy, an "Island bar" under a huge replica silver mine and a giant sky-dome which is painted and lit to suggest twilight twenty-four hours a day. We drink rum cocktails (and share one flaming concoction out of a mildly hideous porcelain volcano), and stagger off to our respective rooms promising to never lose touch.

Labels: Black Rock Desert, burning man, exodus

The city is breaking apart now, dismantling itself hour by hour as the weekenders and early leavers pack away their camps and join the queue of cars stretching across the desert away from the city. A lot of people left during the dust storm, maybe thinking it just wasn't going to stop, and the turnout for the Burn was much smaller than expected. Now we're winding down toward the Temple burn tonight. Everywhere are bare spots of desert where once were elaborate camps and structures.

I spend most of the day at the Camp of Doom, helping to tear down (about half of them are leaving on Monday morning) and then just hanging out. I feel like I've become part of the group now, and it's a good feeling. I had planned to join a camp this year but just didn't get organised - next time I'll definitely sign up with a theme camp and maybe come in early for setup, get to see the city before the bulk of its citizens arrive. There's always another way to approach the week.

Mid afternoon we are visited by Dave. Dave looks exactly like Tom Cruise with a beard and dreadlocks - his mannerisms, voice, expressions and energy are so alike that we repeatedly come back to debating whether he really is Tom Cruise travelling incognito. Dave is higher than I've ever seen anyone, incredibly loud, manic, keeps breaking off from frenzied storytelling to scream his friend Aisling's name (she's standing on the other side of the shade structure) at the top of his lungs before returning to his diatribe without any apparent concern, and attempts to come on to every single woman in the camp by gazing into their eyes and saying with great emphasis "Do you want to have sex...with me?". But he does everything with a huge smile and so much love and warmth that we can't help but like him. Half the camp are laughing so hard we can barely stay in our chairs.

The only one not amused is Bex, who's been having a very hard couple of days. After Dave/Tom propositions her the first time she turns him down politely but firmly, and asks him to leave her alone. He then tries the same thing twice more. The third time, he returns to regaling us while Bex leaves and returns with a heavy five-foot length of two-by-four and stands behind him, expressionless, while we all make frantic gestures to him that it's time to leave.

After he finally moves on, Ben and I are debating the implications of Dave/Tom's approach to social interaction. He's basically a loud, obnoxious, totally oblivious nutter - but because he's so warm and positive, nobody (except Bex) can help but love him. We're both naturally quiet guys who have learned and are learning to be more outgoing and outspoken, and the idea is intriguing. We decide to try a thoroughly scientific experiment.

Taking two folding chairs, we set up on the edge of the camp beside one of the main roads running in and out of the Wheel, where there's still a lot of foot traffic, and for around two hours every time a woman passes, of any age (over 18) or description, we give them a big grin and shout "Excuse me! Would you like to have sex...with me?"

The results are remarkable. Both of us get a lot of "maybe later" and "not right now", but within half an hour Ben nets an attractive Frenchwoman who not only responds positively but then starts actively trying to get him back to her trailer. He's not particularly interested, but with his bluff called and protestations of "it's just a science experiment" it takes him ten minutes to get rid of her. Soon after I attract a tall thin blonde who silently approaches, crouches down in front of me and kisses me with enough passion to make my hair stand on end, then leaves. A little later I am approached by Annie from the camp across the road, small, dark-haired and gentle, who takes me back to her trailer, feeds me pizza and slices of steak and says that sex later is definitely not out of the question.

I repack my own stuff and give away everything I'm not going to need from here on - el-wire, my santa suit, the purple robe we found on the playa, my spiked bracelets and a number of other bits and pieces. It's satisfying to have so much extra space and reduced weight in my pack. The only "luxury" item I'm hanging onto is my purple and black silk dressing-gown, and I might ship that home at some point. I've finally given up on contact juggling so I give my one remaining practice ball away, and plan to make some poi when I get back to the world - I've tried spinning poi a little in Center Camp and found it feels a lot more natural to me, I like the dance aspect of it too.

In the early evening the dust rises again, but only lightly, as the remaining citizens converge on the Temple out beyond the Man. As I walk out I come alongside a gathering crowd walking in step along the lantern-lined Promenade and singing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". I join in, as do dozens of others passing us and behind us, then I move ahead and hear their voices fall away behind me.

When I reach the Temple the crowd is, as last year, smaller and much quieter than the gathering for the Man. This is a very different kind of event - the Saturday burn is raucuous, loud and frenzied, with pumping music from the art cars and yelling from the crowd. Here people sit quietly in contemplation. The art cars slowly fade out their music. This is a time when people look back over their week, their year and their lives, get in touch with their journeys, think about the people they've lost or left behind. For myself and many others, this is the real climax of the week.

I find a great spot at the back of the circle, with just a couple of rows of people already there, and take a seat. I have a perfect view of the temple, standing out white and crisp in the floodlights as the safety crews and fire officers make their final checks, every angle standing out sharply. A procession of Temple Guardians make their way round the edge of the circle just inside the gathering crowd, ringing bells, playing Tibetan singing bowls and chanting. The crowd are almost silent now. A lone female voice, as last year, comes over the speakers. She is singing in Hindi.

When the torch-bearers finally emerge, circle and dip their torches to the base of the structure, the flames leap up very fast. The Temple has obviously been doused in some flammable solution, because the flames run rapidly over every part, the white wood looking silver-grey with an aura of perfect, searingly white fire that seems to surround it but not touch it. Everything is silent now except for the crackling of the flames. Behind us the cold night wind is blowing past, in front we're blasted with heat by the burning structure.

Slowly, the fire eats into the building, the huge solid beams beginning to fill with flame, embers glowing through the icons and runes carved into them. It takes a long time, the crowd growing a little restless. Most keep silent, a few yell and shout but only briefly - the momentum of this event, the calm of it, is pretty powerful. Pieces fall away in stages, the lighter beams and decorations first, simplifying and stripping the design until only the structural frame remains. Then the diagonal braces drop one by one, and the beams first lean then collapse, the crowd producing one wild whoop as it comes down. The Temple is gone. With perfect timing, as though it's been waiting, the wind whips up again and the air starts to fill with dust.

Slowly we rise, one by one, and disperse. The art cars are starting up again and heading for the city, and I hitch a ride on a little covered car full of people in panda costumes. The dust is getting thick now, the air very cold, and we huddle together in the bed of the car in a protective group hug. The driver, also in a panda suit, wearing goggles and clutching a cigarette in his teeth against the rising wind, cranks up the music over the noise of the storm as we barrel on towards the now-invisible lights.

They drop me off at 9:30 and B, and I walk home along the curve of the city. The dust is thick, the worst night whiteout I've seen so far, and I can barely make out the lines of lights which delimit the road. Many camps are now missing and the city is becoming shapeless. Center Camp, for the first time, is no visible guide. More buses and trailers are moving out on all sides. I end up at around the 6:00 mark in front of the yard of Black Rock Power, who install and hook up the biodiesel generators for the core of the city. No Burner structures are visible, just the sillhouettes of huge industrial engines and cranes against the faint glow of lights dispersed by dust, and it's as though I've stepped accidentally into a different world. I feel very alone and lost.

Finally I round a corner onto 6:30 and ahead I can see the halo of Center Camp and hear the snap of the flags in the wind. I walk in on a wave of relief and comfort. Ahead and behind are other Burners, huddled against the storm, heading for that oasis of light and welcome.

Inside, the marquee is like a refugee camp. Every bench and table and space on the floor is jammed with figures in goggles and masks, hunched over, exhausted and battered. Elaborate costumes have mostly been put aside at the end of the week, and a general Mad Max vibe predominates - functional desertwear and leather, scarves and bandannas and thick boots.

As I walk across the central circle under the open roof, a few drops of rain begin to fall, refreshing and shocking. They splash into the thin layer of dust which covers the floor pattern. I stand under the open sky and let the scattered drops bounce off my skin.

I spend the night in Center Camp until the storm slowly subsides again, refugees from all over the city gathering and breaking away in little knots. Many people have their luggage or backpacks piled up next to them, waiting for a clear window to leave the city. Several have handwritten signs "Need a ride to Reno", "L.A.", "Bay Area".

I end up sharing my sleeping bag duvet with a quiet little dreadlocked hippie chick called Maia, exchanging stories of travelling the country - she's been hitchhiking since high school, working on farms and doing odd jobs. She's got so many amazing stories - when she leaves here she's going to house-sit some guy's yacht on the California coast, and learn how to crew it.

When I return to the Camp of Doom to start packing my stuff, I find that Annie came back looking for me after the Temple burned.

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

6:00am: Sunday Sunrise Teaparty at Love to Bone camp. "Need some caffeine for your long drive? How about a relaxing herbal infusion before turning in for the day? Little white gloves optional."

3:00pm: Take My Tent Down, hosted by Vino the Dog. "Come participate by taking my tent down and packing it in my truck for me while I watch and drink beer."

12:01am: Pack your shit and go home! "Look. It's over. Go home already. See you next year. Oh, and take some extra trash if you can. Drive safe."

Continue to the last part: Exodus

Labels: black rock city, burning man, camp of doom, center camp, dust storm, Nevada, Temple

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

I sleep a few more hours until just after dawn, and wake up to the coldest morning yet, my breath steaming in the air. I stay inside my sleeping bag with the hood pulled up and smoke through the gap, my exposed hand shaking a little, when a big, bearded guy appears in my narrow field of vision and holds out a cup. "Here, you looked pretty cold. Brought you a chai."

This is Henry the Blinky Guy, who every year sells LED blinkies and uses the profits to bring hundreds more to Burning Man with him and give them away for free. We spend a happy couple of hours chatting, with various friends coming and going to join the conversation and go on their way again.

Just as it's getting comfortably warm, a Center Camp staff member passes by yelling "We need volunteers for the cafe!" I've been intending to volunteer in the cafe anyway and this seems like the perfect opportunity. I put my hand up, get my name in and run quickly back to the Camp of Doom to top up my water before starting work.

The cafe is a raucous, friendly and very busy work environment - there are queues all the way back from all seven or so serving points at this time of day and it never really gets quiet. Supplies are held in trucks parked against the back of the serving area in open bays, we have a tiny covered kitchen in which to wash up and rows of thermal urns for the hot and cold drinks.

It's staffed entirely by volunteers of varying levels of enthusiasm and expertise, often a completely different crew for every four-hour shift apart from a few veterans who are mostly the managers and runners. It's an intricate dance as we move and spin in the narrow space between the counter and the trucks at the back, but spirits are high and Burner love is everywhere. Halfway through the shift the manager screams "Dance break!" and turns the music right up - our queues of customers just have to wait as we dance energetically up and down behind the counter, some jumping up on the counter itself to shake their asses for an appreciative crowd. Then we dive back into our work.

I'm put to work maintaining the row of thermal pump jugs containing milk, soymilk and simple syrup (sugar solution). It's steady but not overwhelming work keeping the jugs full and there's plenty of time to banter (and flirt) with the queues of customers coming and going. The pump jugs are on their last legs, and I discover that for some mysterious reason I'm the only one who can get them to produce with any reliability, so I turn it into a bit of a performance, making a mystic pass over the jug someone has been frantically pumping on with no results, then pressing down on the button and producing a clear stream of syrup or milk. It's fun.

I having enough fun to stay on for the next shift too, making six hours at the counter. By then the full heat of day has descended and we're all pouring sweat as we run up and down with supplies. I'm glad to escape at three and weave back to the camp where a number of the guys are relaxing under the shade structure.

Camp of Doom is composed in large part of Burning Man staff members, forming a good cross-section of the people who make the event work. There are DPW, the hardened multiskilled lunatics who build the city, Gate staff who check cars for stowaways and weapons on entrance, Greeters who give warm welcome and information immediately afterward, Perimeter who patrol the edges of the city looking for anyone trying to sneak in, and a number of others. Bex the camp leader is the Regional Contact Coordinator, maintaining communications with the regional representatives who provide information and support to local burners and proto-burners.

Coming back to Center Camp again I find a marching band contest in full swing. Various bands have formed among the camps around the city, some have been playing together for a long time, others are more recent creations. They are all accompanied by performers and supporters, stiltwalkers, acrobats, and of course spinners and dancers of all kinds. All are impressive but the Lloyd Family Players samba band blow them all away with exquisite timing, charisma and powerful rhythms which carry the crowd away. Center camp is packed like I've never seen it before, and everyone is moving to the beat of the drums.

When the contest's over I walk out onto the playa to see the climax and fireworks over the Flaming Lotus Girls' installation Mutopia. I pass through a forest of neon-lit art cars to reach the installation, a garden of giant flame-throwing plants built out of welded steel. Butane-fueled flame jets flutter from every leaf and flower, haloing the plants in orange fire. It's fully interactive too, the roots of the flowers dotted with levers and buttons which cause leaves to snap up and down and huge flame jets to shoot out at all angles, some apparently within inches of the heads of the crowd.






In front of Mutopia I run into the Camp of Doom again, who are dressed to the nines and indulging in their personal decorations of choice for the week - fake moustaches, bloody noses and lips and missing teeth. They look like a pretty fearsome crew, and they're on the warpath seeking chemical glowsticks, the number one source of moop (matter out of place) on the playa. They get handed out like sweets by some camps, and a huge number of them, once burned out, end up being dumped in the city or the open desert, a vast job for the cleanup crews.

All the Doomers are members of COG, the Coalition in Opposition to Glowsticks, who hand out laminated cards authorising the user to confiscate all glowsticks found. They've actually brought a large net with which to capture serious offenders who try to escape.

We hang out, watch the flame show and talk. I get a chance to talk properly to Mel and Randy, who I've met briefly at the camp. They are the Dublin regional contacts for Burning Man (Mel is from Dublin, Randy from California), and I find an instant and joyful rapport with both of them, particularly Mel - we talk and swap stories for over an hour, barely noticing the time go by.

The Doomers come and go with bundles of confiscated glowsticks, yelling "Doom!" and their new catchphrase "That's some creamy pain!" at intervals, Randy runs into a guy who's wearing the exact same ghillie suit/yeti costume (which prompts a wrestling match), I get told off by a Flaming Lotus Girl rep for lighting a cigarette off a Mutopia leaf with flames whistling past my ears (it seems like a good idea at the time - please note, I am still not drinking).

Finally the group disperses and I decide to walk out to the Man for a last photograph from the top of the tower, but find it already fenced off and under preparation for the Burn tomorrow night. The area around it has become a construction yard of huge cranes and temporary shelters, illuminated by blazing white floodlights from all angles which create a glowing halo in the drifting dust over the night playa.

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

12:00pm: Ice, Ice, Baby at Camp Arctica. "Make a mad dash to camp arctica to help beat the world record of the most people singing the vanilla ice hit song."

12:30pm: Roaming Playa Ice Hockey Game at Tsunami. "The Lake Lahontan Syncronized Swim Team will be looking for a pickup game with sticks & ice puck. Fishnet stockings are required equipment."

2:00pm: Nuclear Reactor & Fusion Workshop at Pandora's Lounge & Fix It Shoppe. "Come get some basic assistance with Nuclear Reactor and Core Fusion System repair and maintenance."

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Flaming Lotus Girls Serpent Mother Art Opening On Treasure Island (laughingsquid.com)
• Maker Profile - Fire Sculpture on MAKE: television (makezine.com)

Continue to Day 6

Labels: burning man, cafe, California, camp of doom, center camp, DPW, Flaming Lotus Girl, henry the blinky guy, lloyd family players, marching band, mutopia, volunteering

I get back to Center Camp to find Santi back at his barber's chair and in fine mood, accompanied by several other members of the Camp of Doom. I soon feel at home in this group of slightly crazy, outspoken and theatrical individuals. I tell Santi and Bex that I've been thinking of folding my camp in the walk-in and moving my gear closer to Center Camp, just being mobile and sleeping in the chillout areas. They tell me I can just sling my stuff under the trailer at Camp of Doom.

As the night wears on and the cold sets in again, I fetch my sleeping bag and several of us bed down on the floor between the benches. A cute, chubby girl called Cassandra with a dreamy poetic manner and intricate fairy facepaint asks if she can join me under my sleeping bag duvet, and we snuggle up together in companionable warmth and sleep a few hours before dawn.

Awake and sipping my first cup of chai of the day I peruse the events guide, feeling suddenly like I want to fill this day up with activity. The city is reaching its peak of activity now and there are almost three hundred one-off events today alone, as well as maybe a hundred which have been running all week.

In the end I start the day with my first professional full massage treatment, which is wonderfully relaxing and invigorating. Then I head for Poly Paradise, a camp which runs a number of workshops themed around polyamory but also more general classes on human relations, emotional connection and communication. Today they have a class called Heart of Now, which from the guide appears to be about being in the moment, something I really feel I need to learn more about.

In fact the workshop is focussed on intimacy, and turns out to be revelatory and very rewarding, and perfectly in line with where I am this morning. It's led by Keith and Lily, a very sweet and gentle couple who immediately create an atmosphere of safety and openness. After the usual introductions we (a sizeable group, by the time we get started) are paired off at random, male and female intermixed freely, and given a series of exercises, mostly in the form of question and answer or expression of feelings.

Initially it seems hokey, very quickly I'm struck by how powerful the right questions, asked with feeling and eye contact, can be in forming a very intimate connection. Sometimes we are asked to hold hands, sometimes we just sit face to face. We switch partners for each exercise. The most powerful exercise, in which for ten minutes the questioner merely asks "What brings you joy?", waits for an answer then says "Thankyou" and asks again, stuns me with the depth of feeling it brings out.

Without changing the question, it causes you to keep following down trains of thought, digging deeper into your own feelings and bringing out all kinds of honesty I would never have expected just out of the need to have another answer. I come away from each interaction, whether I was questioner or answerer, feeling like I've made a deep and lasting personal connection to the person I've been working with. We separate after each exercise with shy smiles and shining eyes, and when everybody hugs each other goodbye at the end of the workshop it's like old friends or even lovers parting.

In the afternoon I explore some of the backstreets of the city, but find myself flagging badly midafternoon in the heat however much water I drink. Fortunately I happen upon a camp with a broad shade structure filled with artificial plants and trees, three misting arches and a ready supply of fruit juices (I'm still sticking with my goal of not drinking alcohol this week, apart from a couple of shots on the Santa Rampage, and I've been much happier for it), and a crowd of interesting people to chat with for a couple of relaxing hours.

Finally, with the last of my strength in the blazing heat, I pack up my camp in the walk-in and move it all under the Camp of Doom's trailer. This is the perfect setup, putting my water, clothes and wash kit within easy reach of everything I want to see. I spend a couple of hours recovering and rehydrating in the Camp of Doom's shade structure - any kind of exertion in this heat risks serious dehydration and drains all of one's energy.

In the evening, shortly after the sun finally goes down, I walk out along the Esplanade to the Red Nose District big top for Cirque Berzerk, one of Burning Man's most popular and returning performances.



The crowd under the big top is already large and swells to epic proportions by the time the performance begins. Cirque Berzerk combine performance art, dance, fire play and acrobatics with a grungy gothic style. This particular show is supposed to tell the story of Orpheus in the underworld, but the hoarse-voiced and dreadlocked ringmaster explains that their female lead performer wussed out on coming to the desert and they weren't allowed to bring the donkey which was, for some reason, essential to the plot, so certain important scenes are missing. He narrates these scenes instead in a fairly half-hearted way; "And then they kiss, blah blah blah yada yada yada, now some more fire".

Regardless of the plot the acts are exceptional, featuring rope dancers, a massive five-person trapeze, a dance number by Italian-suited drones juggling briefcases, and a climactic fire-dancing display with one performer spinning fire poi while swinging from a trapeze by his heels.

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

• 12:00pm: Cat Show & Tell, Comfort & Joy camp. "Playa blues got you down? Missing your feline friend? Come share what makes your cat the most special cat in the whole entire universe."
• 1:00pm: DP for Lovers, ...and then there's only LOVE camp. "Open discussion and Q&A exploring double penetration in your sex life."
• 6:00pm: Graffiti Nite, Lazy-Ass Fuckers camp. "Wear white or nothing at all. Come be covered in personal graffiti from head to toe by burners! While drunk and glowing in the dark!"
• 7:30pm: Ask the Monkey, Tissue and a Plan camp. "Don't every underestimate the knowledge and experience of a monkey. Or someone in a monkey suit."

Continue to Day 5

Labels: black rock city, burning man, cirque berzerk, deathguild, gigsville, intimacy, Larry Harvey, Nevada, United States, workshops

After the Santa Rampage I drift back to Center Camp again, and once again run into Santi setting up his barbershop. We hang out till almost dawn, and I catch another hour's nap on a bench when he goes back to the camp. When he returns he has a flag and a determined expression. "We're going on a vision quest. Put on some warm things".

At this time of the morning the desert is freezing - I'm shivering in my sleeveless santa suit even in the relative shelter of Center Camp. I put on two more jumpers over my jacket and we set out onto the perfect white expanse of the open playa as the sun begins to climb from behind the circling mountains. Santi is still in his beautiful multi-layered samurai costume (which matches his ferocious beard and topknot) and teddy bear hood.

We find a spot right out in the middle of the emptiness, with the Man, the Temple and the big art structures ringing us on the horizon, sit down and just let our ideas flow, talking about where we've come from, what this week means to us so far, how we see our respective journeys right now and where we need to go from here, what we need to learn. When we're ready we get up and just let our feet lead us. Right away I find a wonderful purple velvety robe with fake zebra-fur cuffs and lapels just lying there on the playa, and add it to my ensemble - a gift from the desert.

We wander for hours as the heat rises, somehow encountering almost nobody, exploring the artworks. We climb on a construction of multicoloured blocks the size of cargo containers and stand and look out at the desert, exchanging a few words as our whim takes us, just drinking in the environment. We weave through a field of 15-foot weather balloons tethered in net bags, a deactivated light and sound installation. Everything becomes dreamlike in the quiet and stillness - I've slept for three hours in the last 48 and I'm drifting on a soft cushion of exhaustion, but I don't feel tired, just calm and free and open to everything.

Finally, feeling our journey complete, we rejoin the city at the 10:00 corner so Santi can do his morning rounds, checking in on various camps to see who's about, what everyone's been up to, who needs what (and can provide what), how interactions between the camps are working, what needs doing later. I meet so many wonderful, warm and kind people in the space of a couple of hours as we go in and out of tents, I'm fed baby carrots and crisps and chocolate, welcomed into a family.

I end up back in Center Camp as usual, and spent the rest of the afternoon there watching a series of acts on the stage - bands, poets and comedians come and go. Finally my energy flags and I retreat to Deep Heaven, a chillout area on the Esplanade just off the Wheel which is full of soft cushions and bolsters and manages to be surprisingly cool as the winds off the playa blow in and out of its open front. I sleep for another three or four hours and wake as it's getting properly dark with a new burst of energy.

Nonetheless, as I go back into Center Camp for more chai, a profound depression starts to settle on me. I look around me and it seems like everywhere there are couples; sitting on the benches, spinning poi together, making out in the corner seats. Burning Man, among other things, has a very sexually charged atmosphere, and sometimes it seems like there's surreptitious activity going on in every tent. It's a place where people open up to each other and share love of all kinds, find partners and soulmates.

I feel very alone right now, despite feeling strongly the atmosphere of warmth and openness, making many new friends and feeling more open and confident myself than ever before. Actually, this has been a running theme for some time, and part of a larger personal journey.

I've struggled with a lot of demons in the last year of travelling and hitchhiking, including discovering that I really didn't like how I saw myself through other people's eyes, and lots of low-self-esteem issues and hangups. But on the whole I've worked through those, though often slowly and painfully, and I feel pretty good about myself. But now it seems to me that I really haven't progressed at all.

At this moment I run into Joe, my friend from the Adelaide Hostel (and creator of epic pasta), as well as the second most effective chick magnet I've ever encountered. He's digging Burning Man for the second time, camped out near the edge of the city with a group of friends. We chat a little and he quickly realises my mood is down and gets to the bottom of my doldrums - despite being a self-confessed player and man's man he's also very emotive, gentle and caring. But discussing the situation with him I just feel ridiculous and childish. Making my apologies I get out and just wander into the desert to try and clear my head.

I find a large, quiet spot out in the dark between installations and lie down, trusting my LED blinkies to protect me from being run over by something. I stare up at the stars, and it seems that all the ideas about journeys and paths and my place in the world which rose up during our vision quest in the morning merge with my current concerns, and swim between the thousands of huge bright lights overhead. Slowly, a huge deep calm comes over me, and perspective starts to wash in.

Back in January, I wrote a post about contentment versus yearning in which I proposed that some people are contented with their lives and some always want more, and basically put forward the view that the latter group (in which I counted myself) are the ones that will achieve great things while the former will accept humdrum, pedestrian lives. My great friend Sharon shot a bunch of holes in my argument and challenged the implicit arrogance of my stance, and I withdrew at least some of it, but didn't really change my thinking on the matter. I saw myself, with hardly a hint of irony, as a lone rebel, unwilling to settle for ordinariness, striving for greatness and pushing back barriers.

Now it comes to me that in always looking to the horizon and the next thing, I've become utterly ungrateful for what I have and what I'm given. It's tied to my philosophical path, too - when I broke away from my Christian beliefs in my mid-teens, I swore I'd never bow down to a greater being again, but after years of feeling I should always thank God for every blessing in my life I also decided never to be grateful to a greater power for the good things that came to me. And somewhere along the way that absence of gratitude became an arrogant unwillingness to acknowledge that I was blessed at all.

When I've had wonderful times, I've secretly always found something missing, even if it's just the fact that they would end. I've thanked those who were generous to me and often talked about their generosity here in the blog, but where things were missing in my life I may have said out loud "I failed to make this happen", because that's what I've learned to say as the self-actualising human being I consider myself to be, but inside I've thought "It's so unfair! I never get what I want!". And the more blessed I've been the more I've become lazy about working for the things I don't have.

Now, all these realisations wash over me in a flood and are blown away on the cold desert breeze. The starfield overhead seems to grow brighter than ever, and for the first time in a long time I feel not just fleeting pleasure in my situation or anticipation of the next good thing but gratitude for how incredibly blessed I am. It strikes me as suddenly hilarious that I'm here, now, having seen everything I've seen and done everything I've done, and I'm still writing a blog called "Seeking an Extraordinary Life".

The gratitude fills me, so big and warm and joyful that it feels too big for me, almost painful, swelling my body and spirit, and I open up and release and offer it to whatever greater power - naming it may come, or may never matter - has given me this amazing life.

I stay there for maybe an hour, just staring into the stars, exploring this newfound feeling of love and gratitude and most of all contentment. Then I stand up and look around, and see the tower of the Man on the horizon. Without needing to make a choice, I head for it.

The tower on which the Man stands is built entirely of wood, with a double spiral staircase running up the inside and four levels inside on which one can stand and view the playa and the city. I go straight to the top. The tower is filled with people, and I can see the change in me reflected in them every time our eyes meet. My love and gratitude is shining out of me, and when our eyes meet, male or female, we strike sparks. I remember that I still have a bag of sweets in my Camelbak, and I work my way down the tower handing out orange jellies to everyone. I get hugs and big smiles and thankyous and get into great conversations all the way down to the foot of the tower.

The journey is going to be very different from now on.

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

• All day: Socially Appropriate Fart Day, citywide (hosted by Twisted Quackers and Camp Skinny). "It's time to celebrate our farts. Today you can feel free to fart any old time as loudly and as smellily as you want!"
• 11:00am: Clinch Fighting, at BRC Combat Club. "Learn how to subdue campmates-gone-wild! Closing distance, clinching, and takedowns - oh my!"
• 12:00pm: How to Start a Housing Co-op, at Lothlorien.
• 9:00pm: Strap-on-a-Thon, at Beaverton.

Continue to Day 4

Labels: black rock city, Black Rock Desert, burning man, Events, growth, life, Nevada, Temple

Before I leave the walk-in camping a tall, thin figure appears sillhouetted against the lights of the city and I am reintroduced to Trancer, my neighbour from last year. He's a weathered, whip-thin career hippie and traveller, with an almost constant wide warm and gappy grin, a shaved head and a wealth of wisdom and philosophy on life. We are joyfully reunited and spend some time catching up on each others' lives since we met here one year ago. He's still with his girlfriend Euphonia (currently asleep), in fact they've just bought an empty adobe hut together and they're planning how to use it.

Finally we separate and I walk into the city. Things are gearing up fast this year, and there's already a lot of noise and activity around the camps. The city is bigger too - there are two more ring roads and the space between radials is longer. I'm concerned about how hard it's going to be to get around, remembering how exhausted I got walking the city for hours to reach distant spots. But I'm soon pleasantly surprised by how much fitter I've become in the past year - walking in to Center Camp seems, if anything, far easier and quicker than before.

I make a fairly direct line for Center Camp, eager to look for another old friend. Santi, with whom I've Santa-ed and had some extraordinary parties, dropped me a message on Sunday to say he'll be at the Camp of Doom which is right on Center Camp, behind the Post Office.

I find the Camp of Doom fairly easily, identifying it by the white picket fence decorated with flowers and toy birds and two mailboxes labelled "Of DOOM!". Among a multitude of trailers and tents is a shade structure and kitchen lit by LED glow-tubes, and emerging from it just as I arrive is a chunky figure in huge, flapping samurai trousers, a sleeveless shirt and a teddy bear hood. This, then, is Santiago Genocchio, amongst (many, many) other things a London coordinator for Burning Man and one of the founders of the European Burning Man spinoff "Nowhere" (which takes place in the Spanish desert).

We spend an hour or so catching up on the briefest details of the past year under the shade structure of Doom, while numerous campmates and friends pass through to say hi - being around Santi means being introduced to roughly 50 people an hour, which can be a little dazing. A few I know from parties, the previous Burn and Decompression, the rest I try desparately to file away.

Once we're fairly up to date we move out to Center Camp to set up Santi's major endeavour and gift for this year, the Barbershop of Doom. He has a beautiful classic barber's chair, straight razor, hot towels and coconut oil, and soon he's giving expert shaves to a series of satisfied customers. I sit and talk quietly with him and sip chai as they come and go, occasionally contributing to the performance when I have the energy. I try to give each potential customer a different explanation for my role; "I'm here to strap any missing body parts back on" or "I'm here to tackle him when he gets the bloodlust gleam in his eye".

At around five in the morning Santi packs up his barbershop and heads out on various mysterious errands, and I leave to wander the city for a few hours. I'm drifting on sleep deprivation now, and everything is wonderful and strange and just in tune with my mood.

I stop in at Media Mecca to get my camera registered, and meet up once again with Yomsa from London, Santacon leader and another good friend. He greets me with "Bloody hell, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be on the other side of the world by now!" For once he's looking relatively sane and well-rested, having actually caught some sleep in between long hours of herding journalists and photographers around the city.

I end up around lunchtime at the Lost Penguin chillout lounge, where I catch a couple of hours sleep on one of their comfortable sofas during the hottest part of the day. It's mostly empty when I arrive, but when I wake it's packed as the Penguin crew serve lemonade and Italian ices to a sizeable crowd. Two girls on the adjacent sofa are attempting to create a xylophone/ukelele duet. A random naked man gives me a thermal cupholder. Strength recovered, I move out to return to my camp and refill on water, which is running low.

Back at the walk-in camping area I have a new neighbour, Charlotte. She invites me into her shade structure where Trancer and Euphonia are already relaxing. Charlotte is one of the Flaming Lotus Girls, a (mixed-gender) group who create huge metalwork and fire sculptures every year, and her boyfriend Ray is the creator of the art piece Swarm, a series of two-foot-wide, spherical, semi-autonomous robots which roll across the playa at night in a pack, reacting to their environment and creating a constantly moving, intricate lightshow. They're taking Swarm out tonight on their custom-built pedal car for the first performance.

I rest, eat and rehydrate in the shade structure, chatting to my neighbours, until it's cool enough to return to the city.

A brief stop in at Center Camp to fuel up on chai again, and I sit and leaf through the event guide, only to find that there's the first of two Santa Rampages starting in an hour. I have just time to get back to my camp and change into my suit, then make it out to the Hair Of The Dog bar at Silicon Village to meet my fellow Santae.

The Sili Santacon outing is the most chaotic I've so far encountered - herding Santas is hard, herding Burners is an arcane art bordering on the impossible. We are accompanied by a pedal car with a flamethrowing tiki mask on the roof, and there is an excellent turnout of weird and wonderful costumed characters.

We hit Spike's Vampire Bar, Burning Man Information Radio (the city's premier radio station and news source), crash Deathguild's replica Thunderdome (taking our lives in our hands - the members of the tightly knit and ritualistic Deathguild are well known for being large, very physical and having practically no sense of humour), and a number of bars and clubs.

Having become a little lost we stray into the DPW ghetto, occupied by the rugged and fanatical multi-skilled individuals who work endless hours in the empty desert months before anyone else arrives to build the city, lay out the roads, bring in power and portapotties and generally make the place work, and stay around for further weeks afterwards to tear everything down.

One of the santas quickly redirects us when he realises where we are. "Don't DPW love Santa?" I ask. He looks at me, utterly serious. "DPW don't like anything FUN." We end the night at Spanky's Wine Bar on the Esplanade, drinking some very good vintages and trying out the bar's pneumatic spanking machine.

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

• All day: Anti M's Home for Wayward Art. "A home for Bad, Small, Lost, Found Art and Art which needs punishment"
• 5:00pm: Strip Jeopardy at Strip Jeopardy Camp. "The game that punishes ignorance by enforcing public nudity".
• 5:30pm: Daily Aerial Circus Performances at Center Camp.
• 8:00pm: Human Powered Playa Pong at Om(h)land. "Be the paddle and battle a fellow burner in a game of pong projected onto the playa, in a feast for the senses both physically and aurally".

Continue to Day 3

Labels: black rock city, burning man, camp of doom, centre camp, Reno Nevada, santacon, sleep deprivation

Having finally got my photos cleared a couple of months ago, I'm reposting my journals from last year's Burning Man with the images in place. This'll come round eventually over on my travel reposts, but I know some of you have been waiting to read the posts with photos.

I'm woken by the alarm on my phone and have just time to pack my remaining kit and get a shower, only sorry I don't have time to luxuriate in my last real wash for at least a week. Then I load up my backpack, Camelbak, shoulder bag and two collapsible water carriers and make my slow and painful way up the hill to Harvey's, where I'll pick up the shuttle to Reno- Tahoe airport and thence into Reno.

There's a last-minute panic when the Harvey's desk staff don't have any more printed tickets for the shuttle, and I have to run next door to Horizon to buy one. But I get back just in time for the shuttle to arrive, and in half an hour I'm taking my last look at the icy blue expanse of Lake Tahoe as we wind up into the mountains.

This is where I start to wake up, and the anticipation starts to build. There are a few more obstacles between me and the desert, but already I'm seeing those endless white vistas under the vast blue sky, smelling weed and bacon and chemical toilets, hearing the distant beats of dozens of clubs and stages, feeling the rhythm and spirit and total freedom of the playa.

I'm planning to drop my gear at the shuttle desk and get a bus into town to make some last-minute purchases at the Melting Pot (I'm desparately short of glowy things, which aren't just decorative but an essential safety precaution at night in a chaotic city full of vehicles and bicycles driven by sleep-deprived people of questionable sanity and sobriety) before getting to one of the five rideshare points for a lift out to the desert. But when I reach the Air Playa Info desk in the airport's main concourse and introduce myself to the dedicated folks who are providing advice and directions to incoming Burners, I find a ride immediately.

I'm grabbed by Open Mike, a BM veteran who's himself just obtained a rideshare with two girls renting a minivan. Mike's in his forties, ordinary-looking in shorts and baseball cap, exudes warmth and enthusiasm and true to his name he pretty much never stops talking. He's from L.A.

Our rideshare hosts are Alessa and JFire, two beautiful petite girls from New England in identical kneelength boots and Burner accessories - they're both fire spinners and they've been plugged into the counterculture of outdoor festivals and alternative gatherings for some time, although it's their first time in the desert.

After some grocery shopping and filling of water carriers the others are happy to stop by the Melting Pot - which turns into an hour of browsing with the girls wandering in a happy daze around the store, purring over furry hats, LED decorations, glowing hula hoops and UV bodypaints. We eat our last real meal for a week at my beloved Thai Chili just across the road, and roll out for the playa.

As expected, once we wind through the tiny towns of Empire and Gerlach and hit the long narrow road out to the Black Rock Desert the traffic slows to a crawl, and then to a stop due to an accident ahead.

We crawl out along the base of the mountains and finally roll onto the bone-dry expanse of the playa at around four - just as one of the biggest storms I've seen out here begins to blow up.




We are in an intermittent total whiteout for over five hours, the gates are closed and with several hundred other vehicles we are shunted out to a holding area by the BRC airport until well after dark. Of course as soon as we're all stopped everybody gets out of their cars and buses, beers are passed around, music is cranked up, art cars light up with multicoloured neon and we make a hundred new friends.




Finally we creep into the city well after nine o'clock, and the guys leave me at the walk-in camping area on the outer rim. I drag my pack out a little way from the flagged ropes and start pinning down my groundsheet tarpaulin, when an enormous sense of peace comes over me. Up till now all has been a mixture of panic, frustration and anticipation. Now, a blue-black dome covered in the biggest stars I've ever seen stretches above me. The wind and the dust have disappeared.

The city spreads out before me, throwing up lasers and neon glow all the way to the halo of white light and snapping flags over Centre Camp. Beyond stands the Man atop his tower, a sixty-foot pink neon wireframe figure with arms upraised to the velvet sky. All around him, invisible behind the massed ranks of tents and domes and trailers, is the open playa with its installations and sculptures and flame-throwing nightflowers.

The faint pulse of bass comes from all directions, but otherwise the silence is near-total. It's just me and the playa, the little circle of perfect white light from my headlight and the tink-tink of my hammer as I systematically drive in pegs and tie down my shelter.

When it's done I grab water, an MRE and a couple of LED blinkies and walk into the city. I know I won't sleep tonight. There's no sense of urgency, no need to cram things in. It's just that...I'm home. And why would I want to sleep when I can fall back in love instead?

Continue to Day 2

Labels: black rock city, Black Rock Desert, burning man, Lake Tahoe, Reno Nevada