Comments on: Why does Burning Man have no literary culture?

By: Curly Fry

Curly Fry — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:56:26 +0000

Hey there just wanted to drop into the conversation and say that one of the goals of the new camp my “brother” and I are starting this year — The Royal Safarians — is to bring back some power to the written word, gather the voice of the Playa, and give a place of quiet to hash out some thoughts 1950s style (via Royal Safarian typewriters).

As a writer who attended BM last year for the first time, I have to say I didn’t really stumble across too many venues (or people, for that matter) devoted to the literary arts. Yet, there’s power in words. how they’re arranged on the page (or the playa), word choice, the subtleties of silence between sound. It’s our mode of communication, —advanced yet archaic, ritualistic yet primal — and there’s such a profound value to sharing thought on paper that I don’t understand why we don’t see more spontaneous literature.

I’ve got a lot more thoughts to process on the matter, and hopefully they pan out by the time BM comes around so I can bring some fresh ideas to the playa, through the Royal Safarians, and see if we can help bring some literary minds together and make something beautiful. :D

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By: TCM

TCM — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:06:17 +0000

one – wrote/sent an art grant (“spines”), slept epically, & now finally time to jot notes under caveat’s article.

two – wrote/sent an art grant that won’t bend cargocult, but hopes poems are upped and stomached atypically.

three – suppose/want a library camp, with banker’s lamps, long tables, thesauruses, smoking okay, but no talking, shh…. (dear “courtney sherwood”: wanna?)

four – those blunt sentences aren’t art, nor are essayists ever moving. (hyperbole! (apology.))

five – post-mod needn’t be gobbledygook, poem forms not rickety and stanzaic. fluxus is us, if anything is. (dear “parker east”: hat-tip!)

six – drove past entry lane for fertility, sad to not see signs describing theme with a script, usually visionary and anticipate it, a prose “laureate” ought to write that welcoming, or was larry harvey feeling sick?

seven – toastmasters? debate teams? sudden salons, “nuck name” knuckle-tattoo games, “island style” poetry slams (happens at seattle’s regional). even book-animists must have funerals for paper’s impermanence.

eight – b. brumitt with plastic placard gig: still can be done (brilliant!), but adapt to what will stick, or be cool when taken down, then make more, just like great graffiti-ists.

nine – i did! i do! proud loud me! me! narratives: i accept your ego, but come to burn mine, or at least mutate it, keeps coming back.

ten – ego sculpture floored me: charring golden babies, guns and praying-hands. not really literary, but total poetry.

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By: joe graca

joe graca — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 04:32:44 +0000

I went to burning man 2012 and gifted readings from leaves of grass. I set up a poetry stop next to the bus stop. Anyone who stopped heard a reading from leaves of grass 1945 edition and I gifted them the page from which I read to them. the people who I shared this spiritual literary experience have I hoped taken their page home and thus this copy of leaves is now distributed across the globe. This could only happen at burning man. Please stop by at the poetry stop at the bus stop from 1 to about 3 and experience it with me.

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By: Michelle K. Feisty

Michelle K. Feisty — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:20:52 +0000

Wow! Thank you for this blog. I am a writer, and I am always boggled that the literary arts are the one thing that seems to be missing from BM, and I have been wondering how to change that.

Just yesterday I spent some time wondering how to receive an art grant from BM for writing. I have some ideas, but none of them would actually have much of an impact ON playa. I have never made it to any readings at Center Camp. In fact I can’t remember attending anything at any pre-set time during BM. OMFG I missed Infected Mushroom!!!

Anyway, as a writer, the idea I have brewing could be fairly impactful off Playa, and not just to Burners. But is it grant-worthy? I can’t think of any art projects awarded grants that were literature based.

So maybe it’s not a Burner “style” of writing we looking for. If anything, it’s probably the most individual aspect of Burner culture-just look at the comments on this page. What I question is how to bring the litarary arts into the actual grant process and recognize individual literary projects that might even reach beyond that one week in the desert. Lots of BM projects are istalled off Playa. Writing could be as well.

Literary grants are awarded every year from various insututions-private, educational, governmental. Nevada has a dedicated jackpot grant for Literary Arts. While BM might not deny they wouldn’t consider a grant for a writing project, I wonder how much of a possibility it actually is.

By their own definition, The Event has grown beyond the scope of one year. It has become a culture, one they hope to spread year-round. It seems to me writing could be a wonderful opportunity to open that door. Personally, I would LOVE to see the Org select a writing project for a grant.

Thank you for starting this disucssion!

Feisty

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By: Marscrumbs

Marscrumbs — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 16:03:54 +0000

Pissclear!

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By: dirtwheel

dirtwheel — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 07:37:02 +0000

immediacy

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By: dirtwheel

dirtwheel — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 07:21:36 +0000

I don’t know much about righting or literary styles. All though, all the writings have been diverse in directions of spiritualness, emotions, concepts, directions, sarcasm, defiance & FREEDOM! All, are just pointers in the end, as they. If I somehow, someway, somewhere were to write…”Don’t put your cell phone in your front pocket. Because it will destroy T-Cells and you’ll end up with a low sperm count.” Is that a literaty style or is it just a pointer, as to what is…or what could be. Look to the pointers, which could in turn become the style/essence of what we’re looking fir. I perfer symbols. Instantly revieling feeeling/thought. ‘BM. Helping you, to help yourself. How may I help you?’

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By: seth fried

seth fried — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:46:06 +0000

Great question that opens the doors inside. But right here, on this comment page– behold the writing! How we write 2013. The writing of the posts here and the various opinons and insights are the parts that equal the sum of social media literary work. I make my living writing advertising. I also write my personal work. For me, the visual, the image is more potent than language. Language is becoming, in some ways, obsolete–or at least evolving. And there are all types of language-visual, cinematic language, musical language. It’s extremely, extremely hard to capture a mind changing, consciousness elevator like Burning Man–because it’s a state of mind and states of mind are just hard to present That’s why most films that try, say, to capture the previous eras, the 50′s Beats, 60′s, just come off corny. The only person in my opinion who did capture the 60′s mind/consciousness renovation was Tom Wolfe in Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. But he did it cinematically and even with sounds, not just words and his words were electric…he used his eye. But there are so many wonderful thoughts and sentences here–maybe this is the book.

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By: Bonanza

Bonanza — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:20:42 +0000

I think of Burning Man as having a literary element. Like many who have already posted I see the graffiti on the Temple to be a form of our collective story, and one that literally burns and gets released back into nothing. Is the burning of our collectively written book (the man, the temple, etc.) not an intense statement? If book burning is meant to destroy knowledge is our act then possibly finding empowerment and knowledge through the immediacy of life and not through others words? An interesting thing for me to ponder.

Also, if the emerging form of Burning Man literature is experienced like we experience the playa, is it possible that we would not notice the difference and only outsiders would see?

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By: the Prince of Neptune

the Prince of Neptune — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:41:37 +0000

This might be Burning Man literature:

default story:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B22j-GHvZtzccUtqQkEtZHJ5dmc/edit

the chakras expounded:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/18N34IH1k0dC4F-zTO3X-cmScrQQbtDQ-S3YCn42rA83fTIPawR8uhd91BGI8/edit

annnd an outline for a book called DUBSTEP:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/1oL2qJgeRdINbgfNNq4gFftEGX-BZ5WuQ-VQCiVbX7OtTivCHB9DL9xKXfaT6/edit

Thanks!

- The Prince of Neptune
theprinceofneptune here: theprinceofneptune (at) yahoo.com

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