We were traveling along Route 80, and for once, Reno seemed almost pretty, or at least the parts of it you see from the highway. In summer you can’t believe how ugly it is, the  big brown  hills of sun-blasted dirt.  But now you were noticing the scattered trees, leaves glowing bright yellow in the slanting noonday sun.

We had to be up in Reno for a couple of days, and we had the chance to squeeze in a side trip to the playa, and we took it. It seemed wrong never to have experienced the Black Rock Desert when there wasn’t a festival going on, and we were determined to rectify the situation.

Now the car is full of playa dust again, and it couldn’t smell sweeter.

Parts of the journey felt familiar. You felt the tightness in your stomach as you left the interstate at Wadsworth and headed out across the Indian land. There wouldn’t be any art or any music or any fire waiting for you at your destination, and all the amazing people weren’t going to be there, either, but it didn’t matter.  You felt the pull. It was just going to be you and the desert and the dust.

Burning Man has always had a quality of aloneness to it. Yes, you are surrounded by 40,000 like-minded souls, and one of the reasons you go is to feel connection and community. But still, there are times when you are alone with yourself, and if you haven’t felt that sense of being a single, solitary person, even in the middle of that  huge party, maybe you haven’t gotten all there is to get at Burning Man. People come to escape the loneliness, but it finds them there, too. Moments, in between,  it finds you.
Read more »

It’s easy to have mixed feelings about Decompression gatherings.

On the one hand, it always feels great to be digging out the playa wear and smelling the dust again.

Ah, the smell of the dust. Even if you’re on the anal retentive side and meticulously wash all your clothes and oil down the chains on the bike and run the car through the car wash three or four times, the smell of the dust rises up and bites you when you least expect it.

You turn on the defroster in the car and  plumes of the playa coming rushing out of the vents. Or you come across a scarf in a backpack, and it is still covered in a lovely dusting of white. Or maybe you missed one pair of shoes in the back of the closet, and when you go for Decompression footwear, there they are, just back from Center Camp.

Anyway.  Sunday was a day to dig out all that stuff, but like we were saying, it’s easy to have mixed emotions. Because after all the fun, and all the laughing and eating and drinking and dancing, at the end of it all you are not sleeping under the stars, and there is no Man to guide your way home. No. You are going to wherever it is you call home. You are most decidedly not on the playa any longer. And that always stings.

No matter. Decompression is a lovely reminder of the event, and for that we were all pretty happy on Sunday.

There were lots of clowns and stilts and fur, but maybe not as many blinkies and el wire as might have been expected. And you could buy food and drink. What a thing. And there plenty of shrieks and shouts from the reunions taking place all over the Dogpatch streets. It was a lot like Homecoming weekend, only without the football. A lot of your favorite people in the world were gathered in one spot again. Nothing wrong with that at all. Not a thing.

And the San Francisco venue has changed for the better over the years. Decompression used to be held in a parking lot near the baseball stadium, and while the square footage might have been bigger, it had no atmosphere at all. Unless you call macadam and hurricane fences atmosphere. Now it’s in a funky neighborhood, lined with trees and low-slung buildings. It definitely feels more home-y.

But one little question: Can’t we burn some stuff next year? I’m sure the fire department would hate it. And there’d be expensive permits and emergency crews and all the rest of the city rigamarole to contend with. But still. It’d seem only right.

Lots and lots more photos after the jump.

Read more »

Brian dances in the street during the DPW parade

The wind blew most of the day and night on Saturday, and the Burn was put on hold for hours. But in an eerie replay to last year, the dust storms stopped just in time for Burning Man 2009 to reach its appropriately fire-y conclusion.

The day of the Burn was packed with people and activities. The city’s population reached its peak somewhere north of 42,000, and you have to be impressed that the number stayed so strong in such an economically challenging year.

Center Camp was mobbed all day, with folks seeking shelter from the blowing dust. … But it wasn’t the kind of dust storm that blanketed the city last year and turned daytime into evening. The sun was still shining, and it was a really really pretty day on the playa.

We had a fairly representative Burn day. It started with maybe the most perfect iced mocha ever served in Center Camp. No, really. It was spectacular. Just perfect. … When you’ve come to kind of depend on the camp coffee situation to take care of itself, and then it doesn’t, well, you get a little desperate. But in this case our desperation was happily resolved at the cafe.

Then we were off for a last look around before things began to burn up.

We headed out to the Depot and the start of the DPW parade. Even though the wind and dust was howling, we could hear them coming from blocks away. “F– your day!” they’d shout. “F– what you know!” we’d shout back.  “No pictures!” they’d yell. “F– your day!” we’d shout back.

It sounds nasty and hard core, but you know what? I’ll tell you a secret. It’s an act. Oh, they won’t admit it, of course. And yeah, they’ll act like they would bite your head off most of the time. And they actually might, at least some of the time. But nobody comes out and volunteers to build a city in the dirt and heat who doesn’t have a lot of heart. And that’s your average DPW crew member right there. Dirty and crusty and loud on the outside, kinda squishy and real on the inside. But don’t tell them I told you.

Read more »

Larry Harvey at Fly Hot Springs

It was a gorgeous evening to be leaving the playa.

There hadn’t been much wind all day, and the dust was barely noticeable. The moon was a day away from full, and there was real excitement and anticipation in the evening air.

A smallish group of very well-turned-out people gathered near the Bone Tree in First Camp on Thursday  to be taken by bus to Fly Hot Springs, an oasis maybe 10 miles down the road from the hot and dusty Black Rock City. We drove away from the camps and the lights and the art, back out the way we had come in, and traveled a little further out Route 447, beyond the boundaries of present day Burning Man.

The bus we were on was taking us where Burning Man would like to go.

There’s a plot of land not far from the Black Rock Desert that the organization wants to buy. It’s owned by a family that would be willing to sell. The family has always been pretty sympathetic to the Burners, and now the economy has helped bring all parties closer to a deal.

So off we went to get a look at the land, leaving the present to get a glimpse of the future. All six founding directors of Burning Man were  part of the expedition — Larry and Marian and Crimson Rose and Harley and Will Rogers and Michael Michael — and also the people who keep the engine running so that the event takes place smoothly every year, the tech people and the legal people and the legislative people (it takes a lot to assure nervous politicians that yes, there is actually more going on at Burning Man than a bunch of naked people dancing around fires, although of course that DOES happen, but so does a whole lot more).

All of them, but especially Jackrabbit, had tugged on coatsleeves and cashed in chips to bring together some people who might be able to help make Burning Man’s dream come true. To be blunt: Burning Man was putting the arm on them, letting them know that they needed their help in getting this thing done.  So they were treating them to dinner at the place  where they’d like to go.

Read more »

White was the theme Wednesday night and Thursday morning in Black Rock City.

The Opulent Temple dance camp had a big blowout on Wednesday night, a gathering that’s called White Night.

Then, the next morning, everyone who’s still up after a night of dancing, plus other folks who want to see the sun rise in the far reaches of the playa, heads out to the Temple for the White Procession.

Here are a some photos from the morning after and the night before.

Read more »