The other week Burning Man’s San Francisco office held a goodbye party for Andie Grace – Action Girl! – who is leaving us because eventually all the good ones do.  (That’s actually the 3rd noble truth of Buddhism.)  It was a good party:  there were heavy cocktails, helium balloons, hors d’oeuvres, and speeches.

A lot of people, it turns out, have been inspired in life changing ways by the gifts of Grace.

At the time I didn’t say anything.  As regular readers of this blog know, I only attend Burning Man functions for the open bar.  Andie gets that about me.  Still, in hindsight my silence that day was a mistake.

Andie Grace is entirely responsible for my taking up the volunteer work I have performed for Burning Man for the past five years – and the story of how that happened, while not entirely flattering, seems worth sharing in order to thank her properly.

This story also might be enlightening for those who think Burning Man’s organization works like a well oiled machine, and who think that the Org is always plotting five steps ahead.  It’s not.  From the very first experience I had volunteering for Burning Man, it’s been clear that rather than leading from the front the Org spends much of its time desperately trying to keep up with all the things the rest of us do.

The story goes like this:

Read more »

Photo courtesy of Black Rock Kids

It’s strangely easy to be judgmental about the way other people raise their kids. The idea that a young person  is being raised badly brings the knives out.

Perhaps it’s because kids are innocent and helpless, so that defending them is one of the few truly noble deeds we can perform in this life.  Perhaps it’s because everybody’s got parents and everybody was raised somehow – so parenting is one of the few standards we have in common.  Or maybe we’re all just judgmental fucks looking for an excuse.  It would explain so much.

Whatever the cause:  Complaining about what other people’s parents are doing wrong is perhaps the most popular human pastime after making kids in the first place.

That’s probably why every subculture I’m familiar with has, at some point, had an existential crisis about their kids.

People in the Society for Creative Anachronism worried about how their kids will develop if they feel a little too comfortable with feudalism;  parents into BDSM have worried how much to disclose and how much to keep secret.  Is it okay to insist that your 10-year old son be a flag bearer who died at Antietam for three weekends a year?  Can you bring your kids to a Star Trek convention if you want them to grow up and enjoy a healthy sex life?

God, people are weird.

All of them are worried – and yet only the children of the rich are famous for consistently turning into horrible, horrible, human beings.  Makes you think.

These same tensions bubble up periodically among Burners.  Read more »

By Maxo. [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) via Wikimedia Commons

But if you get a lot of Burning Man regional representatives from around the world together into one room, they will probably end up having a panel discussion on best practices – and it will involve serious note-taking.

I mention this to set the stage for the Burning Man Regional Network Summit, where I found myself surrounded by many of the people who are absolutely essential to Burning Man at the state and local level … and geez, were they taking notes.  What I’m saying is:  data was compared.  Best practices were rocked.  Flow charts flew.  Did they have fire?  No – but they had mad fire safety tips.  There were no DJ’s … which is kind of a blessing, once you’re in the middle of a nice conversation with a woman from Prague and you actually want to hear what she’s saying … but there was a lot of talk about how to integrate people who want to DJ into your volunteer structure.  Because, Christ, a lot of you want to DJ.

It clearly takes all kinds to Burn a Man, and one of the first meetings I attended was about how to reach out to your local burner community and keep everyone in the loop.  This is essential, not just because it helps them know what Burning Man is up to but because it also makes people more likely to come out of the woodwork and explain how they can help.  Because, goddamn, those of you who don’t want to DJ often have incredible skills no one saw coming.

But with such a diverse community (or at least a community with such diverse interests) … how exactly do you keep everybody in the loop? Read more »

We are what we do

A few months ago I was asked, in one of those email groups where people ask each other things like this:  “what does it mean to be a burner?  What are the core beliefs that unite us?”

I didn’t respond, first and foremost because honest-to-God do I have that kind of time?  No I do not, and it is hugely irresponsible of people to ask me open ended questions.  It’s like offering a hypochondriac free medical advice.  His whole weekend’s shot.

But I also didn’t respond because I’d been wrestling with that question for some time … and had no good answer.

I know that the most common response is “The 10 Principles,” but … I don’t see it.  I bet 90% of the Burners reading this can’t name all 10 without looking them up.  Of that 10% who can, I bet 90% of them didn’t know all the 10 principles … or anything about the 10 principles … back when that magical moment happened and they first decided:  “Oh, I like this.  I want to be a part of this.”

It’s also commonly understood … though not often talked about … that most of us interpret the 10 Principles differently.  Some of us (I’ll raise my hand) believe that “Radical Inclusion” means “everybody can participate in Burning Man,” while others take it to mean “everybody should feel included and accepted by people at Burning Man”:  we’re worlds apart.  Exactly what “Gifting” means is not a matter of settled tort.  How “communal” does “Communal Effort” have to be?  You might as well ask how many Burners can dance on the head of a pin, except that this was settled by 2005’s massive art project “Dance on the Head of a Pin!”  It’s 82, and they light the pin on fire.  Man that really should have been funded. Read more »

I’m not so sure.  Burning Man has a profound psychological, even spiritual, impact on people – but are we really more authentic than anybody else?

I’d be a lot more convinced if so many people at Burning Man didn’t dress so much alike:  as if strapping on a leather harness and glow sticks because it makes you fit in at the sound camp really makes you more authentic than someone who dresses in a gray flannel suit for his job at the accounting firm.

I’d be a lot more convinced if all the music wasn’t so similar – surely all our inner selves can’t be DJs?

I’d be more convinced by claims to authenticity if more people’s “authentic” selves didn’t fit so neatly with ideals that other people thought up. Nobody gets authenticity points for following the 10 commandments:  why should they get them for following the 10 principles?

While there’s certainly a lot of iconoclasm and personal eccentricity at Burning Man … there’s also a hell of a lot of conformity.  Given the chance to go out in the desert and do anything, it’s obvious that many of us decide to imitate each other.  But the rhetoric of authenticity persists.  What causes so many of us to feel authentic while we’re keeping up with the Sparkles? Read more »