Frog is not only part of our BMHQ ticket team, she also heads up the Playa Animal Welfare (PAW, get it?) team, assisting non-human animals on playa. She writes:

Ifaw and Kovu (rawr)

“It isn’t all that publicized but the Burning Man Organization donates proceeds from ice sales to many local Nevada charities each year. The posted list from 2010 is an example. I’m fond of one organization in particular, the Safe Haven Rescue Zoo. Located in Imlay, Nevada about two hours north of Reno, they take in big cats and other wild animals and give them a safe, healthy environment, free of the stress from their previous lives. A lot of the animals were kept as illegal pets and others were found orphaned. They always make room for those most in need, especially geriatrics and those compromised by previous substandard housing. The most common story is that of people who thought it was a great idea to have a wild animal as a pet and then realized the huge responsibility and danger involved and decided to find them a better home. Read more »

The Eiffel Tower at Sunset

I’ve long been fascinated by French culture—the fashion, art, film, music, and “je ne sais quoi” of French life—-and decided, after a busy Burning Man season, to hop a plane across the Atlantic and immerse myself in Parisian life. In preparation for my trip, I reached out to our French Regional Contacts, Filouz, Marc, and Eddy, to see if there were any Burner events happening during my stay. They assured me that there was always something going on in Paris and invited my friends and I to a lovely French dinner and to their monthly “Burning Café” event that draws in Burners and artists from all corners of the City of Light.

Burning Cafe at the Bric a Brac Bar in Oberkampf

The French Burners organization, which started as a small group of Paris Burners who decided to meet up each month at local cafés, has expanded over the past few years into a large and vibrant community that spans all of France. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the French Regional Contacts and the increasing interest in Burning Man culture in Europe, Burning Cafés now happen in the South of France, Aix en Provence / Marseille, Toulouse, Bretagne, and Dijon. These café meet ups are meant to be a place where Burners can get together to just hang out and get to know one another. They are a space where people make connections and where “Newbies” can get a sense of the community. Read more »

[Editor's Note: It's been interesting to watch the Occupy Wall Street movement take shape and gain momentum. Along with many other Burners, the Reverend Billy Talen is there on the ground, preaching his gospel.]

WATCH: Anti-Consumerist Preacher Reverend Billy Talen serves up a fiery sermon against the global economic machine at the ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstration in downtown Manhattan.

There’s a term for the present American system: “Totalizing.” That means that consumerism/militarism comes all the way across the landscape – into every nook and cranny. It kills all the smaller systems, like the neighborhood economies, the gift-economies. This system is self-propelled to come into the arts, into medicine, into libraries, into our intimacy – and into our children’s lives at the beginning of identity.

At the Occupation of Wall Street you really feel this. Liberty Plaza is a small park where we say we’re free of that system. The difference is so dramatic. We are starting a culture here – a way of life from scratch. It is clumsy and beautiful and frustrating. But no-one regrets being here and everyone knows what leaving this small island means. Go back into America and our freedom is portable, hidden near our hearts.

Photo by David Shankbone (Creative Commons license)

I’ve heard Occupy Wall Street described as being “like Burning Man” several times now.  Sometimes that’s just by the jackasses at Fox News, but sometimes it’s by people who might know enough about at least one of them to have a point.  Occasionally it’s meant as a compliment.

But is it right?

Occupy Wall Street is certainly an experiment in socially relevant communal living that involves camping and picking up after yourselves … and to the extent that any anybody doing that is “like Burning Man,” they’re like Burning Man.

And they’ve both apparently got a lot of people offering to lead yoga.  So, there’s that.

The more I think about it, though, the more the comparison seems inaccurate – and even unfavorable to both groups.  People say Occupy Wall Street is “like Burning Man” as a means of deflecting attention away from its political relevance.  “Oh those kids,” they’re saying.  “You know how they like to get together and camp and do crazy things.  I bet there’s a guy on stilts!  Like Burning Man!”  The implicit suggestion is that because Burning Man is a spectacle, that’s all Occupy Wall Street is.

On the other side, suggesting that Occupy Wall Street is like Burning Man implies that all Burning Man has to offer a political cause is style.  Bring in the camping!  The DJs!  Wear crazy costumes!  Have a positive attitude!  That’s SO Burning Man!

Like Hell that’s all we are.  It’s true that Burning Man has no particular political goals and nothing remotely like a 5 point plan to save society – but I think that the values that Burning Man brings to the table and the process by which it gets things done have a lot more to offer society-and-its-discontented than just art cars and midnight bacon parties.

Although, for the record, every presidential nominating convention should have a midnight bacon party.  It’s democralicious! Read more »

I did not see this art piece on the playa

A commenter named “First Timer” read my post chiding our community for the shared bicycle program, and leaped to the most pessimistic conclusions possible.

He or she wrote:

The concept of moving this (Burning Man) to the larger world seems destined to failure.

Its (sic) been tried thousands and thousands of times in the history of man.

It always works… until the group grows to the point at which there are strangers in the group. At this point the group shame that gets applied to slackers and non-contributors goes away for strangers and people start to take more than they produce or provide. This requires an organizational structure to enforce the rules. This enforcement is not voluntary cooperation so it takes an authoritarian form. As the group grows the power in this authority grows and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Can someone explain how decomdification and communal effort differs from the basic tenants of socialism/Communism that have failed over and over throughout history?

The answer to that last question is an easy “Yes.”  Burning Man differs from Communism in that:

A)  Nobody is forced to participate.  In fact, you have to pay to get in – and that’s only if you’re willing to travel to a remote and inhospitable location, with absolutely no accommodations or luxuries other than what you haul yourself.

Which is to say:  in the Soviet Union, they forced dissidents to go to Siberia.  At Burning Man, dissidents get furious that there aren’t enough tickets. Read more »