Larry Page at the Google I/O Conference (Photo Credit: James Martin/CNET)

In his keynote speech at this week’s Google I/O developers conference, Google CEO (and long-time Burner) Larry Page suggested the world would benefit from a temporary (if not permanent?) autonomous zone free of social rules where people can experiment with new technologies and innovations, free of the restrictions inherent in attempting to deploy them broadly in the normal world. Essentially, a technology-specific Burning Man.

As reported by TechCrunch, Mr. Page says:

“We don’t want our world to change too fast. But maybe we could set apart a piece of the world … I like going to Burning Man, for example. An environment where people can try new things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society. What’s the effect on people, without having to deploy it to the whole world.”

Suffice to say, we couldn’t agree more.

Here’s more coverage on the talk from Silicon Beat and CNN, and his full speech can be seen here.

Photo by Marcus Obal

For the past few weeks I’ve been struggling with something Chip Conley said at Burning Man’s Global Leadership Conference.  (You can read my thoughts about his entire presentation here.)

“The more digital we get,” he said, “the more ritual we need.”

I jumped those words.  My heart pounded.  “Yeah!” I remember thinking, with an exclamation point and everything.  I wrote it down in my notebook and put a little star next to it – my shorthand for “this is worth a whole article on its own.”

Larry Harvey has been talking about just this kind of thing for years.  He even insisted that the following line be inserted in to Burning Man’s charter:  the organization places “embodied ritual before symbolism.”

Which is awesome, to the extent it makes any sense at all.

But getting excited by something like that is a lot easier than explaining what it means, or why it’s true.

Or if it’s true.

The most prominent counter-argument against what Conley and Harvey may be getting at was probably written by … well … me, in a 2011 post called “Burning Man Doesn’t Do ‘Ritual,’ and probably never will.”

So obviously I might not be 100 percent on board with this concept that so excites me.

I stand by what I wrote in that post.  But I also think Conley has hit on something vitally important, that needs to be explored – and that Burning Man may be the most advanced form of that “something important” we have.

We are becoming increasingly disembodied as we live out more and more of our lives in virtual mediums.  The end result, according to the mad prophets of the digital age, will be the uploading of consciousness into virtual environments.  We will – if you believe them – arguably cease to be human.  Even if you don’t believe them, the combination of a culture of instant gratification with an ever-expanding digital universe is pushing our humanity towards a cliff while screaming that we can fly.

The more we try to walk away from our humanity, the closer we get to a heart attack.  Rates of depression are up, up, up.  Rates of other mental illnesses – skyrocketing.  We increasingly take pills in order to get through the normal anxieties of living, many of us are terrified of going anywhere without our cell phones, and suicide rates appear to be spiking.

Now maybe all this is just separation anxiety.  Maybe as we enter a world where even more people spend even more of their time behind screens, all this existential terror we’re feeling will fall away and the cool, smooth, nirvana of the singularity will wash over us.  It could be just like a beer commercial.

But historically the more we’ve tried to change human nature, the more dearly we’ve paid for it.  Life, it turns out, is nothing like an advertisement.  The move from hunter-gathering societies to agriculture certainly had its advantages, but it’s created issues that are still with us 10,000 years later.  The move from agriculture to industrialization absolutely had its upside … I’m a fan … but it has created massive complications that we’re still living with.

The move into a truly digital world has a great deal to recommend it, even if uploading our consciousnesses into the cloud is just a pipe dream, but it will also carry with it serious side-effects.  The harder we push, the stronger they’ll be.

One obvious side effect:  we are more and more separated by the technologies that connect us.  As MIT professor Sherry Turkle has written:

“Human relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding. And we clean them up with technology. And when we do, one of the things that can happen is that we sacrifice conversation for mere connection. We short-change ourselves. And over time, we seem to forget this, or we seem to stop caring.”

Ritual, Chip Conley and Larry Harvey tell us, is a solution.  A way to stop short-changing ourselves in the digital age.

But the specifics are vague.

So … what … we should all spend more time in church?  Salute the flag?  Eat together on the Sabbath?

As individuals?  Sure, if you like.  But as a burner culture?  That’s not us.  We’re never going to all hold hands and sing “Larry loves me this I know,” and anyone who suggests we should can actually give it a try for as long as they like while the rest of us go to Burning Man.

As I wrote two years ago (and stand by):  both sublimation and anti-authoritarianism are key elements of the Burner psyche.  We gladly shackle ourselves to art and whimsy:  we spend hundreds of hours and buckets of sweat and thousands of dollars on an art car or a camp or an art installation, for no reward except the opportunity to share it with the community.  Over and over again.

But anyone who tries to make sense of it all for the rest of us – who claims they have the authority to stand up and tell Burners what their sacrifice means – is going to get verbally thrashed within an inch of his rhetorical life.  Probably for years.  It’s not so much that we’d object to the idea of a common meaning as we’d object to any authority able to provide one.  One could easily see Burning Man as a congregation of pre-splintered groups.

Put this together and it shows that Burner culture will never have common rituals in the sense that they are generally understood:  shared activities with a shared meaning that we all submit to.  We’ll submit to art and culture and whimsy … but not to a shared meaning with any authority capable of interpreting it.  We may come to the desert to lose ourselves, but we’re never surrendering our ability to make our own meaning.

So there’s a kind of ritual Burning Man can’t offer.  But clearly there’s a kind of ritual that we can.   I mean … a big wooden man burns every year.  A temple burns every year.  50,000 people make a pilgrimage to the desert that has taken on a surprisingly spiritual dimension.  That’s not nothing.

The question then is:  what effect does ritual have left when you take the sense of shared meaning away?  What does it offer?

The disadvantages arise quickly:   one of the reasons it’s so hard to talk about Burning Man is that there’s no elevator pitch.  We can’t say “Well, it’s about (INSERT MEANING HERE) and that’s why we burn a man in the desert after riding around art cars for a week naked.  Which now makes perfect sense to you.”

There are, instead, 50,000 reasons – and counting – only a few of which are really convincing.

The lack of a shared meaning will also make Burner culture impossible to codify – which can be a downside for a movement intent on changing the world.  No set of laws or rules that can be fairly applied can be made from a culture that can’t be codified.  There will never be a “Burning Man” jurisprudence, or even rules for tipping a stripper.  What it means to be a Burner, let alone a “good Burner” (if that’s even a category) will always have to be decided in the moment, rather than sketched out in advance.

But … isn’t that what we want?

Without a shared meaning all you’re left with is the experience as it is in the moment – and that  offers an entirely different kind of opportunity.  Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, for example, has argued forcefully for an appreciation of poetry that never asks “what does the poem mean.”

In fact, if I may quote him at length (and, hopefully, not violate copyright), I think his poem “Introduction to Poetry” makes a salient point here:

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

A shared meaning may be crucial if you want a ritual to lead to a universal, codify-able, culture – but if you want the strongest possible aesthetic experience, meaning can be goddamn over-rated.

It’s true for aesthetics – it may be true for community as well.  Ritual without shared meaning cannot lead to a community with clearly understood rules and boundaries:  but it can lead to extraordinary shared experiences.

If we’re looking for a chance to get out from behind the technology that we connect with all day and have human moments with one another, right here, right now, in this moment, in this place … Burning Man ritual can offer that.

If we’re looking for a chance to express ourselves in unconventional ways to other human beings in an environment where we won’t be condemned for taking a risk … that’s the kind of ritual Burning Man can offer.

In a time when we are increasingly digital, the rituals of Burner culture offer us a way to be more human – and to do it without having to agree to a set of political positions or social conventions.

As long as Burning Man remains immediate, participatory, and radically inclusive – as long as there’s no loyalty oath to any position taken at the door – the rituals that Burner culture develops may very well serve as a welcome antidote to a culture that tries to turn us into social network profiles and shopping preferences.

Whoever you are, your humanity is welcome here.  We’ll leave defining it to you.

Caveat is the Volunteer Coordinator for Media Mecca at Burning Man.  His opinions are in no way statements of the Burning Man organization.  Contact him at Caveat (at) Burningman.com.

One is a Super 8 video shot by Bob G at the first Burning Man to take place on the Black Rock Desert in 1990 (he added the soundtrack in 2000 as an effort to juxtapose what Burning Man was to where it’s evolved). The other is a beautiful high-definition time lapse video of Burning Man 2011 called “The Fertile Desert” by filmmaker Roy Two Thousand.

Never doubt the power of a spark to ignite a flame that will burn the world.

Truth is Beauty is intended to be a catalyst for social change; to de-objectify women and express the basic truth of femininity, a truth that is dangerous for individual women to express. They are a reminder of what we gain when we value women. My hope is to inspire men and women to take action to end violence against women, thus allowing both women and men to live fully and thrive.

Standing 55 feet tall and weighing 7,000 pounds Truth is Beauty will be constructed using:

• 25,000 feet of steel rod and pipe;

• 6,500 steel ball connection points;

• 2000 square feet of stainless steel mesh; and

• 55,000 single welds.

One thousand five hundred (1,500) individual multi-colored LED lights will be distributed throughout her body. These lights will be controlled by a custom iPad application to create a spectacular light show that will enhance and expand the visual experience.

If you would like to contribute to Truth is Beauty their Indiegogo campaign is HERE.

Scott London for Rolling Stone

While we were on Treasure Island, I spoke to  Katy Boynton, the sculptor of Heartfullness.  Heartfullness was at Burning Man 2012 for the first time.  It is a 12 by 15 foot steel sculpture of a heart that has been broken and pieced back together, damaged and pieces may be missing, but this weathered heart is stronger and infinitely more interesting. Katy told us they were going to do some small scale testing for adding fire to her piece for the Playa this year, and we got to watch. Gotta love fire!

The next evening we stopped by American Steel Studios, where they were having a preview for their open studios, which will be open until 5pm today and the gallery is   open for the next couple of weeks by appointment.  Don Cain of the Department of Spontaneous Combustion is building Mens Amplio for Burning Man 2013.  The photo includes a rendering of the installation, the model and the beginning of building the brain.

Lots more to come over the next few months.  Click here to read more about the Honorarium Art. 111 days until the Man burns!

video: Jenni Nelson

Temple for Christchurch conceptual rendering

A temple is being built in Christchurch, New Zealand, commemorating the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that devastated that city in February 2011, killing 185 people.

Inspired by the ritual of Burning Man’s temples, and a recipient of a 2012 Black Rock Arts Foundation grant, the Temple for Christchurch will serve as a sacred space where people can leave mementos and write on its walls before witnessing its eventual burning. The intention is to help residents of Christchurch reflect upon and come to terms with the aftermath of the disaster.

Architectural mapping of Richter scale waveforms

Artist Hippathy Valentine designed the Temple as an architectural interpretation of the Richter scale waveforms that were created by the earthquake itself — and it symbolically stands 6.3 meters in height at its peak. Fittingly, it’s being constructed on one of the many empty demolition sites that now are common in Christchurch. Its modular design allows the structure to be taken apart and reconstructed in the New Zealand countryside, where it will be burned.

Watch this video clip by 3 News New Zealand to learn more about the Temple for Christchurch. If you’d like to donate to the project, click here.

So here I am, spending another evening attempting to write a novel. My daughter is upstairs packing for college, I’m recently divorced, and about to be kid-less for the first time in 18 years. Wow.

While doing research for the novel, I come across a web page telling me Burning Man is happening in two weeks. It’s something I’ve heard about for years, but being 50+ and on the East Coast, I don’t know anyone else who’d ever gone.

Could I do it? In just two weeks? Of course not.

I stare at the week of August 27, but unbelievably, it is clear. The event had been sold out for months, but a ticket on eBay was coming due in 20 minutes. I placed the bid and won. And forty minutes later I have round-trip frequent flier tickets for free. It seems like I was meant to do this. Landing frequent flier tickets 12 days out? You know that just doesn’t happen.

But the real challenge I face is how to get all my shit to camp.

For a lot of people, this isn’t a big deal. The West Coasters drive. The East Coasters have regional and local burner groups that work together to ship their stuff out to Black Rock City.

Only I don’t know about that.

Because even though I do hours of research on what to expect and what to bring, I somehow fail to notice that there’s a well-oiled Washington D.C. burner community that would be happy to ship my stuff out to the playa for a small fee. So I think I’m on my own. Only later do I learn that when it comes to Burning Man, you are never on your own.

I see that the minimum amount of water you need for drinking, cooking and sponge baths is 1.5 gallons per day, which can weigh 100 pounds. Of course, I also need a tent, some kind of additional shade, a sleeping mat and bag, and food for all this time. Then, there’s the camera, iPod, cigars, rum and wild clothing. It all adds up in a hurry.

The challenge of getting from the Reno airport to the playa is solved quickly when I discover the To Flame bus, which is an express charter right from the airport. But there is still the issue of all my shit.

I look for posts on how people deal with this problem if you’re flying in. No luck. I figure there’s either very few people who go to this thing from the East coast, or when they do, they don’t live to write about it.

Or maybe they just camp right where the bus drops them. But not me. I know that Burning Man is one big-ass party and it’s going to be very loud, day and night. I read numerous warnings to bring ear plugs if I want to get any sleep. However, I also learn about one area set aside for walk-in campers only. No cars, no RVs, no semi’s loaded with rave sound systems. That’s my spot.

The only problem is, it’s a full mile from where the bus will drop me off!

The solution, I figure, is a heavy duty wagon. A few clicks later and I find a steel wagon with 10″ rubber tires that can haul 400 pounds and weighs 45. Its weight is important… I plan to check it as luggage on the flight to Reno, and the baggage limit is 50 pounds.

I also find a nice 2-person tent. It’s light and sets up easily. But when it arrives, I realize that although it has a rain cover that envelopes the entire thing, the tent has two screen windows that don’t zip closed. I have a passing concern about the sandstorms I’ve read about, but the rain cover does extend down to the ground and covers the windows. It isn’t until I’m eating lunch during my Houston layover that I read about the conditions this year. People are saying it’s the driest summer in 30 years and the dust storms will be worse than ever. Will my rain cover keep the dust from coming in through the windows?

I also take delivery of a large box of freeze-dried food, enough for the entire week. I have freeze-dried granola with bananas and milk for breakfast, freeze-dried chili for lunch, freeze-dried beef stroganoff for dinner and freeze-dried peach cobbler for desert. Hmm… wonder how it will all taste.

As I sort through all the stuff I need for the trip, I realize the challenge is keeping my checked luggage to a minimum. The wagon is already one piece. I figure I’ll get all the rest of it in two more cases. Then I check the luggage rates. Holy shit! United wants $100 for the third checked bag! Oh, oh. Gotta make it all fit in just one checked bag and a carry on.

Over the next three days, I play around with a myriad of configurations to try to avoid the $100 baggage fee. In the end, I find myself walking up to the departing gate with a carry-on bag that is way too large, a fold-up chair, a 15-pound shade shelter and a stuffed backpack! $100 later, they have checked my “carry-on” and I’m allowed to board the first flight to Houston.

A few hours later, loaded down, I shuffle the corridors toward the connecting flight to Reno. All of a sudden a little bit of Burning Man is upon me. I see girls with orange hair and men wearing silk scarves. I see beat up backpacks and hiking boots, water bottles and smiles. People are clustered, talking in small groups. I overhear “60 miles per hour”. Are they talking about the winds?

I am shocked at the scene and my eyes tear up. I must have made hundreds of flight connections in my life, and never once has much changed between the first flight and the second. This time, it’s different.

A couple of hours later we land in Reno. The arrivals area is teaming with burners awaiting the To Flame bus and there’s a lot of chatter about who’s staying where on the playa. People describe the camps they’re in and it dawns on me that this is why no one has written about how to get to Burning Man if you’re flying in on your own. No one goes solo if you’re flying! All of them have friends they’re meeting on the playa. They have all paid fees to be part of camps that supply shelter and food. Some even provide bicycles. All they need to bring is their clothes!

I look at my 45-pound green steel wagon and sigh. It’s my first lesson of Burning Man. I know it won’t be the last.

I run out to the Walmart two miles from the airport to pick up my pre-paid $88 Huffy bicycle and run back to catch the bus.

It’s a fun and beautiful ride to Black Rock city, but it’s 2:00am by the time we arrive at the bus depot near Center Camp. I load everything onto the wagon for the very first time and begin my trek to the walk-in camping area, a mile away.

I make it about one hundred feet.

This wagon is heavy! The playa is supporting it, but with 100 pounds of water, plus everything else, its just too heavy to pull a mile. I decide to camp right where I am for the night. In the morning, I’ll figure out what to do. I suffer a fitful sleep that night. I’ve been awake 23 hours before I finally laid down. The air is thin at 4000 feet, and I’m pretty excited. I wake up three times and need to pee far more than my pee bottle will hold.

The morning comes all too fast, and I awake surrounded by RVs, campers, motor homes and the occasional tent. Before I set out to move to the walk-in camping area, the first item of business is coffee. I’ve got a terrific little Italian coffee maker that sits on a propane stove, Cafe Verona Starbucks coffee, and powdered vanilla Coffee Mate. This is one ritual where I do not rough it. Done this way, this coffee is as good as the stuff at home.

But where is the Coffee Mate?

I look in every place it should be, but it’s not. I look again for the familiar blue and white bottle. I start to feel really sad. But finally I decide it’s OK, I’m at Burning Man and this will be the week I learn to appreciate black coffee. Just then, after acceptance, the creamer appears.

I laugh at myself, and feel I learned a lesson about perspective. After enjoying a great cup of coffee, I am ready to scout out my home for the week.

I bike to the walk-in camping area and the first people I come across are the Happy Naked Couple. I ask them the pros and cons of being out here. They love it. It’s quiet at night. It’s windier here, without the protection of the large motor homes and RVs. But it’s less dusty because upwind the playa is hard packed; in the city, there’s more loose dust due to vehicles having churned it all up. Then, there’s always the advantage of not needing to wear clothes. I look around. I’m in.

I then realize the solution to my heavy wagon dilemma is to simply ask someone for a tow. Since cars are not allowed to drive around, I search for one of those arted-up golf cart-sized things. But after an hour, still no luck.

I bike to Center Camp and see something called Mobility Support. That’s it, I have a mobility challenge. They chuckle when I make my request. They are there to assist those with handicaps, not some privileged schmuck with too much shit on his wagon. However, they suggest I go to the DMV. “The DMV?” I ask.

“The Department of Mutant Vehicles.”

“Oh.”

It turns out that every art car that wants to roam the playa must be licensed by Burning Man’s DMV. Later on, when I see dozens of people hanging off these things as they ply their way around city, I understand why they need to be inspected for safety.

The second mutant vehicle I hit up agrees!

Twenty minutes later, I pull up to the Happy Naked Couple on the outskirts of the walk-in camp ground. They’re still naked, and they’re happy to see I made it.

I set up camp easily, driving 16″ steel stakes into the hard playa bed. Up goes the tent and also the shade canopy. I unload the food into the tent and prop up the 10 gallons of water outside. I make sure the rain fly is taut and totally covers the doors and windows.

I did it. I’m here. An East Coaster on his own…

But not for long.

All photos by Kenny Reff

You can download and read Kenny’s full memoir of his first burn (8MB PDF file. Takes some time to load.)

(Photo by Candice Nyando)

Want to learn how to create your own solar power system? Or make musical instruments with found objects? Or both? We got you covered.

At 1:00pm, Small Scale Solar 101 will present an overview of small and portable solar technology, including solar terminology, how it can be used for art, tricks to limit power usage and more. It will be followed by Small Scale Solar 102 at 2:00pm with a hands-on opportunity to put a small system together. These workshops will be led by Chaz Pelling.

(Photo by Waldemar Horwat)

At 1:30pm, you’ve got two instrument-making workshops to choose from. In the first one, “Making Music with Found Objects”, Lydia of the musical group GamelanX will guide participants in creating musical instruments out of found objects (participants should bring discarded metal objects such as cans, pipes, car parts, kitchen utensils, etc.). The second workshop will be led by members of the Exploratorium’s “Explorables” group, demonstrating how to make several easy instruments out of drinking straws — all materials will be provided for this one. Both workshops conclude at 2:45pm, when everyone will convene for a music jam!

Please RSVP for the workshop(s) you would like to attend.

Burning Man Project is part of a network of non-profit and volunteer groups working to grow the Burning Man cultural movement by circulating the Burning Man ethos globally. For more information on Burning Man Project, please visit their website.

The Ten Principles:

1. Radical Inclusion
2. Gifting
3. Decommodification
4. Radical Self-reliance
5. Radical Self-expression
6. Communal Effort
7. Civic Responsibility
8. Leaving No Trace
9. Participation
10. Immediacy

In the middle of all the physical and metaphorical dust storms, The 10 Principles keep the beautiful chaos on track. Some are pretty clear, like “Leave No Trace.” Others are more tricky to get your head around. As a long-time Burner, I am sometimes asked to clarify or explain the Principles as I understand them. Read the official explanations here, and then check out my thoughts in the video above.

These views are solely the views of Halcyon and do not represent the opinions of The Burning Man Organization.

AfrikaBurn greeters bell (photo by BettieJune)

AfrikaBurn 2013 — Burning Man’s official African regional Burn — is underway in Tankwa, South Africa. Now in its seventh year, AfrikaBurn is rightfully touted as “the spectacular result of the creative expression of a community of volunteers who, once a year, gather in the Tankwa Karoo to create a temporary city of art, theme camps, costume, music and performance!”

The event takes place May 1-6 on an expanse of remote desert in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa akin to the Black Rock Desert of Nevada (albeit a little more rocky), and its population has steadily grown since its inception … they’re expecting 8,000 participants this year.

Sculpture (Photo by Photokatz)

Founded and run under the guidelines of Burning Man’s 10 Principles, their mission statement states: “AfrikaBurn is a participant-created movement, an experiment in inclusive community building, decommodification, creativity, self-reliance and radical self-expression. It is a chance to invent the world anew.”

A small contingent of intrepid Burning Man staffers have made the long journey to AfrikaBurn this year to observe, learn, share knowledge, and join in the revelry, and they’re sending some pictures and stories along, which we’ll add to this post as they arrive. Here’s BettieJune:

Some factoids, they are expecting 8,000 today, a huge lift from last year. They have been doing a lot to grow their infrastructure to handle their growth. The winds have been going pretty strongly, with some shade structures blowing away. But everyone is pitching in, making sure to help everyone else.

Today is May Day, the South African version of Labor Day, and it’s a national holiday. There’s a big line of folks coming in to the event. It’s a hike to get here, it’s about four hours ish from Cape Town, and the last 113 kms are on a dirt and rocky road. We saw one shop offering drinks, etc. We stopped, and they were also selling costumes called “fancy dress”. They loved seeing us, and were incredibly excited about AfrikaBurn, and seeing the participants. They run their whole operation on solar power, and the building is half bar, half store. They invited us back for Friday, when they are doing a meat (lamb) and veggie curry.

And in a second dispatch:

Lots and lots and lots of burning here, approximately 32 burns are scheduled.

Art is a huge part of what’s going on here, with about 90 registered projects, and something in the neighborhood of 50 mutant vehicles.

Tonight is a concert with a piano underneath the Wattle Tower. It should be stunning. A project Burning Man funded last year, the Tunnel of Questionable Enlightenment is here, shining in all its glory. Also the Space Cowboys are here — the small alien sculpture is from the front of their camp. Participants seem to love the Space Cowboys wherever they go.

To get a better sense of the experience, take a look at AfrikaBurn’s beautiful photo and video gallery.

Compression, the AfrikaBurn temple (Photo by Photokatz)

Wattle Tower, made of contentious non-native plants which are choking out water from indigenous South African plants (Photo by Photokatz)

Wattle Tower (detail), made of contentious non-native plants which are choking out water from indigenous South African plants (Photo by BettieJune)

A Mutant Vehicle roams the AfrikaBurn encampment (Photo by BettieJune)

DMV licensing markings – orange for daytime use, yellow for nighttime (Photo by BettieJune)

Art bike (Photo by Photokatz)

Dancers at Dusk (Photo by Photokatz)

Burners at Play (Photo by Photokatz)

Theme camp (Photo by Photokatz)

Participants! (Photo by Photokatz)

Musicians (Photo by Photokatz)

Grater and cheese heart sculpture (Photo by Photokatz)

Artwork on the horizon (Photo by Photokatz)

Photo by Scott Stallard

Judge allows Burning Man lawsuit against Pershing County to move ahead
S.F. Examiner (4/29/13)
A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit against Pershing County, Nev., by the organizers of Burning Man can move forward.

Federal judge in Reno makes rulings in Burning Man lawsuit
Reno Gazette Journal (4/29/13)
Several arguments in the lawsuit filed by Burning Man organizers against Pershing County will get to stand trial after a federal judge also dismissed several of their allegations.

Burning Man’s Lawsuit Against New Fees Moves Ahead
NBC Bay Area (4/30/2013)
The Man does not abide the county’s fee. A lawsuit filed by organizers of Burning Man against Pershing County, Nevada — where Black Rock City sets up every August in the desert — over the local government’s new fees for the event is going forward, according to the San Francisco Examiner.