photo: Logan Mirto

Just a little note to say hello from Burning Man.  We miss you if you are not here.  Thinking of you.  As always there is a lot going on here. BIG art, lots of community and as always heat and dust, although it cooled off a little yesterday which makes me very happy.

And a little shout out to the Dust City Diner, we hear it is their last year on the Playa, and they are making the rounds to ensure all of their volunteers and people who have helped support them all these years are getting by to say farewell to them.

Photo by MonkeyBoy

And here is a small shot of the Man before he burns tomorrow night.

Media Mecca is hosting a meet up for Burning Nerds on the playa in the 2011. We did it last year and we’re doing it again! You are invited! Please join us!

When: Friday, September 2, 2011

Where: Ashram Galactica (8:00 and Engagement)

Time:  2:30pm-5:00pm

Enjoy cocktails and an afternoon mixer with the academics and scholars
of Black Rock City.

Do you teach, conduct or write or work with research? Do you wish you could?
Then you are a Burning Nerd!

Come join us for libations, entertainment and presentations:

• The 2011 Environmental Assessment process-Learning how to research BRC.
• Updates on the Census-new questions in 2011-Where they are from and why!
• The 2011 Non-Profit of Burning Man. How might academics collaborate?

OPEN MIC-for Burning Nerds to share their research!

PLEASE join us and RSVP to academics [Email address: academics #AT# burningman.com - replace #AT# with @ ]

Academics URL: http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/academics.html

Wait, that's ... that's not a Man. Where am I?

It might not be an overstatement to suggest that the single biggest challenge facing Burning Man as it transitions to a non-profit is explaining what-the-hell-it’s-good-for without making it sound like a therapy weekend or an erotic spa.

Why do we need to do this?  Well, one reason is that the Media Team frequently gets emails asking things like:

• “What bands are playing at Burning Man this year?”
• “How many stages do you have?”
• “How do I get my act in your lineup?”

Telling these people to look at our website and see what we really do only leads to return emails saying “I still can’t find the bands!  Except, is one of them named Temple Burn?  Are they playing at the Arctica stage?  Is that the main stage?”

Actually, wow, “Temple Burn” is a pretty killer name for a band … I’m calling it.  It’s mine.  Get your own band.  You can be:  “Dust Storm.”

Actually, “Dust Storm” is a pretty good name too.  I’ll need it when “Temple Burn” kicks me out for creative differences.  Hands off.

Your band can be “Gift Economy.”  It’s kind of a folk-rock thing, very 60s influenced, writes a lot of songs about peace. Read more »

Greatest ... theme camp ... ever ...

This may be out of left field, but that’s where I live: If Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-easy laugh) had gone to Burning Man every year, would he still have been self-destructive enough to send damaging photos of himself to women he only knew online?

The answer is: probably, yes. But I ask because I frequently hear people talk about Burning Man as though it were exactly this kind of sanity check. You’ve heard it too:

“Burning Man is the one place where I can really feel like myself!”

“I go to Burning Man to let my freak flag fly, and that gets me through the rest of the year!”

“Where did this tattoo come from? How far down does it … what’s Camp Thunder Ink, and am I really its mayor?”

The notion that Burning Man is a kind of therapeutic spa for creative spirits – the place we go to be gifted chicken soup for the soul – is even implied in our official language. It’s different from the “default world”; coming and going from Burner events is “decompressing” and “recompressing.” There’s a deep notion that coming to Burning Man is the equivalent of getting psychological work done, and this makes you better able to cope with the cruelties of a world where people don’t wear fuzzy boots before Labor Day.

If this is true … and I know at least three DJs who swear it is … then it ought to show up not just in the things we *do* in the default world (the activism, the saving the environment, the being the change we want to see – like Gandhi with glow sticks), but in the things we *don’t do* in the default world. “Decompressing” ought to save us from the kind of pressure that pushes us to do immensely stupid self-destructive things.

Read more »

OMG! Isn't she amazing!

Attaching her arm

The light in her eye

 
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