It’s Burning Man time again, that season of bacchanal for the affluent in a desert declared arbitrarily irrelevant to the proceedings, and I have as yet found no reason to revise my opinion of the whole deal.
The gist of that 2004 post:
Faced with one of the last truly wild landscapes left in the US, their response is to build a city. This is not creativity: it is dreadful, dull conformity. Finding one of the last sublime remnants of the unpopulated West, they want nothing more than to pack it with tender urbanites in a glorified tailgate party. This is not an alternative way of life: it is standard American operating procedure.
The organizers do a yeoman job of cleaning up after the revelers, of training them not to set fires directly on the playa floor. They strain after each stray pistachio shell. They remonstrate over cigarette wrappers.
That the participants of this new age hippie circus need daddy and mommy to pick up their garbage speaks volumes.
Not quite so many volumes as all that. The organizers do a yeoman job training the revelers to clean up their own garbage.
Yeah, I love that “there’s nothing there” argument. They also like to say that when they are looking for cheap real estate, as well as some new, unspoiled place to trash.
Here’s OUR latest version of “there’s nothing there” that the rich managed to steal and mark-up by about a million percent: http://www.cliffscommunities.com/
It used to be so nice out there, too.
You are right in that BURNING MAN seems to be the alternative, artsy version of same.
but, but… there are naked people! and art! and you have to pack everything in and pack it all out, just like camping!
i’ve never gotten the attraction myself. my youngest cousin was an enthusiastic participant for years, and to the extent it was important to him, who am i to criticize? burning man itself only lasted a few days, but he found a niche in a group that hung together all year. [as cheech and chong used to say, “it’s not a gang; it’s a club.”]
despite the huge crowds and strange goings-on, my long-distance view is that they do a pretty good job of leaving things as close as possible to how they found them. burning man has to compare favorably in that regard to any large sporting or cultural event. somehow, i don’t think the woodstock organizers worried over cleanup so much. i doubt sincerely that visitors to bohemian grove need be concerned about their castoffs personally; they have people for that.
seems to me there is value in trying to tread lightly, and teach others some skills in that area; in forming a large ad hoc community that is respectful and reasonably law-abiding; in those human connections that carry on beyond a certain time and place.
To those who don’t “get” Burning Man. My friends, I guess it’s just not for you.
Things that I “get” that are not for me:
the circus
99.9% of zoos
the Bush administration
fireworks displays
spending Saturday at the mall
crowded beaches
you get the drift…
Every year, I’m informed that my lack of interest for Burning Man has something to do with my “not getting” something. It’s like being on or off Ken Kesey’s bus, I guess.
The possibility that I get it, have judged it, and don’t want it seems to escape some folks. I’ve gotten to know quite a number of agglomerations of self-described Kewl Kidz in my years, and while the individuals in those agglomerations vary widely, the groups themselves tend toward deadening sameness.
I hasten to add, however, that I think plenty of cool and fun people go to Burning Man each year. Scroll up to Megan’s comment and click on her name to see some writing from one such.
oh, dear. lawlessness broke out, as someone burned the burning man prematurely:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/28/BA2ARQRFI.DTL
i guess you are right about recreating dullness and conformity. although it is a little funny, arson charges for someone burning the man without authorization.