Desert Days
You really have no idea how difficult it is to write about Burning Man. I even kept a written log, designed to help preserve my memories and to facilitate blogging. Still, it defies words.
The surface of the Black Rock desert is known as the playa. "Playa" literally means beach in Spanish, but in this case, it refers to a dry, alkali lake bed. The sediments from the ancient lake have since settled to give it a high pH. The playa is inhospitable to plant, animals, and really, to people. Because of its alkali tendencies, playa silt has the ability to cause chemical burns on one's skin. Don't worry, most people, including myself, aren't that sensitive to it if it's washed off about once a day.
Combine the threatening playa with thin air, intense heat during the day, chilling cold at night, no cell phone service or planes flying over your head and the result is essentially Martian. As I mentioned yesterday, we arrived in the dark and eventually left in the dark. You wouldn' t have a hard time convincing me that we actually drove through a portal that led to Mars, or perhaps the moon.
But I have it on good faith that I was still on earth. The most salient feature of Burning Man was, to me, the people that I met there and the community that I encountered. The journey to the middle of the desert is so arduous and expensive that only those individuals who really care to go show up. Everyone is friendly. It's like NYC, when the crazy people talk to on the subway - only they're not crazy. They work at biotech companies. They are artists from Seattle. They drove across the country from New Jersey in 3 days in a schoolbus, stopping only for gas.
Not only are they friendly, they want to give you things. Buttons, stickers, candy, alcohol, doughnuts, hotdogs, glowsticks, hugs...you name it. It's sometimes called a gift economy - once you enter the gates of the city, you cannot buy or sell anything, save for ice and coffee at center camp. To my great surprise, gifting did not mean bartering - people actually gave things without expecting anything in return.
Another point of note about the people - many of them are in costume and quite a few are naked. Is it weird at first? A little. But it's not a sexualized nudity, it's more of a freedom of expression nudity. Despite the flesh, I saw fewer public displays of affection than I do on the streets of New York. A few hugs, yes, but very little face-eating. The costumes are less Halloween, dressed as a particular person (the girl from the 5th element) or thing (a standup comic...dare I say wall?), and more "radical self expression." (Figured out the buzz phrase for Burning Man yet?) Bright colors prevail and at night, big shoes and furry hats take the scene to keep out the cold on the dance floor. Did I mention that 40,000 people attend?
Perhaps more this weekend. I can only write so much a day.