Can we talk about Burning Man?
I want to know if you've been and what your experience was like.
You're welcome?
Appreciate it, but the story was already going up—thus why I thought of this question!
I'm not mad at you. :)
2
this will be my thirteenth year. The city has grown and mutated. There's a lot less public nudity and public sex. There's a lot more large-installation art. There was a period of nothing but EDM an now mobile/acoustic music can be found everywhere. Used to be more road-warrior, now it's more...everything.
The number one downside cited by those who've never gone is the dust. There is a couple of hours where the dust feels icky. And then...you're over it. It's dry alkali dust that makes your hair awesome and keeps down perspiration. It's not bad at all. There is beautiful weather out there. Yes it gets hot and cold, but it also gets lovely.
Don't want to preach. Just go and check it out. It's impossible to capture on film or in words.
4
A lot less public nudity and sex sounds like a potential downgrade.
2
Been ten times, this year will be #11. The decreased nudity is most likely because in a few years suddenly everyone had video cameras on their phones. Up to only a few years ago you were asked to register your camera and sign a good behavior agreement, but they've given up because that's everybody now. So anything you do can go straight to social media. Add to that the number of people now camping with their coworkers.
Public sex wasn't that common and mostly in out of the way places, because even at BM it's annoying. Ooooh lookit you, aren't you special. Here watch me poop.
Sure, depending on what you're after...
4
I've been multiple times. It's very hard to describe the experience in anything less than a novel, as each one has been very different, but overwhelmingly a positive in my life.
Has it changed for you over the years?
2
For me, it's a constant evolution. It's allowed me to explore my creativity in new ways, and to seize the temporary community concept to embrace transience. I'm not sure how long I'll continue going as the spike in popularity has changed it in ways I'm not happy with (partying is part of Burning Man, but Burning Man is not just a party...too many people don't get that anymore).
4
Okay, no, I've never been. The idea of playa dust up in my private parts (and everywhere else) is anathema to me. However, my artist husband goes nearly every year, and it has changed his life—or as we say here in the South, the bug that was up his ass up and died. All credit goes to those prancing pony, sequin-encrusted, glow-stick bicycling, art-producing rebels. Thank you, O mighty effigy!
Now, if you wanna get into the politics of it, or the massive and unwilling commercialization of it, I'm not the person to talk discuss it with, although I grieve for the days when it was just artist nerds and mushroom-munching yahoos instead of white silk tablecloths, RVs and TED talks.
How do you think Burning Man changed him exactly? What about Burning Man aided in killing the bug up his ass?
2
He's been an artist all of his life, and he'd been in a massive creative funk that lasted YEARS, with bonus depression—it was a sort of recursive thing. When he decided to go, he had the impetus to throw himself wholly back into that creative mode, where he is the happiest and most productive. He seems to be able to stay in that mode now. That's one thing.
The other important thing is that the bug crawled up his ass when we moved here into the Deep South. I think it was one of his lesser successful efforts to acclimate to the culture. It's hard to live down here and NOT be redneck, racist, Baptist, and Republican, but he gave it a good effort (that nearly cost us a marriage, but that's another story for another day heh). I could make a joke about his becoming a mushroom-munching yahoo, but the truth is that Burning Man reminded him of who he really is—a talented, nonconforming artist with a lot to say, and it gave him a booster shot of like-minded people who wanted to listen/see his work. He has always come home from the playa mentally and emotionally refreshed, with a renewed sense of artistic purpose. (I won't make this at all about me, but this really hit home because I, too, am a visual artist, and being stuck in a (non)creative funk is the WORST. There are few outlets here for visual arts—it's better now than it has been, but it still sucks. I didn't want to be witness (or contribute) to that sense of artistic desperation in his life. Burning Man seems to have taken care of it.)
