So yeah, I'm finally back from my eons-long vacation to Burning Man. Apologies if it takes me a few days to ramp back up to my regular quota of posts around here; I'll try, but the reintegration/decompression process hasn't run its course. Naturally I was thrilled to get back and see the big hubbub about the fact that the Man burned early. Monday was the day we stopped to get our RV batteries replaced in our camper van, only to have the idiot technician start an electrical fire that basically ruined the van for the rest of the week. We had some superficial repairs done that day and dutifully charged out to the playa, and were just totally fried when we got there - and determined not to leave camp. And someone said, "Oh, I think you'll leave camp for
this," and sure enough, when we saw the Man was on fire early, we dutifully charged out across the playa to go look at it.
Of course, it didn't get that much cooler the closer we got to it, but it was certainly hilarious, and you really don't get to see towers of water aimed at the Man every day, so there was that. Everyone I talked to that week thought it was extremely humorous; it was only later when we got back to civilization that I learned that countless shrieking pundits had determined this was an awful travesty of justice, or something.
Now I freely admit that Paul Addis's strident remarks that circulated after the event certainly had an obnoxious quality about them, but personally, I try not to judge a play by the director's notes in the program. The fact is, for many of us, seeing the Man burn early was a beautiful sign that the entire festival still had the capacity to surprise us, to engage us in unexpected ways. Of course, throughout the week, I was also quite taken aback by some of the outstanding large scale art installations on the playa (the dancing monkeys, the big rig); the last time I went, three years ago, I remember comparing notes with Erik Davis and we both sort of muttered about how there really wasn't anything that remarkable that year. Well, this year was different, and the early burning of the Man - coupled with the incredibly noble efforts of DPW and crew to get a new Man in place by Thursday evening - symbolized alla that in a lot of ways. While the desert was busy kicking some of our asses (my wife and I had to leave early due to mechanical and physiological duress), others were out there kicking everyone else's ass with some inspired ideas and some ridiculous risks.
That said, I fucking hate Burning Man, and hope to never go back, but still, it was kind of neat this year.
