B u r n l o g

I’m always amused that so many people associate Burning Man with “Hippies”. It’s just some sort of brain-dead cliché certain outsiders are overjoyed to foist on anything counter to anything I suppose.

On the Playa, where are flowers and trees to hug? Who there is wearing organic hemp clothing or, it hurts to even say it, tie-dye? Nobody’s growing their own food in the dust bowl Playa. Drum circles are relatively sparse in actuality. The preciousness associated with the usual vegan-earth-drunken-love-and-peace-please mentality is pretty much ripped apart for fun out there. So, tell me, what’s so “Hippie” about the Burn?

Ah shucks, in gouging a cliché I had to illustrate with a bunch of “hippie” stereotypes…

From Earthday Events:

“YOU WOKE UP on Sunday and saw the rain pouring down and thought ‘Well, I can’t go to Earth Day now.’

Sure, you were all set for the free concerts, like the one on the Mall — and maybe you were even going to wear this old tie-dye shirt you got that one time from your friend who went to Burning Man, and it was gonna be sweet, man. But the rain…”

UPDATE!
Our good pal M~ sent a snarky list of “hippie words and phrases and what they really mean”.

Note also the truly amazing “Astral Chakra Matrix” so you can “magically manifest your ‘prayerformance’ troupe name, playa-name or next CD name with ease.” Finally, thank Goddess!

A few enlightening hippie definitions:

Burningman
A huge art installation in the desert that many hippies have mistaken for a model of Utopian society which they attempt to recreate in their hometowns for the next 51 weeks. Ignoring the fact that everything about it is completely unsustainable.

Festival
A party; usually dressed up to have some kind of socio-political or spiritual significance. This of course has little impact on the number of bad trips, fights, and misuse of the land that takes place. Often doesn’t change anything but gives revelers the impression that it has.

Gifting
The act of dumping your useless crap on other people.

Gift Economy
Two possible meanings:
1) Great until you end up with a bunch of “landfill fodder” from people who missed the point or
2) Rich people giving away free drugs

Tribe
MySpace for hippies.

Wiccan / Pagan
Subscribing to a belief system to prove to everyone that you don’t subscribe to belief systems.

Amber and Marcy have added their lovely shots to Gallery Hop for a total of six galleries!

Four photographers’ galleries are up so far in the Gallery Hop! Thanks to Eric, Jacquie, and Mani for contributing.

More to come…

I’ve been ripping from Laughing Squid a lot lately concerning BM, yet there’s so much burning goodness there!

In light of the recent court proceedings, the folks at Laughing Squid combed their archives for musings of old. Check it:

Bad Day At Black Rock Cacophony Society Zone Trip #4

Read more about the first 10 years (’86-’96) at the Burning Man Web site.

Snapshots of memorable bits and odd ends overheard at the Burn (more to come by Kava Island folks… hopefully :-):

• Marcy
• greeting our neighbors as they play horseshoes and drink pbr in the heat of the day…. every day.
• practicing my samba on sunday afternoon before the gates open. i see someone pull up a chair in the next camp and hang out to watch. whatever, thats what the dancing is kinda there for! it turns out its dino from the perimeter/ dpw camp guys next to us. as they were all setting up he tells his friends, ‘hey! look at that! there she goes again! thats like carnival or something!’ his rough tough friends tell him, ‘no man, thats carnaval’
• waking up at dawn to find cliff and amy have arrived
• amy waking me up at dawn to show me howard and julian have arrived
• lee’s killer margheritas
• while working at the cafe a dust storm kicks up and my hat flies away. i chase after it at top speed. i finally get my hat, turn around and promptly get sprayed (camera in hand) by the water truck. i’ve never sworn so much in my life.
• NOT getting the dpw plague
• Stache
• Loving my Baby Seal Mates as we ROKT the Playa and Kava Island! Special shout to the Otter-ettes for turning that sleepy mid Friday Center Café into a whooping dance hall (well, sort of :-)!
• Joey watches happily as the three Otter-ettes (Jan, Stacie, and David) begin practicing their new routines for the Otter Dance. Joey eventually gets dragged in, protesting about poor dance skills, only to school pretty much everyone with his power moves! Awesome gyration Joey!
• Lounging deeply one evening in the large tent and pillows “Hopium Den” at the camp of Souliscious (near the Ashram Galactica), we were approached by a bright fellow in a three piece suit of large pink daisies densely arrayed on a sky blue background, his head capped with a rotund hot pink fur hat. El Fudo, in a fit of rolling laughter, immediately bestows from his pocket a “Third Place” ribbon. Our pink floral friend seemed slightly miffed and wondered aloud while holding the award, “What does it do?” …As we laugh some more.
• Riding back from the spikey bamboo ball as a windblown hat passes me on the ground and then a plastic cup as I finally turn back to see a giant dust storm bearing down like a grainy tidal wave. I’m without a dust mask as the full white-out swallows me on the Playa. I sit down with my bike next to a tall Playa lamp post in effort to increase chances of being seen by an errant art car. I wait it out not knowing that less than 30 feet away is a small pyramid of cover where I could have hung out with other trapped folks.

1. The first night, howling at the setting sun.
2. The tiny symphony created by our bikes’ dingy bells and honker horns as we tried to keep together riding on the dark playa at night.
3. Heard while in the portapotties “Oh no! Lollipop down!”
4. Man with Megaphone at 7am Wednesday morning “Open up your damn bars or I’ll come into your tents!”
5. The cruel joke of someone singing Guns and Roses karaoke at full volume, not realizing the music was not also being amplified.
6. The silence at the Temple Burn.
7. The beautiful girl singing trance in the Skinny Kitty Teahouse at 4 in the morning.
8. Drunk guy on Pirate Ship Cruise in reaction to Baby Seal Club’s music “Whooohooo!!!”
9. Hearing large groups of people cheering in the distance and knowing something exciting was happening out there.
10. The complete cacophany as you stood on the Esplanade - torchy sounds of giant art pieces belching flames, carnival-esque mix of various electronic music DJ’s competing, people yelling.
11. Free Peoples at the Easel Park brunch.
12. Fudo & Mahnkae waking me up at 2 in the morning Monday night shouting outside the van “Choklit! Where are you?”