I know that I had no idea what the festival was before I came. And now after having gone in 2014 I still don't think I am any closer to an idea of what it is all really about.
Burning Man for the moment was as if the Lost Boys from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan grew up into the world of Mad Max. As I drove out of Gerlach, Nevada after my Burning Man experience I had said to one of the other passengers in my ride 'I leave a city filled with hippies and neon lights, to go back to a city filled with hippies and neon lights'. And we spent about 10 hours in the car driving to the City of the Angels caked in alkali dust.
How does one collate and quantify the experiences of their first trip to Burning Man? How does one write a journal entry explaining all the things he did and saw that were amazing, beautiful, and wonderful? I'm not sure. I had so many ideas and thoughts about how I was going to go about this journal entry when I was there. I then gave up those thoughts and began to have fun and live in the moment. Which is what you should be doing in your regular life but what is definitely encouraged in the looser society that is Burning Man.
Burning Man is a place for artists, a welcome place for artists, painters, sculptures, so I thought as someone who does enjoy writing from time to time explaining what it is all about would be relatively easy. Unfortunately it has been relatively difficult for my mind to think of the right non-sarcastic type of prose to describe things a more cynical mindset would have already dove into about the festival.
Do you like casual nudity, being naked in front of strangers, drugs, music (of all kinds it's not just EDM people), and lights, and art, and sculpture, and bike rides, and yoga, and juggling, and stilt walkers, and vaginas, and alcohol, and penises, and tea, and pornography, and being sprayed with a fire hose, and electroshock, and dangerously climbing on weird structures, and bumper cars, and ooooohhhhh ahhhhhhh sooooooo many things. Oh look at that thing, ooh strip chess, he took your pawn 'take off your socks' he took your queen 'take off your panties'. Oh wait we forgot there's an art car out in Playa playing Stevie Wonder but you have to be dressed as an animal to join the party . . . lets doooo that!!!!! *.* BURNING MAN FOREVER!!!!
Basically that sums up the somersaults my brain was doing walking through the Playa.
There are 4 basic guidelines to enjoying yourself at Burning Man; though there are 10 "Principal's of Burning Man" I'm too lazy to look them up right now :P. There are 4 basic things to know. In the words of Scar "Be Prepared"… 'Don't Be a Dick", "Take Care of Yourself", "Participate", "Share", "Clean Up". (Yeah I know it's not four, leave me alone, I don't have to participate in your spelling regime man, save that for the regular world. I can spill how every I want to punchtuate my words dammit!) Muffins.
I feel like everything anybody can possibly say and have already said won't do anywhere near justice what a first hand account will do so I won't bore you with the utter tedium that is spelling out all the things I did. Naked shower dance party (Maybe) Drugs (Maybe) Falling asleep in a piece of art (Maybe) watching the sunrise and sunset (Maybe) Drugs (Also maybe, stop asking Narcos!) Oooooh Muffins.
Anyways so I took a whole bunch of Euphemisms and Euphamismed my Euphamising brain off. Look at all those colors . . . *.*
(INNER MONOLOGUE) 'Wholly crap everyone's so friendly and and huggy and free beer and drinks and woah look at all the lights and Weeeeee there's a pirate ship with dance music and hurray!!!! Wow look at that thing, and that thing, neat, ah sandstorm, need my goggles.' (I call the use of commas in this sentence (and a lot of my writing) the "Fuck You Comma". I use them instead of the Oxford Comma.)
It's a 7 week long party in the middle of the dessert built by 65'000 people all with unique costumes and structures they are living in and ideals on what 'fun' means. Sooooo yeah it's kinda hard to actually describe and if I did a play by play I would feel like a bad tedious writer and this entry might not be fun to read, so JUst Go JuSt go to BurNinggg Mann at some point Doooo IT!!!!!
It's like a whole other universe man.
Smiley Face. :)
Captian's Log - BURNING MAN ENTRY 10/22/14 - SPECIMEN - DANIEL LOUIS KRONE.
OVER AND OUT.
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