Drama in the Desert

Rerekuka writes "Imagine your home town is built on a moonscape, epic in cracked earth, hard sun, dust storms, thunderstorms, rainbow sherbet sunrises and tie-dyed sunsets that move you and your neighbors to applause. Imagine art born from 25,000 of your closest friends, from you, lining the streets and filling the dustbowl playa: a radiant cathedral built from recycled plastic "stained glass," a filigreed temple-mausoleum filled with messages to friends who have passed on, a coffin made of gun metal, a Tesla coil taunted by a wacky scientist, an art and philosophy-lined labyrinth, oases sprouting lawns and ferns." There's been a lot written about Burning Man; I especially like Bruce Sterling's report about it for Wired in 1996. Read on for Rerekuka's review of Holly Kreuter's book about the festival. Drama in the Desert: The Sights and Sounds of Burning Man author Holly Kreuter pages 144 publisher Raised Barn Press rating 9.5 reviewer Nina Rene Soreco ISBN 0-9721789-0-2 summary Multimedia immersion into the Burning Man culture. Imagine the only vehicles in the streets are art cars, like behemoth metal dragons spouting fire and spaghetti western covered wagons. Imagine strangers who would read to you from William Carlos Williams, offer you a snow cone or a Margarita. Imagine folk costumed in everything and nothing imaginable. Imagine walking into any jazz joint or grilled cheese stand, or getting your hair washed or your feet massaged, and your money is no good because this town operates on a gift economy. Imagine that everybody Leaves No Trace. Imagine diversity coexisting with common ritual - ritual based on radical free expression and purification by fire. Imagine a place where creation and impermanence, innocence and experience, the ridiculous and the sublime, are honored as facets of the same jewel. Imagine this is no fantasy.

Drama in the Desert: The Sights and Sounds of Burning Man is a compelling multimedia chronicle of life in Black Rock City, hometown to some 25,000+ "burners" who gather yearly over Labor Day week for the Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The book and accompanying DVD contain the stunning photography of Holly Kreuter and the artwork and voices of Burning Man participants, including an introduction by bestselling author Dave Eggers and a foreward by Burning Man founder Larry Harvey. The 74-minute DVD is, in Kreuter's words, "the book on steroids." Produced by Michael Lazar, the DVD showcases 560 of the author's images in a frame as large as your screen, and includes interviews with some of the artists and Larry Harvey. Sean Abreu's mesmeric, tribal soundtrack to the DVD is available separately. The CD drew mystified appreciation from a coworker who meandered into my cube, the DVD is an immersive meditation, and the book, gorgeously designed by Lisa Hoffman, has found its home on this reviewer's coffee table.

"How was it?" she asks, and attempts are made.
- Shannon Coulter, in a poem by the same name

Holly Kreuter's full-color images (283 in the book, 560 in the DVD), spanning five years of Burning Man citizenry, artwork, events, and land- and skyscapes, are captivating, both in the subjects she chooses and her own interpretive style. Some of the photos are stark and disturbing, such as the deteriorating iron, mesh-fleshed skeleton kneeling on the ashen earth, howling at the sky. Some are vibrant and whimsical, like the many-hued, body-painted folk in one mischievous tableau, the Ice Cream Freezing Man truck, the colorful, life-sized "chess" board, the city aglow with lights and electro-luminescent (EL) wire. Then there's the artwork, bewitchingly captured by Kreuter, that just falls into the "astounding" category: the Plastic Chapel, the Faces, the Temple of Tears, the Emerald City, the man made of books. The images of the tornado-esque dust devils, spinning like dervishes off the blazing 100-foot Man, are epic.

The book is sprinkled with diverse forms of word art, from haiku to narrative, written in strokes as broad as the spectrum of art at Burning Man. Overall, the writing is strong and bold; in a few places, it is a bit uneven or could be pared down, but these instances are minor. Writers include luminaries such as Free Will astrologer and author Rob Brezney, poet and author William L. Fox, and Chris Taylor, San Francisco bureau chief for Time Magazine.

All of the stories are intimate and real, describing journey, vulnerability, humor, awe, magic, and epiphany. One woman speaks of her initial shyness about slipping into the hot springs nude. (She gets beyond it.) John Kelly's testosterone-infused "Let Me Be Dangerous" dreams of riding in the back of a pickup truck going 60 on the playa:

. . . "Mind if I catch a ride?" I asked.
"You fall, you die," the driver answered.
"That's fair," I said.

Rob Brezsny speaks of an experience common in Black Rock City: "I have never in my life felt surrounded by such relaxing fertility, by so much luxuriant conviviality. For many days now I have glided without even a taint of fear through a city of 25,000 people. Unknown allies and I have spotted each other from a block away and run to each other like long-lost friends from previous incarnations . . . I have been in love with more than a few women in my life, but this is the first time I've plunged into the throes of spiritual infatuation with a time and place."

Tom Kramer's simple "Together," describes a premise intrinsic to the Burning Man community, a Buddha gift ripe for the world:

That we appear
separate
is the illusion.

At one time
the desert was
a mountain.

And we were children.

Holly Kreuter has been a Burning Man participant since 1995 and a staffer for Burning Man since 1997. She also founded Raised Barn Press, the production and publishing company that lovingly produced Drama in the Desert.

If you are a citizen of Burning Man ensconced in your everyday life, Drama in the Desert is a soulful trip Home. If you haven't been, Kreuter's collection is a playful, evocative dip into a culture as rich and exotic as can be found.

Experience samples of the text and images from the book, the DVD, and the separate CD at www.desertdrama.com, where you can also order the collection. www.raisedbarnpress.com will get you to the publishing company, a story in itself.

. . . in the great fire
my heart is burnished

brushed
and burned clean

in the great fire
I fall in love again
only this time
I am awake
and the azure sky is as transparent as my imagination

-Mark Jan Wlodarkiewicz, My Heart Has Been Burned Clean

You can purchase Drama in the Desert: The Sights and Sounds of Burning Man from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

puke

[kin_korn_karn]

The artistic side of Burning Man is such bullshit. It's like any other post-modern gathering, it's based on drugs and fucking. Anyone else who shows up is there to watch stoned people have orgies.

Burning Man not what it was.

[mcgroarty]

Burning Man is a huge commercial event now. It's not what it used to be, and we're due for something new.

If you've only seen the photos and seen the press coverage, there's one alternate view in JWZ's journal.

drugs and f***ing

[Anonymous Coward]

I went twice -- '96 and '98.

I didn't do any drugs

I didn't get laid.

I had an amazing time.

Re:You find what you look for.

[Trick]

I'm not sure how this got modded down, because it's very true. Maybe it was the overgeneralization of young American males... Anyway...

I've been to a few burns myself, and you're right -- there are a lot of people who go for drugs and fucking. However, there are also very many (probably many more than the D&F contingent, though I've never taken a poll) who *don't* think the art scene is BS. There are also people who look at Burning Man as a sort of spiritual pilgrimage, those who view it as an experiment in community-building, and those who see it as a giant bass-thumping rave.

That's one of the great things about Burning Man -- it's very hard to pin down what it is, because it's so many things to so many people. And, like the parent post mentioned, if you go looking for drugs and fucking, you'll probably be able to find plenty of evidence to reinforce your bias.

Excellent!

[Resident Geek]

There are some pretty wild things going out out in the desert--people find all sorts of applications for technology. Some are artistic, some are practical. One of my friends is learning how to build a flame cannon...I learned engineering skills to make a temporary, stable structure (a 33' geodesic dome). The cool thing is that each of the people behind the projects they bring will gladly share what they learned. The free software community and the Burning Man ideal aren't so different when it comes down to it.

It Doesn't Get Any Better

[DrSartorius]

Been reading through some of the comments about burningman. Pretty typical. There's a tendency for people that haven't been there to blather on about it having become "commercial" or how it's just a big drug party/orgy whatever. When the truth is that the person complaining is too lazy to get out to the desert to see for themselves. Burningman is extreme by design.
If you haven't been to Burningman I strongly urge that you check it out for yourself. As others have pointed out, you don't have to go to the desert to find many of the things that are there. For those who will seek it though Burningman is about much much more. I have been for 5 years now. There is nothing quite like Burningman. I wouldn't miss it for world.