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Drama in the Desert
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 burnishedbrushed
and burned cleanin 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.
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.
where is the dirty hippie option in preferences?
ostiguy
Do not taunt Happy Tesla Coil.
I'd go to see a stoner orgy that used life-sized chess pieces.
You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.
this is /. you're talking to here, or is that the total number of close friends the /. community has?
Imagine your home town is built on a moonscape, epic in cracked earth, hard sun, dust storms.... 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
What is this? A new Doom level?
When it comes to patterns emerging from chaos, you see what you look for (like clouds). If you, like most young American males, care only for intoxication and copulation, then that is all you will find.
People who believe that "everyone is a theif at heart" only say that to justify their own black, dishonest heart.
Well I don't do drugs anymore, but I still haven't outgrown the other... Count me in!
(Come'on, I can't be the only slashdotter that gets laid, can I?)
If you've only seen the photos and seen the press coverage, there's one alternate view in JWZ's journal.
I went twice -- '96 and '98.
I didn't do any drugs
I didn't get laid.
I had an amazing time.
Where thousands of the wealthiest and most powerful pay scads of money to celebrate anti-commercialism and equality. Gag me with a fucking spork; the hypocrisy is going to make my skin peel.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Burning Man is not for the fastidious - you are in an alkaline desert with no public facilities. We took a rented RV (complete plumbing, etc.). These small comforts cost a bit. The rental places are hip to this event, and they require an entire week's rental. The Oakland El Monte RV rental place is very cool, the guy in charge knows the Burning Man head honcho, has Burning man posters all over, etc.
I get a sense though that all the talk about community really applies to the few hundred hard-core burners. Not much effort is made to integrate newbies into this community. You sort of have to wander around and find thing hit-or-miss. Maybe this is a flaw in other intentional communities, where insiders are tightly knit, and outsiders may feel unwelcome.
Lots of neat stuff there however a realistic portrayal would also show zero visibility dust storms, long lines at porta-potties, etc. There are also several notorious speed traps along the road - Nevada Highway Patrol must make a mint here. It was not always a comfortable experience. Knowing what to bring is very important. For example, lots of old terry cloth towels, to wipe off the dust. Oh, and bring some sort of beverage to share with your neighbors, and do so as soon as you get there. Helps break the ice and you get to know the folks in your vicinity.
If you go, stay over Sunday night for the Temple burn. Also, as it tends to be windy, maybe a large kite to pass the late afternoons
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Tesla Coil.
Caution: Happy Tesla Coil may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Happy Tesla Coil Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Do not use Happy Tesla Coil on concrete.
Discontinue use of Happy Tesla Coil if any of the following occurs:
- Itching
- Vertigo
- Dizziness
- Tingling in extremities
- Loss of balance or coordination
- Slurred speech
- Temporary blindness
- Profuse sweating
- Heart palpitations
If Happy Tesla Coil begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.Happy Tesla Coil may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, Happy Tesla Coil should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration...
Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Tesla Coil, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Happy Tesla Coil include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Happy Tesla Coil has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt Happy Tesla Coil.
Happy Tesla Coil comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Happy Tesla Coil
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!
There are a *lot* of geeks at bman. I was reading with interest the previous single chip linux computer article as it sound perfect for an art project I have with 1400 ultra-bright LEDs. The home brew radio stations number in the dozens, and there are always tons of interesting robotics, laser, LED, and other projects. You get out of bman what you put into it.
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.
I suspect you'll have to imagine pretty hard - especially that "leave no trace" stuff ...
Shouldn't this book be free? And where are all the photographs? Shouldn't they be free, too?
Two years I went to Burning Man and got violently ill. It was too fucking hot, and I ate too much roasted papaya. A doctor in nearby Ralston, Nevada made me wait for hours in a tiny waiting room. There were no windows, no white sheets of protective paper on the prep table, and only a single mason jar full of tongue dispensers. On the wall was a calendar from 1977.
Anyway, this doctor -- he was an old guy, maybe in his 70's -- took all kinds of blood tests, urine samples, you name it -- but said, finally, it was a bad papaya. He advised me to pack up my shit and head home.
And then, just as I was putting my clothes on -- I'm not kidding -- he launched into a speech about hippies in the 1960s and how his son fought in Vietnam and how when his son came home, nothing was ever right in his son's head. He claimed that these burning people -- that's what he called them 'burning people' -- were hippie wanna-be's too young to protest in Vietnam and too dumn to understand the thing they shoulda be protesting was Ho Chi Minh, not the US government. I asked him: did he vote for Nixon? He said, yeah, he sure did, and then I reminded him that Nixon was just this side of a wack-job.
The doctor didn't like that and ordered me to leave his waiting room. I grabbed my shirt and shoes and shorts and on the way out wondered if he was going to give me anything for my stomach.
"Give you what?" he yelled. "You fucking peacenik."
I said, wait a minute hoss, I'm no peacenik. I came here under the assumption that guys like you were bound by the oath of hippocrates to help out all the peaceniks and hippies and burning man washouts.
He said to hell with that and said he didn't want to see me in his office again. I brought shame to him and his son.
"My son," he yelled at me as I walking across the parking, "fought for hippies like you. He was in Marine and got a piece of NVA shrapnel in his arm which corroded and rusted and caused a rot that nearly ate off his whole arm."
I yelled back: Where's your son now, old man?
He said he's in a VA hospital in Galveston. His arm is shot, he smells bad, and he has a drinking problem.
"So much for Vietnam, then," I yelled, got in my car, and fishtailed out of the parking lot. I stopped at a drugstore down the street and picked up a bottle of Milk of Magnesia, and spent the night in a little motel in Henderson, Nevada. I puked a couple more times, but all was well the following morning.
I put a couple dollars worth of quarters into a couple of old slot machines, and won enough money to get me across the desert and into Idlewild -- another hippie-type community at the foot of the San Jacinto mountains. Last I heard, my father was supposed to live there, but when I went to the address I had for him, the house was occupied by a woman named Sylvia who threw pots and knitted sweaters. She invited me to stay for supper and told me that she knew my father but had no idea where he left when he moved out.
Anyway, I drove around the desert for a couple more days, then headed back east. I work at a tech company, so I was glad to get back home.
All in all, my own Burning Man experience was a disappointment. Months later, however, I got a bill from the doctor who treated me in Ralston. He charged my three hundred dollars for the office visit.
I wrote 'Fuck You' across the bill and sent it back.
Burning Man is William Shatner's version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" come to life. And no, that's not a good thing...
Now imagine a bunch of freaks and weirdos getting together with a bunch of junk, taking drugs, and going out of their way to prove themselves "more artistic than thou". Then watch as they try and do as many oddball things as possible to desperately cling to the notion that their meaningless lives have some sort of purpose. Hey, if you can't have a purpose that is actually productive, at least you can have an anti-purpose that tries to demonstrate to the world how "cool" you are.
Most teenagers go through this phase (e.g., Goths), and grow out of it. It's really pathetic when they don't.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Hands don't count.
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.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
if they can get out there. the playa is probably a mud bowl this time of year.
What realy 'works' are the amazing number of people who bust their asses cleaning up after people who do go just to party. Part of me was really excited to see this article posted because Burning Man is such an amazing thing and I want everyone to share in the experience. Another part of me sees the kinds of posts that have followed and thinks these people should stay home. Are there drugs and sex at Burning Man? Yes. Is that what Burning Man is all about? Only for the moronic frat boys that show up the last couple of days to get f-ed up and ogle women. For the rest of us, it's a week to be amazed at the freedom one feels being in a place totally devoid of any commercialism, being amazed by the creativity and generosity of thousands of people who've come to share it with you, and giving what you can back to the community.
that the drug thing is pretty true. I tried bm a few years back and it was definitely an experience. i liked a lot of the crazy shit. and i think there were a lot of genuine people there for the community and the art and the whole 'journey'. i can definitely understand just wanting to get the hell away from 'civilization' as one can.
but on the other hand, i felt a huge disconnect there. i'm not the raver type and just wanted to hang out with people, check stuff out, but there was definitely much more of a non-stop party than i really wanted. all party and no one to share it with i suppose.
however, one cool thing i did was to walk across the playa, find some friends, who in turn followed some dj in a big rolling fish bowl with speakers and monitors all over back to some 'club' in the middle of nowhere. it was interesting, but i didn't care much for the music so i headed back the way i came. the dust storm was incredible. i would just see people and vehicles and weird shit come out of no where. luckily i wasn't run over cuz people are all over the place in their art cars.
anyway, off in the distance i heard motors and drumming. i walked by and there were these mad max cars circling this big artsy wooden thing (no it wasn't the man), shooting flames at it, torching it. also lined up next to one of the cars that stopped were these drummers banging out a steady tribal rythm on their drums. pretty surreal.
so, yah, i guess you can take whatever you want from that place. there were definitely dorks, but also cool people and whatever else you wanted there. for me, it was definitely an experince and i like weird shit, but i'll probably never go back. just not my thing, really.
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.
The guy wearing an oversized Campbells Soup can is obviously the shade of Andy Warhol!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"Anyone who takes drugs has severe personality problems anyway."
Thanks for the tip. That would explain why I turn into a murderous psychopath after a couple beers.
Consider for a minute that maybe it's not what Burning Man IS that matters. It's what it ISN'T.
If you think Burning Man is a real-life porn movie, or a drug-drenched GigaRave, or a city full of art wankers, or any of the many other stereotypes people use to knock it, then guess what: YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO! 28,000 of us are having a good time, and frankly we don't care what you think of us.
Consider for a minute that maybe a committee didn't design Burning Man so it has maximum entertainment value for your demographic. Maybe you have to participate and contribute what you've got to offer, instead of consuming what you think you need.
I have gone out to the playa six years running now, so I am clearly drinking the Kool-Aid.
Each year, wandering around turns up a huge number of jaw-dropping art projects, cool new friends, diverse lectures, performances and debate, and solitary time for reflection. It reinvigorates my sense of the possible, restores my faith in human nature, and pokes me to make more of my extra-desert life. I got the book as a gift yesterday, and it is really really well done; can't speak for the DVD.
Notably, it has given me a whole new outlet for my robotics obsession. I have tinkered with EL wire, LEDs, motors, seismometers, lasers, servos, and sound activated circuits. Other friends have learned to weld, build domes, and created elaborate games ( www.gyft.org ), costumes, props, and sculptures for the event. At the East Coast ( playadelfuego.org ) and Austin regional ( burnaustin.org ) events, an even merrier crew of hard core campers turns out, somehow.
There is a buttload of tech out there, from stage equipment to powerful lasers. There is wireless internet, pirate radio and TV, and amazing one-of-a-kind sound and light sculptures.
Of course, if you can't see past your own cynical ego, maybe it is better you don't come. You can go see bare breasts locally for much cheaper, and their owners won't threaten you for gawking. It is hot and dusty and cold and rainy and loud 24/7, with lines at the portapotties AND these people are freaks.
They're my people.
Try to stop at Pyramid Lake, if you're coming from southern Nevada. It's a huge lake surrounded by desert. The whole place is an Indian reservation. At one corner of the lake, a natural stone column (strikingly pyramid shaped) rises out of the water. At another part of the lake, is another stone shape that looks strikingly like a cloaked woman with a baby basket. The drive from Reno is breathtaking, from what I hear. And if you're into fishing, some of the world's largest cutthroat trout (Lahontan) are caught there.
There's a lot to be said for that point of view. But at least at Burning Man, some people do it well. It's better than the SF art scene, where nobody tells artists when they suck, and they continue doing bad art for decades.
Burning Man has a faction of Deadhead types, bereft since their idol overdosed. They have an annoying 60's stoner tendency to pretend that what they do for fun is really important. But they're dying off. The younger people admit they're just having fun.
IMO art is an expression from one person to another. Music was art before it could be written down or recorded; dance was art before we had videotape. Just because you can't buy it and hang it on your wall to impress your friends doesn't mean it can't move you.
Saving pieces of art is great -- I don't think all art should be temporary. But it's also OK to improvise on an instrument, to doodle on the corner of your math notes; to fingerpaint; to hum a tune while you're walking somewhere.
Burning the art at the end of the event gives people permission to "doodle" and let their creativity out a little more. Experiencing that temporary week of freedom does leave a permanent mark on the world, but it happens by changing people's heads, rather than producing hunks of sculpted plaster and painted canvas.
Here's a feature about Burning Man '97 when Brian Foley made his first trek with the Artists Republic of Fremont.
"The weekend in the desert was wondrous, amazing, a Temporary Autonomous Zone full of performance art, sculpture, dance, music, painting (typically using the human body as a canvas), comedy, vaudeville, theater, technology, and whatever else you might be looking for. The other citizens of the Artist's Republic of Fremont and I, who had never been to a Burning Man festival before, can not compare this event to any other we had ever attended. The closest thing I can compare it to is perhaps the Grateful Dead show in Veneta in 1982, or Carnival in Tepotzlan, Mexico. The scope of this year's event was mind-blowing. Trying to explain it in words to people probably can not convey the chaotic frenzy of artistic output that went on over the course of three days, only to be destroyed or dismantled by the end of the festival. Next year I plan to bring an audio recorder so I can get the sounds of the event and capture thoughts as they happen. Picture a mile-long promenade along the shore of a dry lake bed, along which are theme camps as varied as the H. Marx Memorial Croquet Society. The Art Cars Camp and the Sphere of Influence. The Grrlie Grrl tent, the Post Office Camp, the Illuminati Camp and the Black Light District. Each one of these camps were interactive in some way, designed to engage participation instead of observation. One of the most important rules at burning Man was "NO SPECTATORS." Article and photos by Brian Foley
My name is Carlos Montoya. You share files of my music. Prepare to die.
...self-righteous, privileged neo-hippies that make goofy arts and crafts are especially pathetic when portrayed in coffee table books of their own making.
There are many things that I don't like about burning man. One is that it takes it name from a real Celtic ritual and is not true to the origin. Burning man is like fire walking if the man lived he would be king. It wasn't for very long and it represented the overcoming the material. The fact that this spiritual journey costs over one hundred dollars and comes with twenty five thousand other seekers makes it a commercial venue and not a journey. However, the fact that twenty five thousand people are looking for art and a experience is heartening in some way. So what if it is Neo Christo recycled seventies crap. They want art. Which means they might go to a museum, or look up historacal contect or have an original thought one day. Something important may happen. The romance of the appocolypse has wanned in my eyes since it seems more immenant. North Korea is making bombs aimed at us. Use of nuclear weapons is a real possibility. There are people stocking up on the would be currency of cigarettes. For a few days these people are not students or failed dot commers or bike messanger or lawyers. they are citizens. They are less lonely as modern primitives. The events marketing could only be successful if it met a need. It does the need for the orgiastic experience. It is the same frenzy of a tent revival. The idea of the collective is more enticing than the collective itself. Those who wish to move the community into their daily lives are often disappointed by the result. Burning man is the cult of the want to be dispossesd. Those of us who really live in shopping carts and see aliens in the lights are not welcome. Peircing tatooing and ritual pain that take place without a cultural context is devoid of the meaning within the tribe. It is the the plight of the fleeting aborigine with the public relations job.
...the only people with time to imagine that shit (and to play the tea party version of Utopia) are fucking trust fund hippies.
That was one of the reasons we had to go to Grateful Dead shows every night. They were always different, not only playing different songs every night, but playing each one differently every time. Sometimes it flopped, but sometimes it was pure magic. It wasn't just the performers on stage, it was also the interaction of the performers and the crowd. Recordings are nice, but they're not the same thing as being there, and the shows were always recorded for posterity - not necessarily on tape, but in the thousands of different recordings in the memories of the individual audience members. Also, while some of the songs started out good, what really happened was that there would be a basic structure that would evolve as they'd get more experience with performing it, and with how the crowd reacted to it, and with what their emotions were at the different times they were performing.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I live in Phoenix.
a Tesla coil taunted by a wacky scientist
Too bad this isn't Command & Conquer...
Barter is still commerce, you know.
If Burning Man were truly devoid of any commercialism, you'd make your resources freely available to anyone who wanted them, without regard for receiving value in exchange. You'd move from camp to camp, taking anything that struck your fancy, without any concern for ownership or permission to do so.
As it is, I get the impression that most attendees intentionally bring trade goods which they hope to exchange for the goods and services which they haven't brought. If that isn't commercialism, I don't know what is.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I see recording like Zappa did. The studio is another instrument - it allows the artist to perfect his/her vision. Live performance is too spontaneous to allow a coherent statement to come forth.
I'm a musician.. I used to play improvised music, fusion type stuff. One time I recorded a 13 minute solo over 2 chords. some people loved it. It was described as "genius" and all that other stuff. I was in a different zone when I played it and I felt like I really made a coherent statement.
Then, I lost the tape. I hadn't written the piece out on paper, nor did I have an extra copy lying around.
To me, this completely invalidated the concept of wholly improvised music. The statement that I made was lost forever, because a) I was dumb with the tapes and b) it was just one moment in time.
I could never reproduce the song because it was the product of a very specific mood. This made me realize that the holy grail of music is to write a song that always puts forth the same impression and always produces the same mood in the listener.
Words always mean the same thing, so should music. Humans being imperfect as they are, this requires that recording technologies be used to capture and perfect the vision of the composer. Even scoring the piece in musical notation leaves it open to mutation by half-assed musicians. Now, recording is even more fuckup-friendly with all the remix and sampling shit that's going on.
Now does my stance make sense?
I always imagined there would be lotsa new-age free-love types there... Well? What's the skinny on that? What's the 4-1-1?
;)
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
For the record, Camp Lite Brite rocked.
So we can enjoy Bach, even though we do not live in early 18th century Germany?
Hence art designed to be destroyed is inherently bad art?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
yes, yes, yes, and yes. :)
This is my opinion. You're welcome to be wrong
The Drama in the Desert DVD is much more than photos -- there is a full feature-length movie on there that has been well-received at a few theater screenings, and has been described as "Baraka-esque."
Maybe this book will give people who haven't been a better look at things, and for those of us who go, give us some nice pictures to remind us why we like going.
There is truly amazing art: (life-size battlezone tank made from el wire). There is a lot of crap art that gets ignored.
Giving things is good: We gave away almost 4,000 books of matches this year and a few handfuls of stickers. People gave us stuff because they had stuff to give away. We've delivered booze, cupcakes and toys to various people just because it's fun doing it.
There are naked people, sometimes huge crowds of them. I wish some of them weren't naked. (I've seen a lifetime worth of balding no-pants hippie guys.) After a few days, you really stop noticing.
Some people do drugs. Some people don't do drugs. Nobody forces them on you, and nobody cares if you do them, as long as you aren't bothering other people.
The best thing (or worst thing) is that it's up to you to contribute in a way that lets you have fun. Don't like the music? Play/Bring your own. Want to roller skate? Bring a roller rink. Want to make a flamophone? Want to build a galleon on top of a schoolbus and drive around singing pirate songs? Nobody's stopping you. (Well, they might ask you to not operate the flamphone in camp for safety reasons.)
Want to complain about how uncool and unhip and commercialized it is now and how much better it used to be and how much it sucks now? Fine, but please stay the hell home next year and leave more room for the rest of us.
PhotoVista was meant for making QuickTime VR-like images, where you can scroll the panorama around in a web page using a viewer plugin or Java applet. But I always thought it was cooler to have just a photographic banner.
I have a panorama I took at burning man on this page. The panorama in that page is quite small so that it will fit on your screen - click it and you'll get a greatly enlarged view where you can see some detail (including the PhotoVista Demo Version watermark!).
I have promised the organizers of Burning Man that I'd give them a hi-res panorama on CD that they can print and hang in their office, but I've never gotten it together to make it for them. I'll try to do that sometime soon.
You can find a few other examples of my photography, art and music here. I have a lot of stuff on PhotoCD that I mean to put on the site, but again I've been too busy to deal with it. There are several MP3's of my piano compositions though.
I'm not sure if PhotoVista is still published. Live Picture was bought out by MGI Software, who were then themselves purchased by Roxio (the Easy CD Creator people). Roxio has an inexpensive graphics bundle package, but I don't know whether PhotoVista is included. Besides stitching the images, it would handle such things as lens distortion quite nicely.
I have a couple panoramas I took up on the Eiffel Tower that are still waiting to be scanned.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
burnt in 00, 01, and 02...
I saw no billboards nor did I see anything for sale... The idea that this is a commercial event is dreamed up by people too petty to fork out $up to $250 bucks for a ticket. At $250 (the higher end of the price range) and a 7 day trip to blackrock you could say this vacation costs about 35 bucks a day. So for nonstop entertainment thats less then $1.50 an hour. I havent been to a three hour concert for less then 40 bucks in the past 5 years. While I was at the burn I found it hard to goto sleep thinking I was missing something fun to do but had to rest for something fun that will happen tomarrow.
In all three visits to blackrock city I have not spent a dime beyond the gates. Like most people I forget something and my fellow burners always have my back and I theirs. There is no city or community that supports its people like burning man... free of charge... no forms to fill out... no prerequisite. Just buy a ticket and go.
Think the ticket is priced too high? Fill out a scholarship application on the burning man web site. For those of you who have something to offer then another bitch and actualy CANT afford to HELP THEMSELVES a little... there is help for you too.
My experience with burning man is somewhat like school or a job. The more you put into it... think and plan ahead... look beyond the press and the slashdot flames... The more you will get in return. Unlike the tired real world always looking for "something new"... you will find it around every corner waiting for you. You just gotta get off your ass and be there.
what it's like until you've been there.
A lot of people don't believe it can be as good as claimed, Leave No Trace, gift economy, etc. And most of them they stay at home, bitterly bitc^H^H^H^Hposting about how lame everything is.
Those who do believe show up and create it. This self selection process yields a pretty amazing bunch of people.
Ask anyone who's complaining if they've been. For those (few) that have, ask if they were invovled in anything, or just were waiting for the experience to happen to them. It's all about being involved.
And yes, there's drugs, frat boys, and trustafarians. But there's also the most incredible art you've ever seen, more intense life experiences that you didn't mean to have, and more real possibilities for life than you had any idea existed.
The truth has been said before: you find what you're looking for. If you want lameness you can find it anywhere. But if you want transcendant, indescribable life epxerience and community, you'll find it there like no other place.
Here's a good, short article on the vastness and variety of the experience.
Another good bit is the speech Larry Harvy (founder of BM) gave at Cooper Union earlier this year.
It's a city that's made up of people who value art, self expression, and creativity far more then society at large. This changes even seemingly mundane interactions. The amount of magic that's possible in this city keeps me going back. I've met many of my best friends there.
I expect that I'll always be drawn to the flame, the wonder, and the other curious creative people.
I love Holly's photographs and her book. Many other people will also.
julian of supersnail
Looks to me like most of the complaints here about Burning Man are by lumpen hypocrites who haven't troubled to actually attend BM. Maybe we need book or film reviews by people who never read the book or saw the film? And the complaints about bad art are by tight-assed kids and codgers who only feel safe within the box. Progress never comes from the complacent, and art requires a little unbending, you know? So what if some percentage of the art is flaky, when you open the doors for exploration you take the good with the poor. And anyone who says all art must be permanent or it's useless is just terribly shallow. Seems to me the posters are divided into two categories, the rigid-minded, and the flexible. I know which set contributes more to society.