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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.
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?
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
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"
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.