Opening Monday.
We set up a rudimentary camp in the hours before and at dawn. Stages and sets and structures near completion. A huge flaming sphere beckons. Beyond, swings and swinging wooden beds, a big bell cage and back stage hammocks, all just built.
An elevator, built in a day by the person who did the LIB Woogie Stage lighting, goes up four stories! From the top you can see art installations, other viewing spots, and intersections in part of the city. It is a universe in itself:
Malvoye the Mentalist -- An automated antique fortune telling booth, sharing versions and visions of the future.
UnNatural Selection -- bigger than life figures painted on an octagon kiosk. People turn cranks to rotate the top, middle or bottom segments to form 512 possible creatures.
The Muse, the Mant, the Peoples Art Congress.
Popcorn at the Corn Palace with eatable glitter, taco, lemon pepper and nutritional yeast toppings. Consume it at the bad idea theater and burn the paper bag. A Buddha and a Burning Ring of Fire, the basic element.
It rains. There are then two rainbows. Aqua and violet alternate in the inner arch of the inner rainbow. The double rainbow sidetracks, dropping in front of the mountain near Town Round. Town Round is the intersection of the internal streets of the Hushville village that are marked with filaments. There is room to frame various views of the rainbows, with the crest of the mountain behind it and with it springing from palms. For an hour afterward there is no bike traffic because of the playa mud.
Tuesday
The weather is dry, cold at night and warm in the day with a few dust storms. The air unpredictably sometimes cools after sunrise and warms after sunset. The moonless nights are so dark the milky way is visible.
City blocks are big, really big and deep on the outer lettered streets. Even tall things that are not right on a street are blocked from view. It is easy to get lost. Color, at night, illuminated color, is everywhere and thing. Chartreuse flags on poles and ever changing neon like lights atop tall structures are landmarks for our area. People wear a lot of color in their costumes. Some red is popular. So is blue and black and green, and flesh tone darkened by sun and dust and oil and time.
At the Megatropolis casino pirates play blackjack. At the Thunderdome fights, a diva sings Italian opera. The MC chants "Two men enter, one man leaves." The battle, between opponents in harnesses suspended from the dome collide on the ground facing each other with weapons. Medics stand by. The people perched on top of the dome, the DPW just inside it and crowd several deep around watch.
In the Central Playa:
Tiny Tropolis -- a row of standard cardboard boxes secured, one after another, upon a wooden beam stretching outward. Each box contains an exquisite diorama by a member of the Wu-Tang Clan.
The He(art) Communi-Tree -- a wooden assemblage sculpture of a tree.
Roots create a strong foundation and branches stem out in multiple directions so that the tree can feed on water, air, and sun. Likewise a community has a hub for converging and congregation. People grow in different directions coming back to feed the community in new ways.
The Honey Trap -- an 86 foot long, 21 foot tall Fibonacci Spiral composed of stacked interlocking hexagons.
The Nowhere2Nowhere Monorail and a bus stop bench.
Polygonia -- hundreds of large, colorful interlocking polygons and connectors.
About the Esplanade is the Promethian Fountain, hypnotizing fire burning on water. People hold flames in their hands.
Wednesday
At the core of a good camp is people who haven't met, getting to know each other. Hanging back, playing in the band, or tending bar are the burners who made it. Some provide gifts of food, such as grilled cheese sandwiches, and a line forms to get in. One forms outside and makes its way past a youthful person standing in a glowing entryway. He exudes energy, greeting everyone, one at a time, subtly bouncing up and down, softly repeating some or all of their replies.
"How are you, tonight?"
"Spectacularly phenomenal all night long."
"Phenomenal. . . . .
How are you?"
"Immortal and invincible."
"Immortal! . . . . .
How are you, tonight?"
"Welcome to my spaceship. Beautiful forever."
"Spaceship? . . . .
How are you tonight?"
"Rolling, and fantastically excellent.
"Excellent. . . .
How are you tonight?"
"Happy, trippy and free."
"Happy!"
"Need a lift," says the guy offering a boost step of interlocked fingers.
The Unicorn masthead of the big unicorn bus eats a life size Barbie doll.
A rabbit with a chain.
An EL wire cane.
Chasing rabbits past the Neverwas Haul and Janky Barge through the orange Disorient Car Wash to the Opulent Temple.
"Use all you packed for the long time away from camp
"Bliss. She watches and loves.
"What was the place that had the Psytribe set out on the playa early in the week, where the art car took us and the yogi was in a headstand?
"There are ways to learn to dance anonymously. Blindfolded or concealed in a costume.
"A near riot of consumption, a kind of potlatch extravaganza that symbolically culminates in the ritual sacrifice of material goods.
"What are you doing tonight?
"Fluffing
"Stuffing?
"Ice Cream socials and The Daily Playa
Thursday
One washed the guitar player behind the Harveywood sign.
A few shower in inflatable pools or go through the Human Carcass Wash.
Many go through netting hanging from a four story high scaffold on the Esplanade, head first, coming out naked and are bathed and reborn.
From stacked box seating in the side yard of the Mystical Misfits the Megaphone is heard:
"Pedal the machine yourself, no one else will ever do it as hard as you want.
"Hey you on the trick bike, try our jump.
"That's not a mister, it's a hose on a soda dispensing canister.
The best places to get misted are the back of the knee and the top of the head. A line of two dozen people holding hands surround the bullhornist demanding a particular song. They get it and dance to it.
Thousands witness the highest voltage of electricity ever observed by that number of people. The thick borderless electric blue zig zag buzzing zapping lightning bolt races from a Tesla coil to Dr. MegaVolt's grounding suit. It is an experience more than a mere sight. Rap is a Joke in Center Camp and Live Painting outside it. A Librarians' party with games, a rave at Drop it Like it's Hot, aerialists at Shiny Kitty Teah Ouse. A Massive at Root Society.
Friday
A plan is made at the Prod Pump and Rest coffee shade. People compare costumes at the Telescope Stand in the deep playa. Strings, cords and carabiners through loops, boundless creativity. The most intricately detailed hand made vest, bought, not made by the wearer. So what, he did with it what it was made for, put it on his body and went out. Lots of superhero costumes, lots of them superman. Lots of furry animal pillows with pouches, the Screaming Monkey doll.
Some people are leaving, some are just now arriving. A man pedals a cooler past the 11:11 Monument, four mammoth steel monolithic obelisk pillars. It is a tribute for the time 11:11, the only time of the day in which all numbers and digits are the same. He goes to the Restaurant, white tables set with plates and cups, glued down and painted white, and shares New Zealand wine and soft cheeses. Now comes the Burning Sky Skydiving Night Jump with a kinetic pyro display 2000 ft above.
Next, a big explosion. No show or fireworks, just a crew keeping a safety perimeter around the fuel tanks, then boom, the intense heat wave, the quarter mile high smoke stack and a mushroom cloud.
Megatropolis burns. Megatropolis, another city inside of Black Rock City, is a group of multi-story buildings built in the simplest way possible for their size. It glows in the distance. The colors change. It is lit from the inside as well as the outside. Some of the buildings are recognizable, like the Transamerica Pyramid, which houses the first huge bomb explosion, yet falls last. Others are more iconic: the smokestack, the apartment building and the mega mall. In the center sits the tower, the biggest of the buildings. Sirens blare. Lots of fireworks. Fireballs rage out the windows. The pyrotechnics of handmade liquid fire effects are amazing. One interesting effect happens after another, seemingly controlled only by timing and the fire. The show and opolis end, the embers obliterated by a dust storm.
See the big installations three ways, daytime, nighttime and in a storm.
Bliss Dance, the largest female nude figure in the world, dances on one leg. Designed by Marco Cochrane, the sculpture, weighs 7,000 pounds, and has 55,000 individual welds.
The Infinitarium, a botanic garden where people are dwarfed by the metal plantlife sculptures,
Choir of the Winds, singing weather vanes by Thomas E. Trower.
Saturday
Mad Hatter Tea Party. Bodgi ball near the panorama from the top of the World Trade Center. Party Naked Tiki Bar. A dancer dances with flame-throwers that would incinerate anything within fifteen feet; the heat of the flames feels hot even twice as far away.
The walk up the platforms steps to the man.
"What is the coolest thing you have seen out here"
"Well, we built a stripper bar and the girls come in and strip for us every night
"Oh that is pretty cool
Gargoyles and Griffins on the Burning Man Platform and the Man all burn quickly. Another storm comes in and we go back to a bar.
Sunday
Vegi Tacos. Burning wood at sunset in the wind. A jenga structure to the burning wood. Ample wood as people striking camp or leaving drive to the barrels. Chasing honeycomb cardboard that got away from a full burn barrel. It mellows from a danger to a plaything.
Temple of Flux, a canyon of wood between five structures, so natural looking it seems like a dust dune at first. A three person team Jess Hobbs, Rebecca Anders, and PK Kimelman, designed and built it as a Counter-Monument. Not to console but to provoke; not to embody permanence but change; not to be everlasting but to disappear;
not to be ignored but to demand interaction; not to accept the burden of memory but to throw it back and demand response. One structure is to mourn suicides, another the death of children, another unexpected deaths. The fire swirls into a burnable man standing on the ground in front of the Flux canyon.
Labor Day
The people who brought the GiantFlatPiano from Sweden give volunteer pulsers a ride to the top of Cone Zone 3. Gate Perimeter and Exodus give them a ride back to the Black Hole and tickets for breakfast at the Ranger commissary. People wander with a rocket launcher looking for their awaiting audience. It is even easier to get lost now. Not only are the street signs gone, but enough people have left that the streets themselves are vanishing. And so too the illumination on the landmark structures.
"Do you have fireworks"
"Yup"
A person whose birthday it is lights the fuse to a mortar canister.
Zzzzzz for a few long seconds then, boom and wow.
The height and spread and burst of the shells is as amazing as the Megatropolis burn because of the intimate setting.
"We are just here to pass the time until we die"
"How absurd to think that a being as powerful as the human could die. You will fireworks and fireworks are here. You will a friend and a friend is here. A person of your sway and stature should not say things like that. It will diminish everyone who hears you"
"I am insulted. I can say whatever the fuck I want"
"Sorry," the light accepted the dark.
"It's okay," the dark accepted the light.
Burn the delivered wood.
Water with a pump.
The different exploding sounds of fire extinguishers and emptyish fuel cartridges.
Exodus Tuesday
Intricate organization produces an event way more spectacular than anarchy or any utopia could. It has paid people; they are at work and have a less cheery attitude.
"How many shifts did you work?"
"27. I may take next year off."
"Why don't you just attend and go to the parties?"
"I don't want to party and . . . ," spotting the Dub Rocket BRC 2010 button on the backpack of the questioner, ". . . I don't like Dub," he added for good measure.
We left on the roads we came in on -- the 447, 95, 337, 208 and 336 through Lyon County Nevada into California.
