Sunday, November 24, 2013

Snap of the Month: November 2013

Background--The camera hadn't been cleaned since I returned from Burning Man and, shockingly, a dry, windy desert environment is not the best place for a camera to be if you want it to remain clean.  We (and by we I mean about 90% Goran and 10% me) dedicated four hours of a Saturday to clean the sensor on the camera.  Many sterile rags were used along with two pairs of tweezers, a pair of scissors, an aluminium ruler, several curse words, and a vacuum.  Part of sensor cleaning is needing to take long exposures on a flat blank surface, like a wall or ceiling, to see where dust and dirt is located.  The camera was held in a vice grip and pointed directly at the ceiling for this purpose.


Thoughts--At one point, boredom inspired me to photo-bomb the test exposure with my nostrils.  I'd never gotten a good close-up of my nose and especially not from a low angle and I was curious to see what came out.  It was then that Goran revealed that one of his nostrils was so blocked that when he inhaled really hard through his nose, the nostril would simply close down on itself.  I like this shot because 1) that phenomenon is not discussed nearly enough, and 2) this photo doesn't look like a nose to me.  It reminds me of the type of story you would read in a children's book about a small, stubby nose-shaped man who experiences all sorts of misfortunes simply because he is a small, stubby nose-shaped man.  This nose has character.  It has personality.  You could write a story about it.  It makes me think more about this incredible anatomical feature than I ever have before and photography is supposed to make you think.  Even if the shot is not technically good, if it makes you think then it has accomplished it's ultimate goal.  And who's to say what is ultimately worth thinking about?  I spend a good chunk of my waking hours thinking about stuff that I know is trivial and/or that I know I shouldn't be wasting my time on in the first place (I'm looking at you MSN.com).  However, if a photo makes you think it shouldn't matter if it's of a starving child, a war refugee, or a clogged nostril.  It's good photography if it makes you think.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

(This was the best defense I had for making this picture the snap of the month when really I just like the picture for no particularly noble reason)

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Explaining the Beauty of Backpacking

Often times when I meet new people, my friends will introduce me as their "outdoorsy" friend, or as a rock climber, a backpacker, or some combination of those things.  I usually get the most questions about climbing because it's so steeped in mystery and danger.  It's that fatal combination that people, including me, find sexy.  But, when I am introduced as "outdoorsy", a climber, etc. I always try to emphasize the backpacker part above all else.  After all, it's what I enjoy most of all of my outdoor activities (much like a fairy dies every time someone declares "I don't believe in fairies", there is a climber somewhere who died because I admitted publicly that climbing isn't my favorite activity ever).  Backpacking doesn't get nearly the sexy wrap that it should.  The dangers of it aren't as readily obvious as they are in climbing and people rarely see glamour in strapping all of your stuff to your back and walking into the wilderness.  Most people think that activity is only appropriate for homeless people, vagabonds, or gypsies, all of whom are frowned upon.  But backpacking IS sexy.  It's wild and dangerous, yet beautiful and demanding; all of the things you envision your perfect lover to be.

First off, what exactly qualifies as backpacking?  For the purposes of this post, I'm not referring to the method of international travel, which I also do, but rather I'm referring to the hiking-into-the-wilderness kind of backpacking.  Strap all of your food, sleeping gear, and general survival equipment to your back and off you go!  Backpacking is also very different from day hiking.  One of the most common conversations I have is with people who have gone day hiking and then begin talking to me about how strenuous hiking is.  Now, I am not here to demean day hiking.  Some of the most brutal hikes I've done were day hikes.  But, that being said, backpacking is a whole different beast.  Day hiking involves carrying a pack with a sandwich, water bottle, and camera (for most people).  Backpacking involves carrying the weight of all of your food, camping equipment (e.g., tent, sleeping bag, clothes, cookware), and possibly water for any number of days.  So, imagine doing a day hike with a pack that weighs anywhere between 25-60 lbs or even possibly more.  Also, backpacking days are usually longer than day hikes.  They're designed to be so, which is why you have a tent and a sleeping bag.

Aside from the literal heavy lifting, backpacking is focused on hiking.  It's a walk in the woods, literally.  Or a walk in the mountains, on the coast, or wherever your wilderness of choice happens to be.  The views of the world are just about unbeatable.  Being without cell reception and not seeing people for long stretches hold a lot of appeal to a city slicker like me.  I'm a gym rat so what I like about backpacking is that while it is incredibly physically demanding, it forces you to slow down.  When you're living in the middle of the woods, you can't help but to stop to look around.  It really forces you to be in the moment with where you are.  There are no cell phones, computers, or gadgets to distract you.  Just you and nature, and whoever you might have along with you.  It's amazing how much better food tastes when you've earned it.  It's amazing how much better you sleep, even though you're sleeping on the ground.  It's quiet.  It's serene.  Yet, it's dangerous and wild.  There are no barriers between you and the world.  It's dangerous because you're alone, in the middle of nowhere, there are animals, and any number of opportunities for injury.  And yet...it's so worth it.  Waking up with the sun and not the sound of an alarm clock.  Going to sleep when you feel like it.  Making your home wherever looks good.  It's a great time to get some reading done (paperbacks, of course).  It's an amazing way to bond with friends, family, and lovers.  When there is no TV to watch, no email to check, no phone calls to return, you get to know people really well.  That goes double for when you are on a backpacking trip with them because you get to see them at their most primal.

An example of the primal side of people: I was once on a backpacking trip in Olympic National Park in Washington.  We got to our first camp site and pitched our tent, made dinner, and then stored all of our food and scented items in our bear canister.  At this particular site, there was another party camping roughly 100 yards away from us.  After swearing off water past 8 PM, I attempted to pee one last time (I hate having to get up in the middle of the night, especially while camping on snow pack), and turned in around 10.  Around midnight I was startled awake by the sounds of the other party's cookware hitting the ground.  There could only be two reasons why that would've happened: someone got up to pee and smashed into it because they forgot their headlamp or a bear.  It turned out to be the latter.  I could hear it's footsteps crunching in the snow.  I'd been in bear country before and even seen them while on the trail, but this was the first time I'd encountered one in my camp.  I momentarily panicked.  I tried to wake my partner, but after a few grumbled words he rolled over and went back to sleep.  I decided that I would try to calm my adrenaline rush and do the same.  But then the bear got closer.  It sounded like it was going through our cooking stuff.  OFFICIAL FLIP OUT TIME.  I whacked my partner good and then semi-calmly whispered "There is a bear in our camp" into his ear.  He was instantly awake.  We strategized about our plan of action.  We had no weapons in the tent and not much to make noise with.  We were terror stricken for a good 45 minutes before he decided to leave the tent.  When he left the tent, he grabbed one of our nearby hiking poles for use as a weapon.  Thankfully, the bear had gone.  But, we did set up our first line of defense in case it came back: metal water bottles strategically placed on rocks.  I know, I know; alert security companies everywhere that we are about to revolutionize the field.  Happily, the rest of the night proceeded bear-free, though I was also sleep-free due to my adrenal gland working possibly a little too well.

What I hope you take away from this story is not that backpacking is terrifying and only for the fool hardy.  While that may be true, what was amazing about that particular experience is that is brought my partner and I closer together.  We had faced a truly frightening and possibly deadly situation together.  We both reacted calmly and coolly, he especially, and learned to trust each other in such a stressful situation.  We laugh about the story now and joke that I was ready to burrow my way through the floor of the tent and not stop until I hit Alberqurque.  We joke that my fight or flight response is so powerful that I might die of a heart attack the next time I see a bug in the shower.  We joke about using hiking poles as lances and swords and have been known to dual on trails with each other.  But it's also the story of how we faced down the big bad bear.  While this bear happened to be physical, it's not a long shot to understand how we also learned to trust each other when facing the big bad metaphorical bear.

Backpacking teaches you a lot about yourself and those around you.  I honestly don't know if it's backpacking specifically that is responsible for this, or just living in nature away from modern life that can claim credit.  Either way, it's a good way to get to know yourself and what you're capable of.  It pushes in ways you could never anticipate, though you certainly try, which is why you bring survival gear.  It surprises you in ways you'd never think possible.  And, it gives you a hell of a plethora of stories to tell the next time someone introduces you as "outdoorsy."

Many of you are still thinking that this sounds like a terrible idea but here's the real kicker.  If you have the equipment, backpacking is a cheap vacation.  It's cheap and what better way to experience a place than to be sleeping on the ground in the middle of it?  All you need is the cost of actually getting to and from the trail head and the food that you'll need for your trip.  That's it!  I might recommend springing for a hotel before you get back in the car, plane, or train cabin though.  That first shower is pretty goddamn priceless in my mind and people who are trapped in the car, plane, or train will thank you for not smelling like a backpacker while they're forcible enclosed in a small space with you. All in all, if I haven't sold you on why backpacking is amazing, trust me when I say that it's what my writing is lacking and not what the activity is.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

CH. 3: Not all those who wander are lost---Not all those who Burn are total hippies

The Man burns

Burning Man 2013: Cargo Cult

Thus far, I have been writing about each of my days individually, but this post will be a little different.  Instead of going day-by-day, I will give you the highlights from the last part of the week and my final thoughts on BM.  The reason for this is that while Friday was my best day at BM and one of the best days of my life, I had been attempting to keep my posts to fairly brief descriptions of the major events of the day and the lessons learned as a result.  However, I have nearly exhausted the smaller lessons and would like to focus in on my reflections during the final days and in the time since BM 2013 finalized (about two and a half months at the time of this post).

After my intense experience of homesickness on Wednesday, I took Thursday to decompress.  I spent the majority of the day by myself.  I ran a 5K, did yoga, took a shower with someone's solar shower bag (THANK YOU BRET AND LAINE! You're both going to heaven for your joint efforts to make me smell less like a dead animal and more like an unwashed burner), and bummed around in my campmates' RV.  I rested.  I reflected.  It took a lot more than that one 24-hour block of time for me to fully process what happened on Wednesday (two and a half months later, I'm still processing) but I NEEDED that time to myself.  BM is intense.  If you don't take time for yourself, time to process, reflect, and recharge your batteries, you'll fizzle out and you may miss some of the larger philosophical points that BM has to offer as a result.  If you were to take away the fire, colors, and sounds BM would be a lot less fun.  By the same token, BM would be a lot less fun without the seemingly mandatory existential crisis.  Decompression time is a necessary pseudo-evil.

This is what your eyes do after two days at BM
Throughout the week, I had several conversations about ways to describe BM to those who have never been.  A campmate described it as Mad Max dropped into a bag of Skittles.  He was right on and he wasn't speaking metaphorically.  The bag of Skittles is just really, really big.  On Friday night I got to experience the Mad Max part of that equation: I fought in Thunder Dome with my friend Ian.  Ian's playa name is Panda and as a direct result of this, my playa name is now Panda Slayer.  For clarification, I am on the left in the video and Ian is on the right.  This was easily one of the best things I've ever done in my entire life.  It was such a rush, such a thrill!  Months later, I find myself breaking into a huge smile and laughter at incredibly inappropriate times (e.g., like when my boss is talking to me about terrorism in Kenya).  I still can't watch the video without laughing so hard I cry.  At some point in your life you should get together with someone who is near and dear to you and beat the shit out of each other with bats (preferably foam or at least foam-lined).  If you can get a crowd of roughly 200-300 people to cheer you on, even better.  It's the kind of experience that if I ever have a kid and if said kid made it to the ripe old age of 18 and wanted advice from dear old mom about what to do in life, I'd tell them to do this.  Or maybe I'll just send the kid to Burning Man.  Either way.

Saturday was the night The Man burned.  It was an intense bonding experience with my entire camp and with basically everyone there (all 69,000 of us).  It was really moving to be a part of such a deep emotional current.  If Disney World is the happiest place on Earth, I think Burning Man on Burn night is the most loving place on Earth.  The entire day is fueled by an urgency spurred by the realization that it's almost over.  Burning of The Man is basically the closing ceremony.  The Temple is burned on Sunday night, but for many burners Sunday is tear-down and travel day.  Hence, the sense of urgency.  So many weird things left to do, so many crazy people left to me, but not enough time to do all the weird things and meet all the crazy people regardless of how little you sleep.  Burn night is a great way to culminate the week. All of the art cars create a ring, inside which is every burner and The Man dead in the center.  There's fire dancing and chanting.  There's hugging and cheering. There's a huge fire works display and then The Man finally goes up in flames creating it's own mini-weather system that spawns fire tornadoes into the people unlucky/lucky enough to be sitting downwind.  It's incredible in every sense of the word and I got to experience it.  Fist bump me, bro!

Since The Man burned, I've had a lot time to reflect on my experience and even when I didn't have the time I did anyway.  What I've come to realize is that BM is an experience that is ongoing.  While the event itself is only officially a week long, after you've been it stays with you.  You experience the world differently.  I can't help but feel satisfied in a way I never had before because I have bonded with so many people so deeply.  BM didn't change me, but it did put me in touch with a part of myself that I wasn't aware existed until I ventured to BRC.  Yes, it's silly.  Yes, there are a lot of hippies.  Yes, there are a lot of cliches that are thrown around when talking about BM.  But.  BUT.  BM serves as a modern day vision quest for many.  It's our time go seeking our higher calling, find the meaning of life, ponder what we want out of life, and all of life's other big questions, but the catch is that you get to ponder them with thousands of other like-minded people.  And, also while setting stuff on fire, dancing your ass off, and fighting your friends in Thunder Dome.  One of my campmates described the essence of BM very well in a recent post to our Facebook group about a conversation he had with some non-burners in New York:

...How the dust makes its sunrises eternal and its people the same.

How it is terrible and lonely and not for the weak.
And how it is beautiful and inspiring, and not for the weak.

How along the way you’ll see yourself for the very first time in the looks you’ll get from others, seeing themselves for the very first time in looks from you.

How you’ll meet people you’ll never forget, and others you’ll never remember, and others you’ll never leave.

How you’ll find strangers eager to give, to share, to teach, and to be given, be shared, be taught.

How you’ll dance when it’s time to dance and you’ll hug when it’s time to hug and you’ll sleep with regret, because it’s never time to sleep.

  ... [It is the] search of the unique, the inspiring, the scary, the uplifting, the enlightening, and hell, the fun that is captured too rarely.

... I’ve traveled to the desert and found only those I’d gladly find over and over again.
--S. I.
Sunset on the playa
Yes, it's sounds kind of dramatic.  Yes, it's sounds totally cliche and too good to be true, and you know what?  It might very well be all of those things.  However, like so many things in life, it's also what you make of it.  Except that this thing has so much more potential than anything else you've ever experienced.  So much potential, it's beyond my grasp.  It's a place designed for potential to be realized in whatever way you see fit or best.  So, in your search for the unique, inspiring, scary, uplifting, enlightening, and fun, I would highly recommend you journey into the Black Rock Desert.  You might regret it, but I doubt it; how could you ever regret participating in something with so many flamethrowers?

**Post script: This video captures the feel of the place really well.  It was created by a virgin burner this year and I L.O.V.E. it.  It's the kind of thing I want to start my day with every day because of how it makes me feel.  You may not feel the same about it, but even if that's the case it's still a really kick-ass video. 

 Glossary of useful terms:


Art Car--a motor vehicle that has been transformed into something else entirely, though it can still be driven.  These art projects are massive undertakings.  For information about art cars see the following links:

Burner--someone who has gone to Burning Man

BM--Burning Man

BRC--Black Rock City

Deep Playa--when you have gone so far on the playa that there are very few art projects or people.  If you go far enough into deep playa, you hit the trash fence, which functions as the official border of BRC.

Gifting--BRC does not allow any sort of economy whether it be bartering, capitalism, or otherwise.  It's strictly a gifting culture.  There's no quo-pro-quo.  It's simply because people want to.

Playa--refers to the large central part of BRC where most of the large art projects are found.

Playa Name--name by which you are known at Burning Man.  These names are earned and usually bestowed by friends or campmates, but really anyone could give you a playa name.  Not everyone has one but they are very common.

The Man--refers to the large wooden effigy of a man that is the center of BRC.  The Man is burned on Saturday night of the festival and generally thought of as the closing ceremonies.