Burning Man 2013: Cargo Cult
DAY 2--Tuesday
I awoke from my first night at BM to a tent temperature that by 8 am was 93 degrees. I realized that if nothing else, the desert heat would ensure an early rise from me every day. Since it was so early and all of my campmates were sleeping off the night before in various places and positions, I decided to go exploring on my own. The mornings became my favorite time in BRC. Burners often will fall into one of three categories: 1. Night burners, 2. Day burners, and 3. Burning-the-candle-at-both-ends-to-an-inevitable-collapse-usually-around-Thursday burners. Day burners are a wholly different crew from the other two. In general, day burners are older and seem more relaxed about BM than the other types of burners. They seem less flamboyant, though there's still plenty of flamboyancy to go around. They are more likely to strike up a conversation with you because there are less distractions. When there are 40,000 other people around, it's difficult to choose who exactly you want to talk to at any given moment. When the vast majority of people are asleep, it's easier and more relaxed. BM goes off of its steroids in the morning and this made mornings less pressured and a much more comfortable environment for me to adapt to.
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| Morning view of my street with The Man in the middle |
The mornings became my "me" time. I liked getting up before everyone else and wandering around the city. While BM is very much a biking culture, I preferred hoofing it. BRC is large and there are a lot of things to see. I'll be the first to admit that without a bike, there are a lot of things that you would miss because they are too far away. But, even with a bike it doesn't mean that you'll see more. If you walk BRC, you really absorb all of the camps, art, and random occurrences around you. If you bike it, you are more likely to pass a lot of that by. There is beauty to both forms of transportation in BRC, but I prefer walking. I connected with a lot more people because of my walking, too. One guy who was biking by me decided he wanted to talk to me so he got off of his bike and walked with me around the city for a while. People would come up to me and give me fruit, water, granola bars, or any number of random playa gifts just because they were excited to see me walking around. There were occasionally people who would shout stupid things (e.g., "GET A BIKE!") but those were usually night burners who had just awoken.
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| Taking a mustache ride |
I spent most of Tuesday exploring the playa. I especially wanted to explore some of the art projects I had seen the night before in the day light. I came across a mustache teeter totter that two girls were on and they were good enough to allow me a turn on it as well. They also gave me a pair of 3-D glasses to experience the lights on the playa at night. I found the glasses entirely unnecessary considering that the playa at night is already the most intense scene I've ever indulged in. Everything glows, throws fire, and has a sound system. It's like a carnival on steroids. It's the most intense place I've ever been and really needs no help from exaggeration, substances, or 3-D glasses but it was nice of them anyway.
While strolling around the playa with three campmates, we came across a photographer who was doing silver nitrate exposures on metal plates and gifting them to his subjects. This is one of the most interesting parts of BM culture: gifting. I had read about it online and decided that I wanted to participate even though virgin burners basically get a pass in how they do BM since it is their first time to the rodeo, so to speak. But, virgin or not, I decided that I wanted to take part in the gifting part of the experience. My playa gift was lighters. I bought lighters in bulk from Costco and jazzed them up a bit with some stickers. I gave them to random people I saw on the street, campmates, people with cool hats, people who looked uncomfortable, people with two legs, people who breathe. You get the picture. I gave them to whomever I fancied. I really got into it. It was really fun just walking up to a stranger, smiling, producing the lighter, and walking away. By the same token, I experienced just how into gifting and BM culture some people get. The silver nitrate exposure is one of the coolest possessions I currently own. It's very dear to me because it captures a moment in time I never want to forget and if I keep it out of the direct sunlight, it will last two to three hundred years. But gifts don't have to be as complex as that photograph. I was given granola bars in the street by morning burners because they thought I looked hungry. I was given a turquoise necklace from someone at
Death Guild just because we made friends. I was given all manner of camp swag from a campmate, whose playa name is Swagger, because he makes Mystikal Misfits t-shirts, tank tops, dog tags, patches, stickers, bracelets, and other random stuff for everyone in our camp. I was even gifted a bottle of Sriracha by a camp of photographers who had brought 15 bottles for the week and they discovered on Thursday that 15 may have been overkill. Also, stumbling into a random camp and having someone cook you eggs Benedict with ice cold lemon water after a week of eating trail mix is just about orgasm worthy. So, yeah; gifting is sort of awesome.
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| The silver nitrate exposure |
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Before BM, it was always really difficult for me to accept gifts from strangers. This normally wasn't a problem since the US isn't really a gifting culture in that way. However, I married a European and his culture is that way. The first time I met his family and friends in Europe, I was bombarded by gifts from people I didn't know. My Midwestern roots kept insisting that I give the presents back. I felt awkward and didn't think that "Thank you so much" really covered it, even when I bumbled through that phrase in Bosnian/Croatian. I would even plot how I could "forget" the gifted item so that it wasn't really gifted to me since it remained with the original owner. Receiving gifts was downright stressful for me. Until BM, that is. I had never really thought about how humbling and almost embarrassing receiving a gift was for me until this experience. There was also a moment of sheer panic when I realized I didn't have anyone's addresses to which I could send the "Thank You" notes. Thankfully, I was talked off of the ledge by (seemingly) understanding campmates who were very good about hiding their judgment. I have a sneaking suspicion that I still have problems receiving gifts, but BM has at least made me aware of my awkwardness and I can attempt to keep it in check and respond in a socially appropriate manner. It's not often in Chicago that a stranger walks up and gives me food (I probably wouldn't eat it if they did, as it's weird to do that in Chicago), but the next time that it happens I'll at least be somewhat prepared and practiced in my receiving skills.
After a stressful day of gifting and being gifted on the playa, a small group of campmates and I decided that a low-key evening was in store. We dressed in dark clothes and carried very few glow-y pieces with us (at night, the playa is PITCH black and so in order to avoid being run over by an art car, bike, or other people everyone wears glow-y stuff) and headed to a particularly dark intersection a couple of blocks away from camp. The objective: hippie fishing. Hippie fishing involves taking a glow-y object (in our case, a ring that changed colors), tying a string around it, and throwing it into the middle of the street. One more vital piece of information before this story can be properly told: the mantra of BM is "LEAVE NO TRACE." The goal is that after the festival, there should be no way to tell that there was a city of weirdos partying in the desert for week. If something is dropped that wasn't in the desert when you got there it is called "MOOP": matter out of place. When people see trash, food, or orphaned glow-y things, "MOOP!" is usually shouted before cleaning up the mess. So, back to hippie fishing. We tossed the ring out into the street and waited for good citizen hippies to try to grab it while we coyly pulled the string, and therefore the ring, just out of their grasp. You would think that this would get boring after about 5 minutes, but you'd be wrong. This provided non-stop laughs for at least 90 minutes. Hippie fishing should be made into an Olympic sport. It would definitely be voted the sport that is most fun to train for (that's a poll that all the athletes take, right?) and I think make the world a better place in general.
DAY 3--Wednesday
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| The greeter shift Misfits |
Wednesday began at 3:15 AM for the Mystikal Misfits. One of our fearless leaders had signed us up for the 4-8 AM greeter shift. Greeters are responsible for welcoming people to BRC. The Aussie wolf who hugged me on Monday was a greeter. Greeters are usually stationed at the gate and as soon as people have gone through the gate, they are made to get out of their cars and indulge in some inappropriately long hugs with people they don't know. Greeter shift was great (minus the actual time our shift took place at). I met people who had driven from all over the country for hours on end just to come to BM. I even greeted a crew of people who had driven from Colombia, the country not the school, to come to BM. They were so excited to finally have arrived! I greeted people from LA, San Francisco, Toronto, New York, and Miami. From all of these people that I met there was one person that sticks out in my mind in particular. When you greet people, you INSIST that they get out of their car to hug you and talk for a minute. One guy drove up in a truck and I bounced over to say hi and welcome him. He told me he'd been on the road for something crazy like 12 hours and was just so relieved and excited to finally be there. I commanded him to get his ass out of the car and give me a hug. Then, he obliged. He opened the door of his truck, grabbed a wheelchair that had been sitting next to him, plopped it on the ground, and wiggled into it. He couldn't walk but damn it if he wasn't determined to roll his way through the thick playa dust and take in all that BRC had to offer. He gave me the most genuine hug, possibly of my life, and proceeded to talk with me and three of my campmates for a good 10 minutes. As I stated on Facebook when a campmate posted a link to a photo he found of the guy, I think this guy was the baddest mother fucker I've ever met. We're talking Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction level. Seriously, you should know
this guy; he's fucking awesome and campaigns for awareness and equality and all of those are things I can stand pretty firmly behind.
Wednesday was a full day with more bonding experiences and silliness. But something else happened on Wednesday that I couldn't have anticipated: I got homesick. Rewind: I travel a lot. Most of the time I travel with Goran (the spouse) but sometimes I travel without him. Sometimes he doesn't have the time or just isn't interested in where I'm going (the case with BM). Needless to say, I'm used to being away from home a lot and rarely find myself homesick. But on this particular day, it hit me. HARD. I had been gone for only 48 hours but they were possibly the most intense 48 hours of my life to date. So much had happened since I'd left Chicago on Monday morning. There were so many experiences I wanted to share with him. I usually miss him when I travel but this was like an aching sensation I'd never experienced. I've always prided myself on being incredibly independent. The kind of person who doesn't need a partner around. But Wednesday night revealed just how necessary he has become to my life. I hesitate to say that I need him, because I don't need him to survive. But I do need him to live. I love my life. I'm incredibly lucky. I have the means to travel and live life how I want. I have a good job. I'm overly educated. I live in a great place, location and specific to my actual unit. And I have a partner who has helped to make all of that possible. Remember when I said that BM is all about bonding? Well, I can't think of anyone I'd rather bond with than my partner. He's been my rock and to not have him with me was a bigger absence than I've ever experienced. This all sounds very mellow dramatic, I know. But think of it this way; think of the best moment in your life. Think of how high you were flying. Would that moment have been nearly as sweet if you had been alone? Would that moment have been nearly as sweet if you didn't have someone important there to share it with you? Someone important doesn't have to be a romantic partner. It could be a friend or family member or someone who is like family to you. It just has to be someone who you care for deeply. So, when I say that I got homesick, what I really mean is I missed Goran because he is what makes my home my home (sappy, I know. EWWWW. But, it's true).
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.
