Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Snap of the month: October 2013

Background -- I can't take credit for this photo.  Suleta Foto is often a joint effort by me and Goran.  Yes, I am usually the one responsible for the photography stuff but he has been known to step up to the plate every once in a great while.  On one of the last warm days, I insisted that we take a walk around the neighborhood with our camera.  I am rarely the subject of pictures since I'm usually the one behind the camera, but on this particular day Goran was finally paparazzi-ed out and insisted on taking a few shots of me.  The sun was just starting to go down and we were at our neighborhood beach with no one else around since it's basically abandoned after Labor Day.

Thoughts -- I like this shot though it makes me super self-conscious about the part in my hair.  It makes me think about the possibility of going bald.  At 28, I'm just now beginning to realize my own mortality and aging process and am having some trouble adjusting to both ideas.  I'm sure it will be fine, but ultimately death and aging are things that happen to other people...until they happen to me.  There's no logical reason why this picture should provoke more than five minutes of good hard thinking on my part, but it's been a lot longer than five minutes and I'm starting to freak myself out.  It seemed only fitting considering how this picture makes me feel that it be the snap of the month for October.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

CH. 2: Not all those who wander are lost---Not all those who Burn are total hippies

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.

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.

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.

The silver nitrate exposure
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

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.

CH. 1: Not all those who wander are lost---Not all those who Burn are total hippies

Burning Man 2013: Cargo Cult


When deciding upon summer activities, there was one long-standing item on my bucket list that loomed large: Burning Man.  So, with this in mind, I had a conversation with one of my inner-circle hooligans (aka, Ben) who was moving back to the U.S. from his two year Korean hiatus.  Quickly the idea of our next adventure was up for discussion.

"So, when should I come to California?

"I have an idea that's better than California.  What are you doing the last week of August?  I'd like to see you, but more so at Burning Man than in L.A.  Let's get weird in the desert!"

And thus began my quest to see The Man burn.

The planning for this event was no small feat.  I first had to acquire a Burning Man ticket, then think about booking my airfare to Reno, figure out how I would make it from Reno to Black Rock City (BRC), not to mention my food, water, and random other necessities for an entire week in the desert.  I won't bore you with the details of this planning stage, but think of the last time you staged a siege on a large city and you've got the general idea.

DAY 1--Monday

With planning behind me, it was finally go-time.  I barely slept a wink the night before since I was up late packing and wide-eyed with anticipation.  I had an early morning flight out to Reno and arrived there at 10 am PCT. Upon landing, I was immediately distracted by the madness of the Burner Express check-in and registration.  Burner Express is a bus system that gets you from Reno or San Francisco to BRC.  There was no doubting when I'd stumbled upon the registration tables.  Firstly, I should say that upon disembarking the plane there was a large banner across the hallway that read: "From runway to playa, Reno-Tahoe International Airport welcomes BURNING MAN."  Apparently "this little hippie festival" as my hubby so fondly refers to it (he actually used a much cruder phrase that refers to a circle and a bunch of men who participate in the same self-gratifying activity simultaneously) might be just a tad larger than either he or I thought.  When I strolled up to the Burner Express tables, a woman with red and white dreads to her ass gave me an inappropriately long hug (since we didn't even exchange names nor would we ever see each other again, I thought a hug of any length was inappropriate but the length of this hug would have been inappropriate for my mom to give me) and instructed me to sign in.  After obtaining my boarding bracelets amidst a sea of dread-locked, semi-naked people I decided it was time to locate Ben.  I found him not far from the Burner Express tables napping on his obscenely large suitcase.

Crappy cell phone picture of the welcoming banner in Reno

When we were finally en route, I quickly realized that we were literally going out into the middle of nowhere.  Signs of humanity were quickly disappearing.  Cell phone towers were few and far between.  Power lines were even becoming sparse.  By the time we actually got to the city, the only signs of humanity in the Black Rock Desert were the 60,000 other people who were there the burn The Man as well.  Yes, that sounds like there were a lot of signs of humanity, but seriously: stop and think about the last time you were somewhere where you couldn't see power lines or cell phone towers.  Unless you are a dirty backpacker or live in very rural America, this exercise should be difficult for you.

Burners stuck in 9-mile-long line to BRC

After nearly 5 hours on the bus (we were stuck in the traditional BRC gate back-up), Ben and I had discovered that we were two of only a handful of Americans on our bus into BRC. We were surrounded by people from Israel, Australia, South Africa, Denmark, and so many other places that I've lost track.  I needed to revise my idea of Burning Man as merely a West Coast hippie phenomenon.  This point was further emphasized when I got off the bus and was greeted by a large scantily clad Australian man dressed as a wolf (i.e., furry hat and furry Speedo).  The Aussie wolf enveloped me in a bear hug (again, inappropriately long) and welcomed me home**.  He then ordered me to drop down and roll in the playa dust.  He reasoned that I might as well get used to it because soon enough that dust would be in my every crack, crevice, and hole.  I obliged by diving in and performing my best impression of The Worm (I was just writhing around since I can't actually do The Worm)  in the dust to a cheering crowd of costume-clad burners.  When I was done rolling around in the playa dust, I was again hugged and welcomed home by at least a dozen people.  If all of this sounds weird, it's not.  This is as normal as it gets at Burning Man.

2013 map of BRC
After my playa dust initiation, Ben and I quickly made our way to our camp located at 4:30 and C.  BRC has a circular layout that corresponds to a clock with The Man in the middle where the hands of the clock would be pinned.  All directions are basically given according to the location of The Man.  It makes for a very easily navigated city.  Also, because the city plan is a circle, it's very difficult to get lost in BRC.  That being said, people have been known to disappear from their camps for days but it's usually because they kept getting distracted (easily done) on the way back to their camp and less because they couldn't find their camp.  To be totally fair, I have heard of people not being able to find their way back to their camps, but as I understand it there is usually an obscene amount of substances that are involved in such a situation.

Mystikal Misfits camp

We finally arrived to our camp and home for the week which featured a large atomic bomb (with accompanying fire-throwing system that could get you a nice 30 feet of flame,at least) and three stories of scaffolding, not to mention the large wedding tents in the back that covered at least 40 tents, two yurts, and several RV's.  Yup, looks like home to me!  My new home and family for the week: the Mystikal Misfits.

Our atomic bomb bar
Our address
Ben and I arrived at the tail-end of a happy hour our camp was co-hosting with an art car (see glossary below for information on art cars).  We arrived to many inebriated campmates and several random burners occupying our camp.  Our campmates greeted me with hugs from those who knew me and hugs from those who got to know me over the course of the week (I was much more comfortable hugging these people since I was guaranteed to interact with them at some point...but I was still kinda uncomfortable with the hugging thing in general).  Here's the thing about Burning Man: when you get to BRC, there's no easing into it.  BAM!  It's right in your face.  There's no escaping it.  The motto of Burning Man (one of many) is "There are no spectators."  It's completely impossible to not participate in Burning Man if you are in BRC.  Hell, even the cops who were assigned to bust people for drugs and underage drinking were costume-clad and partying their asses off while taking pictures with the hottest burners they could find.  I even got a temporary tattoo of the the Washoe County Sheriff's Department from some cops who just wanted to hang out during one of our parties.  When you are at Burning Man, you live Burning Man.

El Pulpo Mechanico
My first night included a group outing to the playa that began with 11 people.  By the end of our tour, we were down to 5 people.  Like I said, it's real easy to get distracted at Burning Man.  My playa tour began with flaming mushrooms, then onto a fire-spewing, tentacle-moving octopus art car with accompanying sound system (El Pulpo Mecanico), a deep playa French diner with menus only in French, a drive-in movie theater, a stationary bug car, and finally ended in a seashell in deep playa.  The seashell acted as a small shelter and came with soft music, a faux campfire, and cushions designed to fit five people comfortably.  Once inside the sea shell, our small group began one of those stereotypical conversations that you've probably heard happen at Burning Man.  It began with this question:

"What does everyone hope to get out of this experience?"

French diner in deep playa
I assumed that most people would BS their way through their answer but was completely flustered when three people I'd just met began opening up about incredibly personal things (e.g., divorce, heart ache, family issues) and answering earnestly.  Not just earnestly, but in a way that I am hard-pressed to do with even my closest friends.  When it was my turn I started by bumbling a bunch of generic answers but soon found myself slipping into incredibly personal feelings about exploring the meaning of family and what direction I want my life to take.  WHOA!  I'd JUST met most of those people and I felt like a complete tool.  I was so vulnerable and...raw.  But the conversation was really supportive, considerate, friendly, and seemed significant.  If I hadn't given into the feeling of the moment, I believe I would have been deprived of an experience that is pivotal to Burning Man.  I soon learned that bonding moments like those are really what Burning Man is about.  Yes, there is a lot of silliness and collectively questionable decision making but at the heart of why Burning Man exists is the need to bond with people.  Bonding with friends, family, campmates, strangers.  The idea is that Burning Man creates a safer emotional environment so that bonding is not only promoted but downright difficult to avoid.  So, in a seashell illuminated by black lights and a plastic camp fire, I was initiated into Burning Man.  Whether I liked it or not or whether I was ready or not, I was about to experience all of what this crazy week in the desert had to offer.

Flaming mushroom.
**The idea of Burning Man as "home" runs deeps in BM culture.  It is said so often that I began to believe it was a mantra instead of a conversation piece aimed at bonding with other burners.  The idea is that BRC is really the only place that you can freely express all (or at least most of) your desires and personality quirks.  The idea is that BRC is accepting of all people.  The idea is that BRC is made of hugs and bunnies with nothing but love for everyone.  While not all of these are true, it's not a bad ideal to strive for and by the end of the week, I was starting to understand and agree, at least somewhat, with the sentiment.


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.

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.