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Burners cruise to Black Rock Desert
August 29, 2006
They've been streaming through Klamath Falls the last few days on their way to the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada.
You might have seen them stocking up at local supermarkets. They were the ones with shopping carts overflowing with ice and water - key ingredients for surviving the 100-plus-degree days anticipated in the desert.
It's Burning Man week again, the annual art and music fest with a fire-based theme and alternative social underpinnings. About 40,000 people are expected to congregate through Sunday morning in what participants call Black Rock City.
And it has all the characteristics of a city. There's a cafe serving beverages - sorry, no food other than what you bring - ice sales, a recycling center, municipal airport, Department of Public Works and even an officially sanctioned cadre of greeters dressed in flame-embroidered costumes.
The gathering is described as a seven square-mile civic organism, where pretty much anything goes as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. With that wide-open approach, Burning Man has found itself pigeon-holed as many things organizers insist it is not.
It's not a rave or a hippie fest where drug-crazed revelers spend most of their time wandering around naked. At least that's the official line. Beginning Thursday, the Herald and News will publish a series of stories written on site to report just what the off-beat event actually is.
Being a Burning Man newbie, I'll be going with an open mind and lots of notebooks. I can't help but wonder what the assignment will entail. For example, I talked with Shawn from Seattle when he stopped in Klamath Falls on Saturday to pick up supplies.
He had advice:
Bring goggles. Shawn said it doesn't happen every year, but sand storms have been known to reduce visibility to 15 feet.
Bring a protective mask for the same reason.
Use rebar as tent poles or to secure tarps for sun protection. The wind can be so strong traditional tent stakes are laughably inadequate.
Most of all, bring water. Lots of it. The desert is unforgiving to those who don't hydrate.
That all seems a bit drastic for a get-together that's supposed to be fun. Maybe it's why the “city” pulses most strongly at night, when temperatures are more reasonable and fire is more impressive. After all, the whole shindig culminates in Saturday night's burning of a huge wooden structure in the shape of a man.
Nobody can quite explain what it means. Which might be the whole point.
Could this turn out to be an over-hyped disappointment? Or could it be a sensory overload almost too hot to handle?
Stay tuned to find out.
By STEVE KADEL
H&N Staff Writer
They've been streaming through Klamath Falls the last few days on their way to the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada.
You might have seen them stocking up at local supermarkets. They were the ones with shopping carts overflowing with ice and water - key ingredients for surviving the 100-plus-degree days anticipated in the desert.
It's Burning Man week again, the annual art and music fest with a fire-based theme and alternative social underpinnings. About 40,000 people are expected to congregate through Sunday morning in what participants call Black Rock City.
And it has all the characteristics of a city. There's a cafe serving beverages - sorry, no food other than what you bring - ice sales, a recycling center, municipal airport, Department of Public Works and even an officially sanctioned cadre of greeters dressed in flame-embroidered costumes.
The gathering is described as a seven square-mile civic organism, where pretty much anything goes as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. With that wide-open approach, Burning Man has found itself pigeon-holed as many things organizers insist it is not.
It's not a rave or a hippie fest where drug-crazed revelers spend most of their time wandering around naked. At least that's the official line. Beginning Thursday, the Herald and News will publish a series of stories written on site to report just what the off-beat event actually is.
Being a Burning Man newbie, I'll be going with an open mind and lots of notebooks. I can't help but wonder what the assignment will entail. For example, I talked with Shawn from Seattle when he stopped in Klamath Falls on Saturday to pick up supplies.
He had advice:
That all seems a bit drastic for a get-together that's supposed to be fun. Maybe it's why the “city” pulses most strongly at night, when temperatures are more reasonable and fire is more impressive. After all, the whole shindig culminates in Saturday night's burning of a huge wooden structure in the shape of a man.
Nobody can quite explain what it means. Which might be the whole point.
Could this turn out to be an over-hyped disappointment? Or could it be a sensory overload almost too hot to handle?
Stay tuned to find out.
By STEVE KADEL
H&N Staff Writer
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| Birds, planes collide too often |
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Tina N. O. wrote on Mar 16, 2009 2:54 AM: