Month: August 2004

Those who know me know that for the past few years I’ve made the trip, along with my good friend Petr, out to the Black Rock Desert for the Burning Man festival. This trip has twice proved to a be a life-altering event, a place to learn and grow as an individual and revel in pure experience. This year I wasn’t able to get my shit together to go, and as the date approaches (Labour Day) I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic.

I came across a review for a new book, This Is Burning Man by Brian Doherty and it made me miss the desert even more.

You’re in the desert, a flat, alkaline, dust-choked nowhere the temperature of molten lava, and it’s empty, totally empty. Until, all at once, a whole city rises up like one of those fabulous desert mirages, an anti-Disneyland of tents and trailers, art cars and light shows, people playing golf with burning toilet paper rolls, a kid in a gorilla suit hiding out in a Porta Potty, a dwarf car-surfing behind a pick-up truck…There are hundreds of bizarre, unpredictable things going on all at the same time, and it’s wild–a circus, a zoo, a carnival of the senses. All inhibitions and personal boundaries collapse. The ordinary has vanished.

You’re at Burning Man. Or you’re just reading a book about it.

The author’s name is Brian Doherty. He’s a participant-observer of this annual ritual in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, and his is a delightfully engrossing read. For one thing it’s a sort of biographical dictionary of some of the weirdest people on the planet: Steve Heck, for example, whose motto is “Don’t Be Me” and who makes art out of junk, piling pianos one on top of another, sometimes dozens of them, as a free-form altar to the out-of-tune, then torching the whole. And the Rev. Al, who one year walked around smothered in mud wearing a tire, which was covered with lit sterno cans, suspended from a chain around his neck. Or the 30,000 others who now attend this thing, dressed, many of them, as someone else.

Burning Man is one of the very few events in American culture that brings together hippies, punks, suburban families, Internet millionaires, academics, cab drivers, Honda drivers, techies and tree-huggers and melts them down. Like any true adventure, it strips the clothes off your character, opens you up to self-inspection. Doherty’s book is an excellent introduction to the madness. If you can’t make it to Black Rock, buy the book.

Since I won’t be making it out to the playa this year, I figured another giant party would help take my mind off it, so Labour Day will be spent in Montreal at Cream, where there should be a relatively good mix of insanity and a healthy dose of un-reality to fill the void. (oh yeah, the music lineup is going to kick ass too!)

And here are some links:

The weblog by author Brian Doherty

Buy the book at Amazon

My weblog of my Journey to Burning Man 2003

My photos from Burning Man 2003

Playa Chicken

My friends at Ontario Camp where I camped last year (who are reportedly building a dome dressed up like a giant cat this year. cool)

Lawrence Lessig:

Last week I went to a Black Eyed Peas concert at the Avalon in Boston. It was a DNC event sponsored by the RIAA, and at the doors, big signs were posted everywhere: “Absolutely No Cameras.”

The result: Chaos in the line, as people were sent home after failing cell phone inspection. The choice was to leave your phone / camera behind or leave the concert. People were mad. (“Where is the love?” they asked). So I asked the bouncer, “what’s this about?”

And he said “It’s not our deal. Its those guys [the sponsors].”

So perhaps this is becoming routine and I’m late to it. But can the idea really be (as this suggests) that cell phone pictures of a band are considered a competitive threat? There’s controlling, and then there’s obsessive-compulsive.

Lawrence Lessig on the Induce Act: “This should be clear: Using copyright law to set innovation policy is not much different than letting the coal industry set environmental policy.”

The Induce Act is a controversial piece of legislation introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy, aimed at shutting down P2P Networks. The act is ruffling feathers because it would penalize technology companies and electronics makers for creating anything that could “induce” or encourage users to break copyright law. Critics say the broad scope of the bill could make CD burners, digital camcorders, and even Apple’s iPod illegal.

An interesting footnote: Between 1999 and 2004, Sen. Orrin Hatch received $159,860 in campaign donations from the TV, movie and music industries while Patrick Leahy received $220,450.

The Sneeze on Natto: “The natto was coated in some kind of sick slime and had the complex yet playful aroma of a dumpster in July. Actually, the little pile inside looked kinda like baked beans. It also smelled kinda like baked beans. If they were baked in the filthy heat of Satan’s asshole…The entire experience is difficult to describe, but if you can remember back to the very first time you made out with a hobo’s ass, it’s a lot like that.”

Lots of fun with things you can find in a supermarket, but should probably not eat.

The Sneeze: “I’ve been messing around with a computer game called City of Heroes…Here’s my guy, Capt. Avenger, attempting some of his special brand of chit-chat with other ‘heroes’ while they’re trying to play.”