Eddie, a 41-year old male residing in Los Angeles says, “It’s a fun party.” His friends have des-cribed Eddie as being,‘pleasantly understated’.
The “Chika-Chika-Chinchilla” a 31 year-old female and self-proclaimed
talking about, nice try anyway.
For a much more succinct answer we go to Sage, the super dooper ultra cutie patootie from places far more magical than these, who most eloquently said, “Weeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……..”
Thank you Sage, that sums things up nicely.
In closing, it is important to realize that this fantastical cultural and artistic movement is not an isolated event confined to the orange plastic trash fence perimeter of Black Rock City. This is happening simultaneously everywhere and in the middle of nowhere. Around the country and around the world, burners are taking these philosophies and practices of “Radical Inclusion” and “Radical Self Reliance” back home from the playa, us­ing them to transform their lives and their art. Regional groups in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and almost every other major city in the US and across the globe regularly hold Burningman style events on a slightly more modest scale where they gather with friends to laugh, discuss, and inspire each other to bigger, bolder, and more enthusiastic plans for the coming year.
Superspectactial Witch is quoted as enthusiastically expressing, “It’s a place! And we can go there!!” She clearly has a firm understanding of Burningman as a noun.
Mike, a 30-year-old lost and found soul feels, “While trying to explain the experience of the playa to friends who have no idea of what Burningman is, or even that it existed... I explained the basic facts about the des­sert, the dust, the lights, the sounds, the philosophies and the general structure of the thing. But that sort of missed the point about what the experience really is for me. They only sort of understood what it “is” to me, when I explained that that one week a year stimu­lates my brain unlike anything else I have ever come across in this life... and helps me blow off steam that builds most of the rest of the year.
Without Burningman, I would probably be a signifi­cantly grumpier person all year long. But that one week just makes the stress of my life seem so much easier to deal with long after the event. I have no idea exactly how it does it, but it does it all the same.
And I’m so grateful for having stumbled upon it, and incorporating it into my life because somehow it makes my life better, even when I’m doing things that have nothing to do with burning men. When I explain it like that, my friends begin to understand what it really is (to me) on a deeper level, beyond all the sights and sounds and things, and nudity, and dust, and such that seem to be a very superficial definition of what it’s all about.” It’s clear Mike just has no idea what he’s
So, had you not heard of Burningman be­fore, don’t worry, you will again. You see, for the cynical among us it may be quite easy to dismiss these happenings as “those damn hippies play­ing in the dirt”, but for those with wider eyes, this might just be the great art movement of our time.
** Footnote: Larry (Harvey) is the founder of Burn-ingman. David (Best) is the artist responsible for de­signing and building the Temple each year. Ross (As-selstine) was David Best’s chief consulting architect in 2003. Their responses are excerpts from the movie “Burningman: Beyond Black Rock City” produced by Lightyear Entertainment.