I lived!

It appears, from a finger, toe, and heartbeat count, that I survived
my journey to Burning Man.  What an experience!  I think I can say,
without reservation, that Burning Man was the greatest trip of my
life.  Of course the closer an event gets to being the greatest of
your life, the less likely that it can be described.  But, being the
writer that I am (even though I start sentences with "but") I will do
my best to use stories and stream of consciousness email-style rambling
to give you a feel for my personal adventure that was Burning Man.

Let me begin by giving a second-person account of the day-to-day
"normal" events that were going on throughout the duration of our
stay.

The morning sun has turned the tent into a very efficient solar
cooker, so it's time to get up.  You open the tent flap to a welcome
cool morning breeze and a magnificent view of the man: a three-four
story high wooden and neon human effigy filled with fireworks.  He
looks magnificent against the bright blue desert sky.  As you climb
from your tent a man zipps by on toilet roped to a truck.  He is
calmly sitting with his pants down, reading a paper.  Overhead someone
with a huge fan strapped to his back and a parachute over his head is
swooping and diving around the camps.  Gyrocopters circle the
perimeter.  A large shark drives by, followed by a VW bug pulling a
man surfing on Birkenstocks.  The wildly painted VW bug is squaking
like a chicken through top-mounted speakers.  Bikes are everywhere.
Naked people, covered in mud, chat happily with the designer of a
huge, iron midieval machine powered by four sets of pedals.  A long
tube extends from the front and spins a set of saw blades.  With the
flip of a switch, it belches 40 feet of blazing hot flame and leaves
little trails of fire in its wake.  Music pours from every side.  From
the main stage the Mermen wail on psychodelic surf music.  From
somewhere else, tribal drums are pounding.  From in front of you, a
truck drives by with a calliope organ sporting two large breasts and
playing the themes to "Gilligan's Island" and "Spider Man".  More
unicycles speed past.  A Winnebago cruises about the camps, a
square-rigger sail on the top and a pirate flag waving from the back.
Everyone standing on the top is wearing pirate clothes and either
swinging a cutlass yelling, "ARgg!" or spraying passerby with
refreshing water from water guns.  An inflatable woman protrudes from
the front, and Barney the dinosaur is being keel-hauled (dragged on a
rope) from the back.  Later in the day, the shark-car will chase down
the ship and maul Barney into fluff.  Off in the distance the sun
glints off of the bright colors of the windsurfer sails, mounted on
wheeled carts.  There are black, dust covered motorcycles roaring
around desert and leaving plumes of dust.  There is a bannana bike.
Scooters turned into large fluffy rabbits and aardvarks.  A bullet car
built from an F-16 auxiliary fuel tank.  Mudhendge-- a
Stonehendge-like monument built from mud and containing the writhing
torsos of human bodies.  Motorized couches covered with relaxing
people drinking beer.  A motorized, remote-control endtable with a
lamp chasing the couch.  A bike with a surfboard protruding from the
front and rear.  A beautiful naked girl on a glittering metalic dragon
bike.  A man on stilts with a brilliant silver elvis suit and huge
sunglasses, riding a tiny bike.

You take another long drink of water, one of an endless stream of such
drinks.  There is not a time when you are not drinking water or
returning it to nature.  It's hot, but dry and comfortable.  During
the worst sun you can always retreat to your shade structure.  Most
of these are built from combinations of rebar, PVC (white plastic
plumbing pipe), rope, parachutes, canvas, tie-dye sheets, and lawn
chairs.

Hopefully that gives you a feel for the general ambiance of the event,
but better and more important than all of this madness are the
people and spirit that create and surround it.  As soon as we arrived,
set up our camp, and laid back on our lawn chairs, a cute girl dressed
in a fairy outfit with little silk wings walked up.
	"Would you boys like to be fed grapes?" she asked.  Even
greater than the taste of the fresh, sweet, cold grapes was the thrill
of being on the receiving side of unconditional benevolence.  It was
impossible to avoid being swept up in this spirit that permeated every
aspect of the event.  The fruit fairy was only the beginning, and we
happily gave out suntan lotion, water, and food whenever the
opportunity presented itself.  On the last two nights we even spent
time walking from campfire to campfire, cooking marshmellows on a fork
tied to a length of PVC and offering them to anyone we met.  We were
frequently offered beer and PEZ in return.

It wasn't just food that people were giving away.  Every display and
event was funded and run entirely by volunteers.  People just came,
created and participated.  

There was a piano fortress built of 70-80 old pianos and sounding
boards, most of the strings still intact.  There were boxes of
drumsticks surrounding the structure and everyone and anyone was free
to come and make the most amazing racket you can imagine.  Standing in
the center of the structure was truely an aural feast.  On the last
day, it was all burning.  (For music lovers: the pianos were the
result of a warehouse fire the ocurred several months before.  As I
understand it, some poor guy had his future invested in them.  This
was certainly a suitable and magnificent funeral!)

A gigantic gothic castle with gargoyles and three tall towers was
constructed entirely of chicken wire and mud taken from the playa.  On
Saturday night it then became the site of a 1.5 hour macabre opera
loosely based on Dante's inferno.  Rhythmic, hypnotic, improvisational
music thundered as souls writhed and danced.  Mystics in high silver
hats and robes strode about.  All the major sins were represented,
including Greed as a naked man dragging a heavy metal chest, which he
continually hoarded and defended against would be thieves.  At the
finale the entire castle went up in flames, with tunnels of fire
shooting from the towers.  The music and dancing continued until the
whole thing had crumbled down into the dust from whence it came.  An
truely amazing performance.

Alas, I must flee off to San Jose and leave you with this incomplete
Burning Man tale.  So the Burning Man story will continue with a
future post.  Stay tuned for more stories and details!

Love to all,
Kai