Stars and Stripes

I found this little tunic at Goodwill just before we left for Burning Man. Out on the playa I wore it as a super-short minidress, with just a bikini bottom underneath. Back in the real world though, it's relegated to the role of tunic, and will be worn strictly over skirts or pants. The starry scarf came with the tunic and is actually designed to be used as a belt, but for this outfit I wanted the contrast of a black belt, so I swapped in one of Mark's designs and wore the original belt as a scarf.

One thing I noticed about this tunic is that while it's really comfortable for normal wearing, the sleeves are a little too tight for the hunched-over position required for riding a mountain bike. Which reminds me that I really hate riding mountain bikes. So if this tunic goes back to the playa again, it'll either be with cut-off sleeves or, preferably, I'll be riding a cruiser bike instead.

Burning Man bikes are a whole phenomenon in and of themselves. First of all, the alkaline playa dust is highly corrosive, which means you really don't want to take a nice expensive bike out there. And then, with the thousands of bikes scattered all over the playa, it's important to be able to readily identify yours, as well as light it up thoroughly for nighttime visibility. So what you'll see out there is an amazing assortment of lavishly decorated, incredibly beat up and rusty bikes, many wrapped with EL-wire, which can be used to create all sorts of spectacular effects against the black background of the desert. Every year as August approaches, beater bikes become a hot commodity in and around San Francisco, which is good to know if you're looking to unload an old rusty bike.


Shirt: Target
Tunic: thrifted
Belt: Audra Jean
Jeans: Acne
Boots: All Black

Burning Man: The Fashion

 + 1 week = 

Today I'll focus on the fashion of Burning Man, which is really just another discussion of the culture from a slightly different angle. Because in the end Burning Man is all about culture and community, and fashion is merely one aspect of how that community interacts and how its members express themselves. The weather and the dusty environment also play a large part in the discussion of Burning Man fashion, which you might have already guessed by looking at the photos above. And no, I did not wash those socks before I wore them again. There would have been no point.

In many ways, the fashion of Burning Man is deeply practical at its core. Want your friends to be able to find you easily in a place where cell phones don't work? Wear something outrageous and eye-catching. Want to stay cool under the scorching desert sun? Wear something scanty or simply go nude. Want to keep your feet from drying and cracking in the alkaline playa dust? Wear chunky, insulating boots. Want to avoid getting run down by a bike or a mutant vehicle in the pitch-black desert night? Wear plenty of things that glow. Want to stay warm at night and still look stylish? Try wearing something furry.

Tutus and Utilikilts; two Burning Man fashion staples.

But obviously in a place where there are no rules about how to dress, or even if you have to dress at all, there's a whole lot of leeway for personal expression. For many people, Burning Man is a place to push their own boundaries and even create a whole new persona that they've always wanted to explore. Many people find that going nude or partially so really isn't as scary as they imagined it would be, and in this they can find a new acceptance of their own bodies and a way to conquer fears. At Burning Man nudity is just a normal part of life, and whether you're old or young, skinny or ample, no one is really going to look twice if you're naked or topless or a "shirt cocker" (although the latter is really quite an unfortunate look, to be honest -- so much so that some camps have set up 'pants cannons' to fire at pantsless passersby). Many people shower right out in the open because setting up an enclosed shower structure can be such a pain, and when the water truck goes by to spray the roads (it keeps the dust down), people will just whip off their clothes and run behind it to cool off.

A couple of my daytime looks. Note the cup attached to my belt in the first photo; most places that serve drinks ask you to bring your own cup, so it's important to have one on hand at all times. This is one of the things that makes harnesses and belts such handy accessories; they give you a place to attach all your stuff.

There are a few common themes that emerge in the clothing of Burning Man; you'll see the "playa bunnies" done up with lots of fluffy fake fur, the rugged, Mad Max-meets Marilyn Manson looks, the ravers with their glow sticks and colorful wigs, and dashes of goth, steampunk, bondage-inspired, and plenty of hippie tie dye. You'll also see a lot of costumes and costume accessories -- bunny ears, weird contact lenses, masks, crazy wigs, and lots and lots of fishnet, in the form of stockings, gloves, shirts, you name it. Sadly, come Thursday night you'll also see a lot of the douchebag frat boy bro types rolling in, wearing their backwards baseball caps and shitty flip flops, with their sole purpose in life being to swill brewskies and listen to awful aggro metal music. This is my least favorite element of Burning Man, and frankly I wish the entrance gates would close on Wednesday so that people can't just come to 'party' for the weekend. Thankfully, the douchey bros and and vapid club girls make up a fairly small minority of the overall population.

A couple of interesting looks seen at Center Camp, the best spot for people watching on the whole playa.

Of course the weather has an influence on the fashion, being generally hot during the day and sometimes bitterly cold at night, but more importantly there's also the omnipresent dust. If you're worried about being dirty at Burning Man, you're going to be spending a lot of your time worrying. OK, all of your time. Because there's really no getting clean at Burning Man, there's only the temporary illusion of clean that you get when you rinse off your hands or wipe your face with a wet washcloth (which will inevitably be inpregnated with dust anyway). If you really want to enjoy yourself fully, you just have to embrace the dust, because by the end of the week everyone and everything is pretty much covered with it.

By the end of the week my "playa hair" had gone full-on spiky mop, and our boots were all playa-colored. I also discovered why dreadlocks are such a practical hair style out there.

As I mentioned on Monday, the only time I've really felt out of place at Burning Man was when I showed up in my boring, unimaginative street clothes (literally jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers, that I wore because they were comfortable to travel in). In a place where anything goes, it's not about fitting in so much as it's about putting yourself out there and contributing something to the community. And whether you go in drag or dress up as a one-eyed purple kangaroo or just go naked, you're revealing something about yourself, something that can be shared. And with an outfit that you clearly put zero effort or thought into, there's nothing there to be shared, nothing to contribute to the experience of Burning Man. Because in the end, the Burning Man experience is comprised solely of what the attendees collectively put into it.

Dressing up at Burning Man is fun, but for me it isn't really the focus, because I already feel very confident in expressing myself through style even when I'm back home. But for many people it's the fashion element that is so transformative; they cast off their inhibitions and experiment with style in ways they never thought they could. And I think this leads a lot of people to wonder what they're so scared of in regular life, and how they might bring a little of that freedom back home with them. Like I said before, Burning Man can be a life-changing experience, and this is just one of the many aspects of your life it can change.

I hope you've enjoyed my series on Burning Man; for Parts 1 and 2, please see my posts from Monday and Wednesday.

Burning Man: The Art

A giant double helix: an obvious draw for a bio nerd like myself.

For the first part of my Burning Man series, please see Monday's post. Today I'll discuss the art, which can take on just about as many forms as you can think of, from immense static installations to mutant vehicles to music to dance performance, and so much more. My photos don't begin to cover the vast array of art we saw, and that's because sometimes at Burning Man it's important to put the camera aside and just live the moment. This can be hard to do if you're a photo buff, but there's something liberating about absorbing all the details of an experience, taking in the sights and sounds and smells and cementing it in your memory alone. The interesting thing about such moments is that you never know when some future thing will trigger the memory; in some ways the recollection of these experiences can be more powerful than the ones where an image is brought back home with you, stripping away many of the other important elements of the moment.

One such unphotographed experience was the Marching Band March Off, which we saw both in 2008 (by happy accident) and again this year (on purpose). Five marching bands competed at Center Camp for the distinguished honor of holding for one year the coveted winged trophy provided by emcee extraordinaire Raspa (for a photo of Raspa and the trophy, as well as some excellent commentary on this year's burn, see this blog entry).

In describing the marching band competition, I really need to begin with Center Camp, the heart of Black Rock City. Center Camp is the downtown of the metropolis, and holds the distinction of being one of only 2 places in the entire city where your money is any good; at Center Camp you can use it to buy coffee or tea, and at a couple of other locations on the playa you can use it to buy ice.

The entrance to Center Camp.

It's generally always lively at Center Camp, day or night. Not only is there a lot to see and experience (including the aforementioned coffee), but there are also plenty of places to relax.

It's important, though, to make sure your bunny ears are still securely in place
should you decide to take a nap. You'd hate to be seen without your costume!

By night, Center Camp can take on an otherworldly quality, making it an ideal spot to watch performances or hear music. The night of the marching band competition it was abuzz with activity, and by the final performances the place was packed and everyone was really into it. The bands were judged on several different criteria, including stamina, cleanliness (which points were deducted for), audience response, and the mystery category, "that certain je ne sais quoi." The bands, of course, were no ordinary marching bands; some had exotic percussion instruments or percussion only, some had dancers and stilt walkers, and one used a full-sized bomb casing as a prop. The winning band was the Titanium Sporkestra from Seattle, and coming in a close second was the winner from 2008, the Bay Area's own Loyd Family Players. The Marching Band March Off was one of our favorite events of this year's burn.

Center Camp by night in a dust storm. The dust hangs in the air and gives everything a mysterious glow. On this particular evening they were playing a CD by Chance's End, an excellent local violin-based electronica act. No music could have fit the atmosphere more perfectly.

The Minaret, outside the main entrance to Center Camp, at dusk.

The art piece everyone was talking about this year was the stunning Bliss Dance. Never have I seen a more perfect tribute to the female form; using steel beams and a steel mesh "skin," a 40-foot nude, dancing woman came to life in the middle of the playa. She's not sexualized at all, in fact she gives the impression that she's dancing for no other audience than herself. According to the Burning Man Earth website, "She celebrates humanity and shows the feminine beauty, power and strength that emerges when women are safe and free to be themselves."

This piece drew a crowd day and night. There were no events happening there per se (unless a mutant vehicle happened to pull up playing music), but the sheer beauty of this piece just made people want to go out there and BE with it. At night she was lit both from the outside and the inside, creating some interesting visual effects.

Much of the art at Burning Man is highly interactive; you can climb on it, you can write on it, you can work the control panel. And at the end of the week most anything made of wood is burned.

Including, obviously, this guy.

Whereas the Man burn on Saturday night is a huge party, the Temple burn is a solemn, reverent affair that happens on Sunday, after most of the party crowd is gone. People go the the Temple all week to leave memorials to loved ones who have died, or write wishes or prayers, all of which is sent up to the heavens in a massive ball of flame and smoke.

Oh, and did I mention the fireworks? There were LOTS of fireworks at the Man burn.

As I mentioned on Monday, many art installations incorporate fire into their very design. This makes them cozy places to hang out on a chilly evening.

Some pieces suggest spirituality...

...some make a statement...

...and some are just plain silly.

This year's artwork was really spectacular, and as I mentioned my photos don't begin to capture it all. But I hope this gives you a flavor of the sheer variety that the playa can hold. Every day, at any hour, there is something new to be experienced, and that, I think, is what keeps people coming back year after year.

Burning Man, Part I: What Is It?

Burning Man is a difficult thing to describe, and in the end no description will really convey a true sense of what it's like to be there. And yet it's important to keep trying, if only to counteract in some small way the vast misconceptions that exist about it. My feelings about Burning Man are echoed in the way Hunter S. Thompson describes his experience in San Francisco in the 60's:

"San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant... There was madness in any direction, at any hour... There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... Our energy would simply prevail." --Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Evolution of an outfit: San Francisco'ed up for the chilly morning, playa'ed down for the warm afternoon, and Burning Man'ed out for the night. The only time I've ever felt self-conscious at Burning Man was in 2008 when I arrived on the playa in street clothes. I vowed never to do that again.

Burning Man is not a festival, it's not a concert, it's not a scripted event. No number of Lollapaloozas or Coachellas will give you the vaguest notion of what Burning Man is really all about. At it's most basic, it is camping in an extremely harsh environment and an incredibly free atmosphere where literally anything can happen. At it's most complex, it's a profoundly life-changing experience that alters your sense of human interactions and expression. In fact, I'd argue that if you attended Burning Man and your life wasn't changed, you somehow did it wrong.

Our camp starts to take shape.

Burning Man is really more of a culture than anything else; it's a culture that values self-expression, generosity, community, art, and self-reliance. Imagine this: you're pedaling along on your bike on a city street somewhere. A dirty, unshaven, and quite possibly drunk man steps out of his house to offer you some wine. He's wearing a vaguely vaudevillian outfit and maybe a threadbare top hat. It's 10 am. What would you do?

I can tell you what I'd do, if I were in the default world; I'd put on my stony, city face and ride right by, hoping he didn't leap out and accost me. But in the Burning Man world I stopped, said hello and yes, I'd love some wine. And he gave me the whole bottle. We chatted cordially for a few minutes, and then he excused himself so that he could go help his campmates clean up. At Burning Man you have to be prepared to throw away all your jaded, mistrustful city ways and accept friendliness and open-hearted sharing as if it's the most natural thing in the world. And when you think about it, it should be the most natural thing in the world.

A great way to keep your tent safe from the powerful desert wind: put it inside a steel-frame carport, anchored to the ground with long rebar stakes. The "floor" is made of long strips of burlap.

The luxurious common area we set up with our campmates: kitchen on the right, living area on the left. This was also constructed out of carports.

You might be wondering what people do all day (and all night, because the activity is truly nonstop) at Burning Man, and there's really no simple answer to that question. It's just like any other city in that there are as many things to do as there are interests to be pursued. Burning Man can be quiet and serene; you might go get a massage or learn how to do a craft, you might join a meditation group or construct a memorial to a loved one at the Temple, you might explore the art installations in the deep playa or just veg out in your camp during a windstorm. But it can also be incredibly high energy, where you might choose to dance all night, go roller skating, see live music, or watch a parade of hundreds of naked men. It is, in essence, whatever you want it to be, and many, many things you never expected.

This house drove by as we were setting up camp. Yep, you read that right.

They were serving up margaritas a few camps down from us, using a chainsaw-driven blender.

There's also a lot of pure silliness and light-hearted fun at Burning Man too, and everyone is encouraged to participate in some way. Our campmates Noah and Jeannie built an adult-sized Sit 'n Spin that we put out front for passersby to enjoy; one camp offered free Jewish motherly advice, and another hosted a Sharpie tattoo convention. One camp gave out thousands of pee funnels so that ladies don't need to hover in the porta-potties, another had naked hula-hooping, one had a pancake pajama party and another had a sock monkey workshop. The entire week is comprised of things that are created, built, coordinated, and maintained by participants. No one is paid for their contributions to Burning Man, and no money is ever exchanged for the services, entertainment or refreshment that is offered. The events that are produced, the art that is created, the music that is performed, the food and drinks that are served are all contributed by the participants and are given for free, for the simple joy of making other people happy.

The mutant vehicles offer an alternative to biking or walking around the 7-square mile city (no other cars are allowed to drive around Burning Man). Most have sound systems and are like mobile dance clubs.

This one meowed and made purring sounds.

Many of the mutant vehicles are best appreciated when viewed at night, when the playa is transformed into a completely different world. This butterfly car had an ethereal glow that was truly magical after dark.

The one thing that cannot be conveyed in any photos of Burning Man is the sound. The entire playa is a cacophony of sounds that pulsate nonstop night and day. Sitting in camp you'll hear music and voices coming from various campsites nearby, which might be temporarily drowned out by the passing of a huge mutant vehicle blasting old school country or a Lady Gaga-Culture Club mash-up. You might be pedaling along the playa and hear baroque classical music streaming from Center Camp, or perhaps you'll pass an art installation that sequences light or fire with different sounds.

And then there's the fire. Many, many things on the playa are fashioned with fire, from stationary art pieces to mutant vehicles. So you might be standing next to say, a giant bicycle that looks like a dragon, when suddenly it flings its head back, opens its toothy mouth and shoots forth a huge fountain of flame. And though the fire itself  is impressive, nothing can compare to experiencing not only the sight but also the heat and the sound; the roaring, hissing sound of a powerful gas-fueled inferno erupting right next to you.

Yep, the giant flame-spewing dragon bike was actually real.

I have two more installations planned for my Burning Man report, in which I'll get to the main attractions: the fashion and the art. Stay tuned for more pictures from the playa! And if you were there this year, be sure to stop by and share your stories and impressions.

Back in the Default World

Oops... I accidentally took 2 days off instead of one. That's what happens when your internal calendar gets all messed up by being in the desert for a week. If you hadn't already guessed, I snuck away to Burning Man last week; Mark and I left early last Tuesday and returned on Labor Day. The drive home on Monday was an absolute killer, and we spent most of the day yesterday unpacking and washing the playa dust off of every square inch of everything we took with us. The trip was GREAT however, and I'll bring you the full report in several installments next week. Tomorrow and Friday I've got the last 2 of my pre-burn outfits to show you, and for today I'm going to keep it brief and just share this one photo of Mark and I out exploring the playa.

I wish I could say I was happy to be back in the default world, but it's taking some getting used to. The playa is a truly amazing and special place, and more than once I've found myself wondering why life can't be like that all the time. In the coming months I'll be looking for ways to bring more Burning Man principles into my daily life, and you can bet I'll be sharing them in this space. Stay tuned!