LotW

This week: Burning Man.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the festival, albeit through word of mouth, or maybe some strange article on bunny suits in the middle of nowhere. For me, the introduction was in The Onion, when there was a satirical article proclaiming that everyone was "too busy" to attend, either because of work or parents. I thought, "ha ha. What a funny article on a fake festival!"

Several months later, I was shocked to read an article about a woman being crushed by a giant mechanical bird. It was quite upsetting, and I'm sure extremely traumatic for everyone involved with the festival. This was the true awakening I had to the festival.

Venturing onto their website, I encourage everyone to check out several things:

1. What IS Burning Man? This simply (or not so simply) answers the question; the terms radical, self-expression, and self-reliance crop up. Art and participation is highly common; and of course, there's a history.
2. 2007 Art Theme. This answers why this week. As the material has been about conservation/sustainability, I thought Burning Man's "Green Man" Theme would work well between a transition from Sustainability to Arts. Of course, the convergence of 30,000+ people to the middle of the desert is never truly sustainable (in terms of energy consumption - they do have an amazing track record of "leave no trace"), it's good to seem them try and create an awareness that even the most adherent among us still pollute.
3. Photos! This is where you want to go to find out what Burning Man looks like (you obviously can't get the entire experience, but it's a start). The architecture that develops is really incredible. The cars are both hideous and endearing. And of course, if you ARE looking for bunny suits, than I suppose they're there too.

I have yet to get to Burning Man (shoot, I haven't even been to Aura Man!), but I figure I'll keep it on my to-do list. For now, though, income and transportation aside, it will have to be an ideal, a utopia of art and economy and collective individuality springing up from the desert.

Of course, didn't they say that about Las Vegas?

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