Sorry/Not Sorry. (Burning Man 2023)

Even under the most pleasant of circumstances, it's hard for me to imagine a more hellish experience than attending Burning Man, the counterculture arts and whatever festival held each Labor Day weekend in the Nevada desert.

Not my cup of tea, or whatever it is the bev of choice might be at Burning Man. (I am way too reserved, too introverted, too cynical, too rational, etc. Plus I like my creature comforts way too much. Not to mention that I'm not now, nor have I ever been, someone hoping to expand my consciousness with the assistance of illegal substances.)

The crowd appears to be largely composed of what, back in the day, we would have referred to as "ow-wowers," only instead of just guys with scraggly beards and  "chicks" that my grandmother would have categorized as streelin' in jeans and India print "hippie shirts", there are a lot of 21st century adds: Birkenstocks, fleeces, crazy pants on the guys, diaphanous glam costumes for the women, etc. Still, they do seem to be the sort of folks given to reacting to everything with a hearty (or stoned) "ow wow!", many of them looking to escape their straight buttoned-down existence for a long weekend of star- and navel-gazing.

I am by no means a conservative. And if I'm not a conservative now, I was by no means a conservative in my youth, during the hippie era. With my bellbottoms, long hair, wooden beads, Dr. Scholls, and boho shirt, Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet would have made me for a radical, left wing hippie. Mostly what I was was a an anti-Vietnam War protestor who listened to folk music and occasionally smoked a joint. But I was by no stretch of the imagination a candidate for Burning Man.

Mass protest, certainly. Love in, be in? Include me out.

In August 1969, I could have gone to Woodstock.

I was working as a waitress at Big Boy's in Worcester's Webster Square, and a few of the other college-girl waitresses were going.

No thanks. Not my vibe.

Instead, I worked extra shifts to fill in for the Woodstockers.

While I did like the music - when the album was released the following May, I of course bought it - but I would have despised every moment, even if torrential rains hadn't turned it into a mud fest.

So, no Burning Man for me.

That said, I would certainly not have wished dreadful weather on the event. But I can't say that I didn't chuckle just a bit when the news came out that unseasonable weather - lotsa rain - had turned the desert into quicksand, and that all roads in and out were closed, stranding tens of thousands of latter day ow-wowers, who were asked to conserve food and water and shelter in place while waiting for the playa (the patch o' desert where Burning Man is held) to dry out.

The rains having stopped, attendees started to trickle out yesterday, traffic-jamming on the one lane road out of the campground. (Some attendees had made their getaway over the weekend by walking out - with difficulty - through the squelching mud.)

Sounds and looks like an absolute horror show to me, but most attendees remained upbeat, claiming that the adverse conditions had brought out the best of the fest.

Although she had managed to escape early yesterday "when the main road wasn't being guarded," Boston attendees Cindy Bishop:

...said spirits were still high at the festival when they had left. Most people she spoke with said they planned to stay for the ceremonial burns.
The spirit in there,” she said, “was really like, ‘We’re going to take care of each other and make the best of it.’” (Source: AP News)

Rebecca Barger stuck it out:

“Everyone has just adapted, sharing RVs for sleeping, offering food and coffee,” Barger said. “I danced in foot-deep clay for hours to incredible DJs.”

Dancing in foot-deep clay for hours? I don't care how incredible those DJs were. This sounds like yuck. Especially as it has been reported that, given the alkali nature of the ground, once it gets wet, it can lacerate any bare spots it finds on your body. Ouchie!

Meanwhile, I came across an article from Wired that appeared in April of this year. The piece asked a burning, and quite prescient, question: Can Burning Man Pull Out of Its Climate Death Spiral?

After all, Burning Man 2022 had been on trip to the beach. Not that it's supposed to be: 

That this featureless, skin-cracking-dry expanse of white dust isn’t easy living has always been the point of hosting Burning Man there. But last year’s conditions led to a general sense of burnout and malaise, and many of the 80,000 attendees asked the existential question of whether it was still worth it to throw a party in a desert on a warming planet. (Source: Wired)

I guess the decision for 2023 was that it was still worth it, but Wired thinks, what with climate change, "the event might slowly decay."

I'm also guessing that this year's weather debacle might nudge that decay along a bit. But that may just be me. I am so not a candidate to go rough it in the desert with 80,000 ow-wowers.