Burning Man

I had friends in college who tried to go one year but their car didn't make it. Instead Burning Man they got burning gaskets and spent a week in Bakersfield waiting for their car to get fixed. They said they met just as many crazy people though (the joke being that any one who would live in Bakersfield would have to be crazy).

Burning Man combines too things I don't much care for--deserts and poor bathroom facilities. Though I would love to hear stories from anyone who made it.

Maybe if I were in my 20's I might go to Burning Man. But otherwise you couldn't pay me to go there. Not my thing.

Crazy. My last roommate just talked about how she danced all day and all night while tripping out on mushrooms, without sleeping. However, another friend of mine who goes every year says that she stays away from the drugs and does arts and crafts all day. It's where she learned the term "FOMO" (Fear Of Missing Out - how pertinent to California!)

Funny thing is, everyone I know who goes seems to be in their mid-30s or older - it's like it has a weird mature cult following or something like that. Or maybe my friends are just young at heart.

I think it started with Gen Xers so that kinda makes sense that you would get an older set. I know that a lot of graduate students go and that some of them even write their dissertations on it. (I heard some graduate student at Santa Cruz was writing his dissertation on the way that communities develop at Burning Man in a postmodern way, or some mumbo jumbo like that.)

Hmm, that doesn't surprise me. My roommate got back and talked about how he is "going every year" from now on and something about how traffic from the place to the highway took 4 1/2 hours and that they left before 99% of the people. I guess heat is a huge badge of courage as well.

I am curious to hear more and will certainly post when I get some data. There is definitely a unique subculture there that I do want to hear more about. In the meantime, my house is garnished with Burning Man frisbees all over the place. Go figure.

I was looking online and I guess burning man got started here on Baker Beach in the 80's (it reminds me the in the 60's the Merry Pranksters uhad one of their events on the Beach). They used take acid and trip out--the Warlocks (who would become the Grateful Dead) got their start playing at Prankster Events.