Learning Man
So how was the Burn? Great, as always, and also an evolution of my experience. As always.
So what worked? We did! Packing the truck and trailers from the storage unit in Vegas, putting up a 32’ air conditioned dome, the kitchen dome (including fridge and freezer), showers, the dance floor shade sails, dance platforms, stripper poles, scaffolding et al was one hell of an effort. I worked (and then slept) harder than I have for a long time.
The Hexayurts were a massive win. I could sleep through the heat until 10 or 11am easily. I like the Playa Staples too, and next year I’m definitely going to go the yurt bondage tie-down method, I think we got lucky with the tape anchors because the weather was very calm. The 6’ stretch model I made was plenty of space for me and my stuff and was very easy to erect. I had to make one little modification to add a flap in the roof for cross-ventilation, but that was easy enough.
The LED bike underlights I made turned out awesome too. Hooked up to a 4.5Ah sealed lead acid battery we had maybe four hours of really intense, bright under-bike light any bogan/ricer/ah beng would be proud of. Looks like they were sealed well enough to not get any dust in them too, so they’ll ride another year.
And finally, the Technocolour Dreamcoat performed above and beyond expectations. For something that only came together so last minute (I didn’t have the battery in hand until I got to Vegas!) it worked really well, with no flaky solder joints or software glitches or anything. And, I was getting almost four hours of runtime from the battery which is at the upper end of what I’d hoped. I got heaps and heaps of compliments from wide-eyed psychonauts and fellow LED-enthusiasts and I even managed to meet Cubatron Mark, who was very patient as I had a total fangasm and bent his ear on software techniques for an hour and a half. I’ve got so many ideas for next year’s version(!).
We also won exodus, with a world record 1.5 hours from driving off in the packed car to hitting the bitumen. We have a secret and I’m not telling the Internet what it is.
And what would I do differently next year? Well, one of the things we got for the hard labour of setting up the camp was a really comfortable chill space I used for maybe four hours over the course of the week. Another was two massive and elaborate meals per day. Mmm, bacon. But this is a double edged sword: the four of us in the car on the way back agreed that the week seemed to fly by, and this might have been because of the rhythm imposed on the days by set meal times. And maybe the physical exhaustion due to setting all that stuff up sapped my energy for the rest of the week—I slept a full nine nights out of the ten I was there. Unheard of!
So basically it was very hard work for a lot of grand infrastructure that I didn’t use very much. Our small cluster of tents and yurts around Damian’s monkey hut was where we spent most of our time. This might have been different if we were presented with a few days of 12 hour dust storms of course, but the weather was the best I’d seen it over the four years I was there. There were only a couple of cold nights even.
There were a couple of minor things too, like my lack of a stein, breaking a plywood bike rack with my right arse cheek on Monday night and almost running out of beer on Tuesday, but they just go in my “notes for next year” file, all easily solvable.
Another difference in my experience this year was what I spent my time doing. I’m much more used to seeing a guy ride by on a tiny bicycle, or getting a lift home on a fluffy bunny rabbit whose soundsystem was pumping bluegrass, so instead of wandering the city agape at that kind of thing I spent more time in talks and workshops.
A particularly interesting one was led by one of the new Burning Man Project non-profit board members. I wouldn’t underestimate the symbolism of the Man’s stride or the importance of the CORE project. Now the playa is full, the Org seems to be making a deliberate effort to spread the ten principles out to the world via the regional burns. As always, it will be fascinating to see how the event evolves to meet its new challenges.
Photos coming soon, I promise!