The Truth About Burning Man

Now it can be told:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/the-truth-about-burning-m_b_279464.html

Still wanting to be back on the Playa. Last year I was there a week after the Burn and there were about 2,000 old beater bicycles piled up for disposal.

The dust- - what can one say about the dust? It was omnipresent. But about 4:00 p.m. I would pour a nice glass of rum and some ice and sit on the old beater sofa on the little porch in Gerlach with my book and a fly swatter. The golden light and the quietness, the flies didn't buzz noisily, give one peace. The rum and the solace of the beautiful late afternoon help, too.

About as good as it gets.

Northern Nevada Landscapes - Three Images

A lonesome road to nowhere, coming into Gerlach and the vast empty playa after the burn. It looks ghost-haunted, doesn't it, with Burning Man a dream-memory? That big sky is foreign to us in New England. Its beauty catches my heart. That's what comes of being born in Montana--these immense, Western landscapes become imprinted on your brain.

Grapeshot

The Man Burns Tonight (Again)

Live from the playa. Here's the link:
http://www.current.tv/burningman/
You can watch.

The photo is of David Best's 2004 Temple. So lovely.

And here I sit in Boston. Sigh! The temperature range in Gerlach is from 96 -36 degrees today. Hot and cold. It gets dark (and therefore cold) on the Playa around 8:00 p.m. That's 11:00 p.m. here on the East Coast, so you're going to have to stay up past bedtime to view the burn. Maybe you go to bed later than I do. Or do you "go to bed with the chickens?" My mom used to say that. It meant really early.

When the chickens come home to roost means something else entirely. Our good old farm expressions are falling by the wayside. What is the wayside, anyhow? You may not find out until "the cows come home." That means a very long time, because apparently cows, who do indeed view the grass as being greener on the other side of the fence, once free from the fence, do not return to their barn or pasture at night like the chickens coming home to roost.

Well, you get the drift. Meanwhile, the excitement is building on the playa. We can be there in spirit.