Anyone been to The Burning Man festival ? It's on my list of things to do.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2736748/Woman-dies-falling-moving-bus-Burning-Man.html

So it's like Woodstock without the music. Don't really get the point myself.

A co-worker is there for the second time this year.

There is music, lots of it. This site explains it fairly well: http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/


It has gotten huge, even has it's own airport designation for the duration of the event.

I remember reading about it in a Wired article years ago when it was still fairly small.

Didn't they sacrifice Nic Cage a few years ago? The whole town lured him in under false pretenses and then his wife burned him alive.
j/k

First I ever heard of it was reading Ilium by Dan Simmons, a scifi novel (possibly my most favorite) and it mentioned this. It had changed a bit over a few thousand years.

Funny how that works though huh? Many of these events originally started as "counter-culture" gatherings but then became so popular that they became part of the mainstream.

Surprisingly, auto accidents are the leading cause of death at Burning Man. I guess when you get 70,000 people partying for days on end, accidents are bound to happen. In 2003 they enacted an auto ban after dark because so many were getting killed, but it sounds like this woman fell in front of a shuttle bus.

It's now a world-wide phenomenon; people come from all over to experience it. Several years ago (2006 IIRC) I was flying out of Reno airport, and Burning Man had just finished up and there were a bunch of dust covered and gnarly-looking people waiting for their flights. I ended up talking with a couple and they were from Austria, and their first time to the U.S. was for Burning Man!

...LOL....Oh man OG....Have I got a story for you!
My wife went to high school with the girl in this photo.
She sent this to my wife, after re-connecting via the internet, many years after graduation.




This was when the festival just started, and she said she was having a great time out west..."enjoying the California Culture".....lol. My wife was mortified, never replied...lol.....
They weren't real close friends in school anyway and, the wife felt her 'friend' was a little old for this 'display'. She was.

But this should give you some idea of what the "Burning Man" Festival is about.
Maybe bring a swimsuit.....'or not'....lol.....

It's probably changed, like JoeyJoJo said, above in his post.
But it sure started out on the 'wild side'....

To each their own of course but I would never fly half way across the world to hang out in the desert with a bunch of half nude hippies. lol

Panzer, where is your sense of adventure? And your appreciation for the absurd ?

Don't become boring buddy.

Bring a swimsuit......lol....and please...take photos

Desert + nudity = skin cancer!

I don't know if it's just me getting older or something else, but I can physically feel the sun on my skin now. It's not just "oh it's warm" because being near a stove or fire feels nothing like it.



The Jedi Master

Its funny I just looked into this the other day.(not because I want to go but I saw it mentioned somewhere and wanted to know what it was)

I imagine its interesting but if I go out to the desert it'll be by myself or with a loved one. I'd worried being stuck there with folks doing occult practices. I've heard that other desert "gatherings" bring out the satanists.

HIPPIES, just HIPPIES!!

I don't know about satanists, but it does seem more hedonistic than philosophical or artistic, from what I can tell.

One can get the same level of interaction for a lot less money:

Find a stinky bum (urban outdoorsman/homeless person) and hand him five bucks and a tambourine. Oh, and buttons. Have him play the tambourine and sing anything after giving him the money. Then ask for the tambourine back. Give him the buttons to "pay" for it. Ask him to explain about the government conspiracy with the corporations to rob the proletariat of their rightful ownership of the means of production. With aliens thrown in for good measure.

If you're female, show the bum your boobs.

Then climb into your Mercedes SUV, drive home and smoke some of the great weed you scored while you watch a documentary on the evils of Capitalism on a 72" widescreen TV.

Burning Man. Yeah.

Sign me up for two of them.

Funny thing, I like hippie fests AND Gun shows.
Go figure.

Ok, so it's just me and Tarnsman that see the fun in this.

OG, although it's called burning man festival, you do realize that you're not the one allowed
to do the burning right?-)

No way, i would be all over it ! Never to old to soak up the atmosphere of events like this ! Get some photos when you do Grog and don't forget to take a bicycle to get around