September, '99.

You want me to tell you about Burning Man? Pshaw. Words ain't that powerful. If you think art is cool, you need to go to this. Trust me.

I guess I can paint you a few pictures.

Imagine...It is night, but it is far from dark. Bonfires flicker in the distance, every distance, in every direction. Overhead, bright green laser beams criss-cross the heavens, extending for miles until they splash against the mountains which ring the festival. Every now and then a flare or a firework goes off, bringing even more light to the scene. Everything that's anything glows in the dark, even Patri's mohawk, and black lights and neon abound.

Imagine...You hear a group of bicycles ride by, and turning to look at them, are shocked to see nothing but bright neon kangaroos, hopping through the desert. The kangaroos are attacked to the rears of the bikes, whose main bodies are unlit and invisible, and the shifting between the 5 images that form the hopping sequence is tied to a sensor on the bicycles wheels, so the kangaroo hops faster or slower as the bicycle changes speed.

Imagine...A battle between two huge creatures, a dragon and a giant, each made of wood and at least fifteen feet in its primary direction. The spectators are in a huge circle, several hundred feet in diamater, and fireworks burst back and forth between the combantants, skittering across the playa, always barely missing the crowd. Finally the monsters go up in a roar of flame, and the show is over.

Imagine...It is daytime, and hot, and people are wearing elaborate costumes or nothing at all. Its a freaks halloween pageant, with people decked out in everything from feather boas to 10 foot high BattleMech suits. Transportation ranges from simple bicycles, small scooters, and feet, to rocket powered bicycles, motorized couches and viking longships. Walking along the road, you are struck by thirst, and your waterbag is empty. But ahead along the way sits a water fountain, on the side of the road, a generic water fountain like you've seen in a thousand hallways, but this one is in the middle of the desert, no hoses visible, no connection possible to anything but the parched earth. You press the button, and a clanking sound is heard from within as machinery rattles itself to life, and suddenly a stream of fresh water arcs out to quench your thirst.

Imagine...that lots of people are stupid enough to drink alcohol in the desert. That some people think this is all about partying. That teenagers come here to get drunk and maybe get laid. That four people were arrested for selling drugs in a place where money is forbidden, barter is the only permitted tool of commerce, and drugs are not exactly difficult to find. That a drunk leaped from a twenty foot high tower and was taken away in an ambulance (he lived). That when half the bloated camp tries to leave sunday morning, it takes them 6 hours to travel the single mile to the nearest highway.

It was not perfect, but it was sublime. It was not safe, but it was surreal. It was art, everywhere, every kind, visual, auditory, tactile, hallucinatory. It was the desert, harsh and unforgiving, but willing to be the canvas for anything anyone dared to paint on it. It was life, springing from the earth in a multicolored bloom.

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