The Magic of Night
By jonathan schork (photos by jonathan schork)
Like most cities, Burning Man’s Black Rock City, in the heart of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, is really several cities, distinguished from each other depending upon the time of day, which influences everything from the light and heat to the people you meet, and as with most cities, you learn the characters of this one slowly.
The City at sunrise, with its few weary late-night stragglers stumbling home after the parties have ended, and its few early risers eagerly emerging to salute the sun with a jog around the playa, is hush and somnolent. The music at this hour, which wafts over the City like an early call to prayer, is ethereal and gentle-- ephemeral qualities here that will not last long: perhaps it is a suite of Bach cello solos played languidly by Janigro, lulling most of us to sleep if we haven’t already been there, and if we have, intruding furtively to remind us to stay there a while longer. The scents of breakfast travel on the breeze as well, unaccompanied by the dust that will color the aroma of later meals. Like twilight elsewhere, sunrise here is at time of peace.
The City in the afternoon is a different City entirely: a busy, noisy bazaar of thirty-five thousand people, they go about the routines of their daily lives, but unlike such routines elsewhere, here that means repairing tents, hauling home ice from center-camp or one of the far-flung plazas, as our forebears did a hundred years ago, when an icebox was just that. We stop at the camp of a friend to see if he’s “at home,” take a stroll past the public artworks that decorate like Christmas tree ornaments our mile-wide public park-- sculptures so numerous you can’t even see them all. As the sun bakes our streets, we might put in at one of the neighborhood bars for a cocktail. It is a spectacle of activity.
But like other cities, this one really comes alive at night: Burning Man is most vivid after the sun has left us. The lights at night turn the City from a dusty village into a swirling rainbow of color, constantly shifting, sending its aura into the dark with a brilliance that can be seen from space: a sudden, unexpected star where none has been before in an empty corner of the cosmos, an epicenter of magic that has drawn us all into its orbit.
Sculptures lovely but inert during the day are transfigured by fire and light into kaleidoscopic beacons that guide us through the flat, measureless plain of dry lakebed. The Man, sixty feet tall, towers brilliantly in the middle of everything-- the apex of the city, waiting for his appointment with fire, when he will leave us for another year. It feels as if he is watching over us, a benevolent sentry, but in fact we watch over each other, stranger for stranger. The Flaming Lotus Girls (www.flaminglotus.com) have given us Soma, a steel ganglion fifteen feet tall, thirty feet long, inspired by the neuron: it’s twinkling LEDs and spinning balls of fire mimic our own thought-processes, a living, Brobdingnagian organ.
Another Brobdingnagian sculpture-- Ecstasy, by San Francisco artists Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito (headlesspoint.com)-- towers over the Esplanade holding fire in her giant hands. At 37’ tall, she is visible from anywhere on the playa, disappearing only when a cloud of wind-born dust envelops her. Like many of us, she is a return visitor to the City: she was here in 2007 as part of a massive installation called Crude Awakenings. This year she stands alone, dancing silently to her own unknown muse. I am here this year on assignment for DISfunkshion magazine, writing a feature called the Burning Woman; this sculpture feels like the emblem of my theme.
The mutant cars-- elaborately got up in their outsized costumes-- prowl the streets and the wide open playa inviting revelers to join the party: each vehicle, some the size of two city-buses, comes with its unique light signature, its thumping musical repertoire, and a swaying crowd of people in love with the moment. Like an informal, psychedelic public transportation system, the cars stop now and again to disgorge a clump of characters in their own costumes, eager to seek the next stop.
That next stop might be one of the many diners and restaurants that dot the City and fill the dusty air with the rich, savory palette of desert cuisine. Even the most simple fare-- a grilled cheese sandwich with American cheese-- something we might scorn in the regular world-- becomes an oasis of taste here: the Black Rock Diner (www.blackrockdiner.com)-- as transient as the rest of us-- is never at the same address two years in a row, but it serves the masses from 11pm nightly. The White Dragon Noodle Bar (www.wdnb.org) serves ramen that seems like the best I’ve ever eaten, and a sumo wrestling match for contenders whose victory in the ring will promote them to the front of the queue.
A camp of Quebecois-- Midnight Poutine-- have brought us their national dish: a delicious concoction of French fried potatoes, cheese curds, and gravy-- we stand in line for an hour for a small tray, but it is worth it, not only because the food is so much more here in our dusty City, but because we spend the time with people we love, or meet new people we will. Tia’s Quesadillas offers a special challenge to the Burning Man gourmand: if you want a sample from their fully mobile kitchen, you have to be lucky enough to find it as it moves from place to place without notice or even, seemingly, a plan. The scent of the quesadillas is your only clue: follow your nose.
The tailings of a sand storm might drive us into a club we’ve never visited before, and finding there new friends we stay for hours. Night is the time of music at Burning Man, and dancing, and parties: every flavor is represented here. The Hookah Dome plays something like oriental trace music one night: I stay until sunrise. The Opulent Temple (www.opulenttemple.org), in our boondocks, so to speak, is a crowd favorite, hosting everything from drum circles to up-and-coming talent that draws crowds far beyond its capacity; but people come and go, and sooner or later everyone gets a chance to dance. A rumor of a live performance by def punk has swept the City: an impenetrable clot of enthusiastic fans descend on the rumored address, and when it turns out they’ve been the subject of a practical joke, they dance anyhow.
My favorite club this year is part old west/scifi saloon, part Ray Bradbury circus: the Mystikal Misfits-- a Los Angeles-based theme camp run by Terry Pratt & John Pedone, offers a cavernous interior, erected on a huge armature of scaffolding, with cozy, couch-filled alcoves around the perimeter of the dance floor, a dj at one end, and a truly funky, eclectic long-bar at the other. I see in this club a movie set. It is here one night that I meet the Ruiner-- when she is finished with me, she takes an ink stamp out of her pocket, imprints my right cheek with her nom-de-guerre, and makes a photograph of me for her scrap-book. Not a drinker, I am nonetheless pleasantly surprised by the flavor of a cocktail one of the barmen has mixed me; but it’s identity will remain a secret: the barman has disappeared, and, like another wee bit of Burning Man magic, I must accept the mystery of this drink.
I save the Temple for last I suppose in part because Burning Man saves the Temple for last: it will burn Sunday night and herald the end of our time here. David Umlas and Marrilee Radcliffe (communityartmakers.com) have brought us Fire of Fires, and like most of the Temple installations at Burning Man, this is a solemn home for our collective dead. Inspired by eastern orthodox religious architecture (with an unique spin: this onion dome is opening like a blooming flower), with three tiers each feeding into the next on ramps spiraling gently counterclockwise, every square inch of wood that can be reached by human hands is covered with notes to our dead and our lost: the Temple is a mausoleum for our grief.
A girl whose mother died when she was a little girl has left a message here for all to read. Courageously baring her innermost feeling to us, she shows us, “This is my mother; she is real; I want to share her with you.” The people who are with me cry; I do not: I have shed my tears here before, and will keep them to myself from now on. The burning Temple spawns little smoke-devils that spin off into the desert-- our ghosts free at last racing jubilantly into the night.
In the morning the sun will rise, erasing the magic of the dark, and in a few hours our temporary City will disappear back into the dust whence it sprang, waiting for us to return again. It is another expression of magic that so many of us will.
Friday 18 September 2009
outting arrakis camp, burning man '09
My dear fellow black rock city citizens~
Much as it is not in my nature to complain, and as much as I loathe the buzz-kill aspect of events I am compelled (as much by my frustrated theme-camp-mates as by my own conscience) to report here in detail, I offer the following as a cautionary tale so that no one will ever find themselves in our shoes ever again.
I was a member of Arrakis Camp 2009, 7.40 and DNA(search “planet arrakis” on facebook for a seriously redacted event plan); this is something of an exaggeration, because there was no arrakis camp, 2009. There were 37 people, many of them virgin burners, relying on this camp and the representations made by our camp leader, Jason R Levin of Sarasota, FL (jasonrlevin@gmail.com), but in the end mr levin (who is not so much a mister as a boy pretending to be one) provided almost no infrastructure and no services. It is additionally important to relate here that our camp was unhealthy (one of our members even got so ill we thought we were going to have to evacuate her to Reno-- not that mr levin was aware of this, even after the fact: he was sleeping off his party favors). It was also unsafe: 2 of our members were injured-- one badly-- when they fell off the roof of the bus trying to install our second of 4 proposed shade structures on Friday, 4th September (2 days before the end of the event); one member was injured badly when he stubbed his foot on some sharp steel that was left laying around the camp. It was also uncomfortable: more than two-thirds of our members were camped in the full sun with daytime tent temps well above 115dF. Our camp generator, transported by mr levin from Sarasota, was not tested before being loaded; in order even to start it needed emergency servicing at Bman with-- in the absence of any real tools-- a sewing needle, a q-tip, and a cup of vodka. On several occasions this generator was allowed to leak large quantities of petrol directly onto the play; after one member attempted to shovel the contaminated earth into a storage box, the contents were dumped back onto the playa and scattered before mr levin departed.
These are some of the things we were promised, contrasted with what we witnessed:
2000sq feet of tents and shade structures 700 sq feet of partially completed shade structure
Nightly events in our “hookah lounge” no events; no lounge
Hammocks in our “hookah lounge” surprise: no hammocks, no lounge
Light breakfast, bagged lunches, 100lbs potatoes; 100lbs onions; 1 case
gourmet dinners corned beef hash; I case banana pudding;
1 case fresh limes; 1 case fresh lemons; I case
Fresh (rotten) oranges; 1 case fresh apples;
Misc children’s breakfast cereals (count
Chocula, etc…); 1 box powdered milk; 1 box
instant pancakes; misc recycled deserts
(brownies, etc…-- candidates for the garbage
which we were eating). *it is important to note we
had NO cooking oil until “midnight poutine” gave
us used french-fry oil, and no sweetener of any
kind.
Gourmet kitchen (* please bear in mind: this is for 37 people)
1 2-burner camp stove; 3 bottles propane; 2
skillets; 1 pot, 1 roasting pan; 4 knives, 2 spoons;
1 folding table approx 4’x4’. *it is noted here that
our improvised spatula was the lid from one
of our cans of pudding. There was also no
provision for cleanlieness: the kitchen was
routinely littered with spoiled food, rubbish, and
dust.*
300 gallons potable water there were 6 55gal drums of water; the contents
were, however, stolen from a Nevada truckstop
carwash with a garden hose, and tested with
extremely high levels of chlorine.
Public shower and bathing area though it is true we had a shower and bathing area,
it was very public, which for some of our girls was
a little off-putting; furthermore, because our
water supply was in the bus, some 15m from the
shower, there were many occasions on which grey
water from dish washing and even showering, as
well as fluids leaking directly from the bus, were
allowed to fall on the playa.
Moop management plan because of the high concentration of people
occupying our one small communal space, moop
quickly got out of control, and NO effort was made
on the part of mr levin to remediate the problem,
even after being notified about a visit from a brc
earth guardian.
Now, clearly mr levin failed completely in the development of his camp. If we accept the premise that the theme camp is the flesh and bones of Bman, and that the privilege of having a theme camp comes with responsibilities (enumerated clearly on the Bman website), mr levin is guilty of some fairly gross transgressions here. The fact that his performance actually got WORSE defies explanation.
Without proper infrastructure, our camp never really coalesced into a proper Bman family; those who stayed struggled, and more than a third of our group migrated toward more effective camps elsewhere, leaving them feeling somewhat homeless and the ones who stayed somewhat abandoned. On the several occasions mr levin was approached on the subject, he was either incapacitated by drugs and alcohol; indifferent; or arrogant, defensive, and aggressive.
Hi final transgression is one he made against the fundamental underpinnings of the Burning Man weltanschauung: he clearly ran his camp at a very high margin of profitability. Collecting between $250 and $400 per camper, his income must have been about $10,000.00; the nearest we can extrapolate the expenses for infrastructure are about $2500.00. *None of us are able to establish exact income and expense figures: the spread sheet mr levin promised us at our last camp meeting has never materialized. Furthermore, mr levin has removed much of the infrastructure proposals we all read from his facebook event site, simultaneously making himself unavailable to many of us from that camp.
There are some suggestions it seems salutary to make to future burners to avoid the situation those of us at Arrakis Gulag find ourselves in now. 1. Ask your camp leader for references. Is this his/her first time leading a theme camp? Have they made contingency plans if things go feet-up? Is there a “second-in-charge” who will be able to deliver the camp if something untoward happens to the “leader?” 2. Under no circumstances should you pay with cash or a personal check, and if you use paypal, have the camp leader submit a proper invoice to you for payment. Several of our members sent paypal “gifts” to mr levin and find themselves in the unenviable position of being unable to file a complaint with paypal. 3. Create a thorough web of communication among all your prospective camp-mates-- even those you’ve never met-- to assure that if all other infrastructure goes feet-up, you can rely on each other to create a solution. 4. Finally: save all correspondences with your proposed camp leader(s), in case a dispute like ours arises: we are lucky-- many of our members have detailed accounts of what mr levin proposed, and photos and video of what was delivered.
I realize that another of the controlling principles of Bman is total inclusion, but by the same token Bman has an interest in protecting these same principles from being abused by people like mr levin. I have been asked by many of my camp-mates to write this account of our experiences specifically because they don’t want to see this happen to anyone else, ever. It does not seem unreasonable under these circumstances to request that mr. levin at least never be allowed to have another theme camp; given the abuses he has lavished on the playa (leave no trace, huh?), his camp-mates, and BMORG (his profitable Camp Frat-Boy Flophouse, aka. Arrakis Gulag, is an utter betrayal of burning man’s most cherished principles of gifting and anticommercialism), we refugees of arrakis gulag respectfully submit that, if such a provision can be made, mr levin should be prohibited from attending personally ever again. Any other outcome merely rewards his selfish, self-serving, and greedy conduct.
In spite of mr. Levin’s failures, deceptions, and obvious contempt for his camp-mates, we all had a great burning experience. The problems are that it was less than it might have been if mr levin had delivered the camp he promised us and BMORG, and that mr levin will not even pay us the courtesy of a dialogue on the matter. In spite of all this, many of us plan to return, and more than a few of us together.
With mixed emotions, yours very sincerely,
--Jonathan schork (aka. Mr. bus)
3-time burner, former theme camp leader (artbus’07), “camp dad,” Arrakis Gulag ’09
hey, guess what one of arrakis gulag's survivors found: "mr" levin's sales material promoting his dusty group-colorectal-exam! as follows:
This is your ticket to Planet Arrakis, the most intergalactic Burning Man Theme Camp on the Playa.
Featuring 2500 square feet of covered, insulated, climate controlled living space separated into 3 rooms, 100 square feet of shaded patio, a full kitchen and pantry, a professional chef, solar shower, electric misters, free standing hammocks, an electric generator, a galactic hookah lounge, glow stick parties, and a full powered mobile sound system, the SandWorm.
Additionally, Planet Arrakis can hermetically seal itself in the event of a dust storm, keeping its lifeforms clean and dust free. During good weather, walls roll away to allow a cooling breeze.Updates will come more frequently as the event draws nearer. Look for updates from this event.
Please do not select "Attending" unless you are CERTAIN you are living on Planet Arrakis. You use a lot of food, water, and electricity in a week, and we need to allot for you accordingly. The Playa doesn't forgive waste.Planet Arrakis asks for a $200 donation ($300 after August 1st deadline, $400 after August 15th deadline) from each of its inhabitants to offset camping expenses. This money goes directly to pay for food, fresh water, electricity, and supplies for Arrakis, which includes you. Without your donation, Planet Arrakis wouldn't exist, and you would quickly dehydrate.
See you on the Playa...
Much as it is not in my nature to complain, and as much as I loathe the buzz-kill aspect of events I am compelled (as much by my frustrated theme-camp-mates as by my own conscience) to report here in detail, I offer the following as a cautionary tale so that no one will ever find themselves in our shoes ever again.
I was a member of Arrakis Camp 2009, 7.40 and DNA(search “planet arrakis” on facebook for a seriously redacted event plan); this is something of an exaggeration, because there was no arrakis camp, 2009. There were 37 people, many of them virgin burners, relying on this camp and the representations made by our camp leader, Jason R Levin of Sarasota, FL (jasonrlevin@gmail.com), but in the end mr levin (who is not so much a mister as a boy pretending to be one) provided almost no infrastructure and no services. It is additionally important to relate here that our camp was unhealthy (one of our members even got so ill we thought we were going to have to evacuate her to Reno-- not that mr levin was aware of this, even after the fact: he was sleeping off his party favors). It was also unsafe: 2 of our members were injured-- one badly-- when they fell off the roof of the bus trying to install our second of 4 proposed shade structures on Friday, 4th September (2 days before the end of the event); one member was injured badly when he stubbed his foot on some sharp steel that was left laying around the camp. It was also uncomfortable: more than two-thirds of our members were camped in the full sun with daytime tent temps well above 115dF. Our camp generator, transported by mr levin from Sarasota, was not tested before being loaded; in order even to start it needed emergency servicing at Bman with-- in the absence of any real tools-- a sewing needle, a q-tip, and a cup of vodka. On several occasions this generator was allowed to leak large quantities of petrol directly onto the play; after one member attempted to shovel the contaminated earth into a storage box, the contents were dumped back onto the playa and scattered before mr levin departed.
These are some of the things we were promised, contrasted with what we witnessed:
2000sq feet of tents and shade structures 700 sq feet of partially completed shade structure
Nightly events in our “hookah lounge” no events; no lounge
Hammocks in our “hookah lounge” surprise: no hammocks, no lounge
Light breakfast, bagged lunches, 100lbs potatoes; 100lbs onions; 1 case
gourmet dinners corned beef hash; I case banana pudding;
1 case fresh limes; 1 case fresh lemons; I case
Fresh (rotten) oranges; 1 case fresh apples;
Misc children’s breakfast cereals (count
Chocula, etc…); 1 box powdered milk; 1 box
instant pancakes; misc recycled deserts
(brownies, etc…-- candidates for the garbage
which we were eating). *it is important to note we
had NO cooking oil until “midnight poutine” gave
us used french-fry oil, and no sweetener of any
kind.
Gourmet kitchen (* please bear in mind: this is for 37 people)
1 2-burner camp stove; 3 bottles propane; 2
skillets; 1 pot, 1 roasting pan; 4 knives, 2 spoons;
1 folding table approx 4’x4’. *it is noted here that
our improvised spatula was the lid from one
of our cans of pudding. There was also no
provision for cleanlieness: the kitchen was
routinely littered with spoiled food, rubbish, and
dust.*
300 gallons potable water there were 6 55gal drums of water; the contents
were, however, stolen from a Nevada truckstop
carwash with a garden hose, and tested with
extremely high levels of chlorine.
Public shower and bathing area though it is true we had a shower and bathing area,
it was very public, which for some of our girls was
a little off-putting; furthermore, because our
water supply was in the bus, some 15m from the
shower, there were many occasions on which grey
water from dish washing and even showering, as
well as fluids leaking directly from the bus, were
allowed to fall on the playa.
Moop management plan because of the high concentration of people
occupying our one small communal space, moop
quickly got out of control, and NO effort was made
on the part of mr levin to remediate the problem,
even after being notified about a visit from a brc
earth guardian.
Now, clearly mr levin failed completely in the development of his camp. If we accept the premise that the theme camp is the flesh and bones of Bman, and that the privilege of having a theme camp comes with responsibilities (enumerated clearly on the Bman website), mr levin is guilty of some fairly gross transgressions here. The fact that his performance actually got WORSE defies explanation.
Without proper infrastructure, our camp never really coalesced into a proper Bman family; those who stayed struggled, and more than a third of our group migrated toward more effective camps elsewhere, leaving them feeling somewhat homeless and the ones who stayed somewhat abandoned. On the several occasions mr levin was approached on the subject, he was either incapacitated by drugs and alcohol; indifferent; or arrogant, defensive, and aggressive.
Hi final transgression is one he made against the fundamental underpinnings of the Burning Man weltanschauung: he clearly ran his camp at a very high margin of profitability. Collecting between $250 and $400 per camper, his income must have been about $10,000.00; the nearest we can extrapolate the expenses for infrastructure are about $2500.00. *None of us are able to establish exact income and expense figures: the spread sheet mr levin promised us at our last camp meeting has never materialized. Furthermore, mr levin has removed much of the infrastructure proposals we all read from his facebook event site, simultaneously making himself unavailable to many of us from that camp.
There are some suggestions it seems salutary to make to future burners to avoid the situation those of us at Arrakis Gulag find ourselves in now. 1. Ask your camp leader for references. Is this his/her first time leading a theme camp? Have they made contingency plans if things go feet-up? Is there a “second-in-charge” who will be able to deliver the camp if something untoward happens to the “leader?” 2. Under no circumstances should you pay with cash or a personal check, and if you use paypal, have the camp leader submit a proper invoice to you for payment. Several of our members sent paypal “gifts” to mr levin and find themselves in the unenviable position of being unable to file a complaint with paypal. 3. Create a thorough web of communication among all your prospective camp-mates-- even those you’ve never met-- to assure that if all other infrastructure goes feet-up, you can rely on each other to create a solution. 4. Finally: save all correspondences with your proposed camp leader(s), in case a dispute like ours arises: we are lucky-- many of our members have detailed accounts of what mr levin proposed, and photos and video of what was delivered.
I realize that another of the controlling principles of Bman is total inclusion, but by the same token Bman has an interest in protecting these same principles from being abused by people like mr levin. I have been asked by many of my camp-mates to write this account of our experiences specifically because they don’t want to see this happen to anyone else, ever. It does not seem unreasonable under these circumstances to request that mr. levin at least never be allowed to have another theme camp; given the abuses he has lavished on the playa (leave no trace, huh?), his camp-mates, and BMORG (his profitable Camp Frat-Boy Flophouse, aka. Arrakis Gulag, is an utter betrayal of burning man’s most cherished principles of gifting and anticommercialism), we refugees of arrakis gulag respectfully submit that, if such a provision can be made, mr levin should be prohibited from attending personally ever again. Any other outcome merely rewards his selfish, self-serving, and greedy conduct.
In spite of mr. Levin’s failures, deceptions, and obvious contempt for his camp-mates, we all had a great burning experience. The problems are that it was less than it might have been if mr levin had delivered the camp he promised us and BMORG, and that mr levin will not even pay us the courtesy of a dialogue on the matter. In spite of all this, many of us plan to return, and more than a few of us together.
With mixed emotions, yours very sincerely,
--Jonathan schork (aka. Mr. bus)
3-time burner, former theme camp leader (artbus’07), “camp dad,” Arrakis Gulag ’09
hey, guess what one of arrakis gulag's survivors found: "mr" levin's sales material promoting his dusty group-colorectal-exam! as follows:
This is your ticket to Planet Arrakis, the most intergalactic Burning Man Theme Camp on the Playa.
Featuring 2500 square feet of covered, insulated, climate controlled living space separated into 3 rooms, 100 square feet of shaded patio, a full kitchen and pantry, a professional chef, solar shower, electric misters, free standing hammocks, an electric generator, a galactic hookah lounge, glow stick parties, and a full powered mobile sound system, the SandWorm.
Additionally, Planet Arrakis can hermetically seal itself in the event of a dust storm, keeping its lifeforms clean and dust free. During good weather, walls roll away to allow a cooling breeze.Updates will come more frequently as the event draws nearer. Look for updates from this event.
Please do not select "Attending" unless you are CERTAIN you are living on Planet Arrakis. You use a lot of food, water, and electricity in a week, and we need to allot for you accordingly. The Playa doesn't forgive waste.Planet Arrakis asks for a $200 donation ($300 after August 1st deadline, $400 after August 15th deadline) from each of its inhabitants to offset camping expenses. This money goes directly to pay for food, fresh water, electricity, and supplies for Arrakis, which includes you. Without your donation, Planet Arrakis wouldn't exist, and you would quickly dehydrate.
See you on the Playa...
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