Burning Man 2023

🎵 The song for this post is Disco Inferno, by The Trammps. 🎵

I'm a few weeks back from the mud, how was Burning Man?

The best I've ever experienced it

This was my third Burn. If you'd asked me in June, I would have told you I'd sworn them off: my first two times (in 2017 and 2018) were with Karen and a camp with whom I had significant value differences. I always came back depleted and defeated.

One of the most impactful things my dad ever told my siblings and I, when I was maybe 9?, was "who you marry is the most important decision you'll make in your life" (my mom is his second marriage). He argued:

"Imagine you love your job, you go in every day and have a wonderful time, but when you come home, you bicker and fight; you two make each other unhappy. You spend most of your time feeling good at work, but are you happy in life?

Now flip it: imagine you hate your job. Every day you walk in and you can't wait to escape. It stresses you. But when you come home, it's someone you love, who loves you too. You laugh together over dinner. In this scenario, are you happy? It turns out your job, like nearly everything else, doesn't matter to your happiness: it's mostly about who you're coming home to and share that space of your life with."

It made sense, even at 9: whatever "work" meant, it's what they did while I was at school, so it was at least that impactful. Whatever happened at school, it was just at school. Home was home.

I mention this to say: Burning Man is a lot of things. In terms of spectacle and novelty, I can't think of a way to experience more. It's truly one-of-a-kind, and I stand by what I said even after my first, sad time: "It's not easy to get a ticket, it's not easy to go, but if there's a path for you to go I think you should strongly consider it."

Like my dad's marriage example, none of the spectacle or novelty matters as much as the people you go and/or camp with.¹ As I've alluded in other posts, my relationship with Karen was comprised mostly of "learn from this" material, with only little corns of "replicate this in future relationships." In 2017 and 2018, with the ingredients at play, there wasn't really a hope for a great Burn.

This time, there were several instances where I was looking at my campmates, nearly in tears, feeling so blessed to know them and be there with them. Thinking of inviting them to my wedding, whenever that happens. Feeling like I'd met such a motley group of the most generous, interesting, capable people, who I doubt I would have met otherwise. Feeling valued and appreciated for being exactly who I was, while also feeling supported by exactly who they are.

I'm going to post some photos of art, and it's definitely amazing. But the highlight was the people.

I LOVE TURTLES

What was the path?

How does one "un-swear-off" something? This was how I ended up going back:

• Of all the events in our "festival circuit" from my previous life, there was one that I sometimes had a great time at. Feeling adventurous in May, I got a little posse together and we went in July. Despite record-breaking heat, it was a beautiful time, and got me missing the parts of BM that I liked.

Our little posse from that July festival, both when we were comfortably there and ready to party.

• One of that posse got invited to Burning Man by her friend, and she in turn invited me. Her husband couldn't go (it's a large commitment on short notice, especially if you're not sure you're going to enjoy it). She'd known I was ringleader for the prior festival and that I'd been to Burning Man before. We both gave it a week to think it over.

I was initially skeptical, but then when I looked at my reasons for going and my reasons for not going, the "going" ones were all hopeful, and pointed to a ceiling of unknown height, whereas the "not going" ones felt like fear. "What if I can't hack it?" "What if the assholes from the last camp were right and I'm just not cut out for this?" "Am I too depressed? Too different from these White hippies?" I'm smart enough to have rationalized more reasonable-sounding excuses, and a good enough actor that I could sell them (probably around narratives of pragmatics and self-care), but emotionally I'd know it was because I was afraid. In 2022 I didn't have the spoons to go for it, but I felt capable this year.

My copilot Tammie and I met up for coffee and we both, independently, said "hell yes we want this." I suddenly found myself having 3 weeks to prepare 😅

On the way there, Tammie and I got sidelined for ~6 hours because our U-Haul leaked gas when refueling. Never, ever rent from the U-Haul on Bayshore Blvd; they gave us two faulty U-Hauls, double-charged on SafeMove, and a usurious cleaning fee.

More about the magic

It's hard to describe, but I'll take a crack:

We need Oxygen to live. A neat science fact is that the air we breathe is only ~20% Oxygen, and about ~78% Nitrogen. What would it feel like if you could live somewhere that was 80% Oxygen? How would your breathing change? Your exercise, your singing, your lovemaking?²

Black Rock City changes so many variables, so drastically that weird, delightful things start to happen in your psyche. A few I note:

• Decommodification (one of the 10 Principles of Burning Man): life doesn't become about transactionality (at least, not the money kind). It's like being on an alien planet: people try to see you. They offer themselves and whatever they can because they want to, sincerely. You really don't know how much Nitrogen you're breathing until it gets taken away; changing the underlying fabric of nearly every interaction you have, for an entire city, is a shock to the system.

• Disconnection. Almost everyone there isn't getting enough signal for their phones to be useful. It's more radical than most vacations because it's not just turning off your Slack notifications or refusing to check email, you can't really do anything related to the outside world, nor can you even communicate with your friends at the event. If they're not right in front of you, you just have to trust they'll return, or let it go and trust they're on an adventure. You'll often be that "lost friend" to a different group.

• Time pressure (or lack thereof). With the above two, and knowledge that you're just there until your scheduled, high-effort exit, you can let yourself ignore normal sleep schedules or meal times and just exist in the present to a degree that's harder to do in the default world. Sleep when you want, eat when you want, but really, what do you want, right now? and the answer can be pretty much anything…

• Different mix of abundance and hardship. "…except a flushing toilet and a warm shower." You go back to a tent (or yurt, or RV) instead of a real room. You're probably using awful portapotties. You never sweat, weirdly. But you're also never bored because there's just stimulus in every direction. If you get hungry you can almost always bike around and someone is offering to feed you something that's impractical to make in the desert, and they made it anyway. If you need shade there are countless of the most comfortable lay-down spots you've ever experienced.

When you're bathed in this for long enough, you can't help but come back changed. I hadn't used a keyboard in nearly 12 days and it took a few hours before I could type comfortably again.

Shelly the crab ❤️

I came back to SF with more resolve to rely less on my "dopamine factories." I've now stayed off Twitter since August, whereas for the last 13 years, I was opening it habitually, almost involuntarily, anytime I was unstimulated. Now I sometimes close my eyes, try to remember immediacy and/or allow myself to be mindful of my present state instead of trying to stimulate myself out of it.

I have a theory that I fell in love with Jazz music (specifically, the hard bop era) because it forced me to meditate: when you're listening to it, you have to be present in the moment, and can't let your mind escape to a different topic or worry. A bit like theatre, it taught my brain to slow down and live in the present when all it wanted to do was spin. Theatre also taught me to not fear my feelings, and to have them in front of other people as my whole self.

I still struggle with these, especially with the pressures of day-to-day life. Being in Black Rock City was like a week-long sugar cleanse, or a meditation retreat. You can't make permanent, meaningful change by sprinting for a week; no amount of science or rehab can mend a broken bone like time can. But a complete rejiggering for longer than you can hold your breath can remind you things can be different, and much is in your control. Black Rock City is artificial and unsustainable, but knowledge is a forever gift, and you can get some from being there.

When Tammie and I arrived the camp had a lot of great work put into it by people who arrived earlier, but there was still plenty of tarping to do.

Fantasies of what I'd bring next time

I got to asking campmates "what would your art car be?", and one new friend responded with "I think it'd be a giant dumpling," which tickled me so hard. It's fun to fantasize.

This year, Tammie and I did everything we could for a limited set of skills:

• We got there just a hair early and helped hoist structures in the camp. We were there until the end of strike and left in a caravan with the last folks to leave.

• We brought a truck and helped load a lot of stuff in. The bigger impact was probably all the stuff we hauled out: about 24 bags of trash and a lot of destroyed/decrepit furniture our camp no longer needed. At least one of the bags leaked so we named our truck "trash juice."

• We cooked dinner for camp one night. It was Hainan Chicken Rice with cucumber salad, and boba tea for dessert.

• Various other odd jobs and shifts.

For first-time members of the camp, this feels like standard fare: you become hands and arms and legs when needed, but it's hard to truly lead major efforts, especially since we joined three weeks before the Burn. If you're looking to join a camp next year, jobs like these are a good target.

Another way to contribute, frankly, is vibes. It's easy to overindex on this, and dangerous to give yourself too much credit (like being "cool" or "sexy," you can state this about yourself but it's only really credible if other people use those labels on you too). One thing Tammie and I tried to contribute is what I call the "Hollywood and Rock'n'Roll" factor, after this amazing post by Bret Devereux on the importance of the humanities (emphasis his):

[...] the steady marginalization – as a matter of education and funding – of the humanities in favor of STEM in the United States has been motivated by the need to ‘win’ geopolitical contests. And perhaps the most obvious benefit of the humanities, particularly in the geopolitical sphere, is the soft-power aspect of a robust culture ‘industry.’ No rocket, no weapon-system of any kind was as instrumental in the collapse of Soviet Communism as Hollywood and Rock’n’Roll – or more correctly the vast culture edifice that those two ideas are used to represent. The Soviet Union wasn’t defeated with missiles, after all, it collapsed from a failure of ideological legitimacy; a crisis of words not numbers.

Even if you weren't in a position to design the camp's layout in CAD, or work with the greywater service, there's a lot of power in just making every space you're in more amazing. Be sincere and truly yourself, but also let every interaction remind your camp, particularly when things get hard, of why everyone's doing all this work in the first place. If you can't be a missle, try to be Hollywood and Rock'n'Roll.

Making Chicken Rice for the camp happened the day before; it was A Ride but like a lot of other things about BM, the uncertainty on whether you'll succeed is what makes it something you look back on proudly.

Okay, but what about art? What would be a dream for bringing in next year?

Most attainable: the PlayStation

I'd love to bring my play readings to Burning Man. I'd make a sign, a shade structure (or sit in a piece already in Deep Playa) and facilitate play readings, call it the PlayStation.

I did a low-effort version of this: I brought plays and a shade structure, but had a few issues I couldn't solve. We still read a lot of Five Times In One Night because it's such a perfect party trick: each play is a 10 minute commitment, approachable, and brilliant. But I'd like to facilitate some longer pieces, maybe even get it in the What Where When book.

Full length pieces feel hard for that environment: 90-minutes to 120 minute commitments for a passerby is unlikely. People may be under the influence. But with only a little more prep I'm pretty sure I could do this.

Redacting because idk who's okay with their pictures up here or not, but we read plays at the end of an adventure and it was a delight.

Stretch and very unlikely: Worry Dolls

One thing I asked is "how could I bring Guatemala to Burning Man?" The best idea I had was "giant worry dolls." I had a friend who worked on La Victrola, a giant gramophone that sat in Playa. "Giant sculpture" in the desert is a pretty common theme, and you'll see some in the photo dump.

I've always loved worry dolls. They feel very Guatemalan, they're so small and simple and always make my heart hum. I loved the superstition as a child. My ideal sculpture would also play marimba music (it's the national instrument of Guteamala, and a key sensation of going there. This is my grandparent's love song), to give us a break from all that EDM.

The main obstacle is I've never done anything like this before in my life. But an old coworker of mine, Bree Hoffman, is an inspiration to me. She brought Shelly the Crab and built The Prodigal Swan. She once presented internally at ClassPass about the very beginnings of Shelly and when we all asked how long she'd been building (surely she grew up learning these things), she told us not very long at all; she was just inspired by her trips to Burning Man less than a decade ago.

It's easy to forget, but: you can acquire skills, even exotic ones. The biggest obstacle for most people is having the courage to start, the courage to be unskilled at it for a very long time. After that, the persistence to keep going. I'm learning this with accordion now, and maybe next year is too soon, but if I really want worry dolls at Burning Man, there's no reason they can't be there in 2026.

Never gonna happen: the Pablo art car

When I've played with AI Image generators, there's one image I always try that they still struggle with, and it's my answer to "what would your art car be?": an accordion with beefy biceps. And probably a mustache, idk.

Everything I've read about "advice for making art cars" is "don't," followed by "seriously, please, for the love of God: don't." So on top of the skills gap above, I figure life would have to surprise me pretty strongly to consider building an art car. But life has surprised me, so maybe someday, you'll get a ride in the Pablo car: a double-decker where the bottom floor is a playreading lounge and the top is a gym setup with forever pull-up competitions, all while blasting Michel Camilo and Tito Puente (again… too much fucking EDM).

This guy became an honorary camp member; he first joined us for our Art walk that ended in a sunrise, and joined us on many subsequent adventures since. Watching him dance in the Sun was one of my favorite memories of the Burn.

Wow, you've become That Asshole

For most of my life, "person raving about Burning Man" was a strong indicator that this person sucks ass and drives me crazy. It may surprise you to hear that's still true. Something I've always said (and still believe) is "every criticism you hear about Burning Man is correct." The difference is that there's also a ton to love about it, and with 70,000 attendees, you'll meet all sorts of people and can have any kind of experience.

If you want to read some criticisms (and/or mine), I've got a whole section with links in my 2018 post. This year I really liked Moira Donegan's piece. An email exchange with my dad, who forwarded me the article:

Per the author, there are only two types of people who go to Burning Man. Which are you, Pablo, a "reactionary tech mogul" or an "earnest hippie?"

Yes!

Alright, photo dump

You made it to the end of the text! Here are a bunch of photos and captions 😄

Tickets are always beautiful. The theme this year was "Animalia."

Much (but not most) of our truck's load going in. We loaded a lot more going out, but I don't have photos because my phone died because it's charging port got caked with mud.

A giant, human-sized cat house. Animalia, indeed.

See the crown? Queen Cobra, geddit?

Also a King Bear, it seems

Okay maybe problematic but I called this guy King Gaucho, in the theme of kings. Latam go!

I always kind of dreaded that my birthday fell on Burning Man because I never felt at home there. I'm grateful for Anya and others for really making me feel special that day.

Tammie also made my birthday excellent.

The pegasus was amazing, and "galloped" while suspended.

I was so charmed by this piece. The wooden robot is holding a wrench and the metal robot is holding an axe.

There's a ton of sign and text art that's fantastic but you'll forget to take a photo of.

One of the things our camp does is "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Eat Them," where we do whole-animal roasts and make tacos out of them. This was salmon, but we also did pig and chicken ones.

I mean… I'd get a drink from them.

The Man didn't burn in time because of the rain — they burned him on Monday instead of Saturday, which was after many of us had left. Our first-timers went to Burning Man and didn't see a Burning Man at all. Luckily, a camp was giving out little effigies in a matchbox for you to make your own little Burning Man, so we had our camp's little private man-burn.

This piece was also at the previous festival I went to in July and a favorite, we called it The Artichoke.

Yup

1.^ A note here: you can also go alone. Open Camping is a thing, and almost all camps have people they bring in last-minute without too much context. That's a different adventure for sure, but understand that doing this is a very different journey.

2. ^ idk, maybe nothing actually changes, I'm not a scientist. Go with the metaphor!