Burning Man – Saturday

Black Rock City has grown overnight. Everyone who can only be here for the Labor Day weekend has moved into any spaces left. There are tons of unfamiliar faces, very conventionally attired people, and lots of eye-popping reactions to the most outrageously dressed or undressed burners. I thought one woman was going to run and hide when a young guy walked by with only the flag of the Soviet Union draped over his shoulders! (I heard one Russian woman say: “It’s OK. Mama still uses her old flag to cover the parrot at night.”) I succeeded in getting out to the Temple before the sun came up and got some very nice shots. You have to be quick in the desert- one second it’s dark and the next is bright light with very little ‘good’ light in between. I was bombarded with T@B admirers when I got back. I could have sold at least 10 this week if they were available and it was allowed. About noon the weather changed to what one would consider ‘normal’ on the playa: wind out of the southwest gusting up to 25Mph carrying tons of dust. The only thing to do is hunker down in your shade structure or in my case, hang out in the T@B. I dug out the computer and spent a couple of hours writing several days worth of this blog expanding from handwritten notes I uncharacteristically decided to keep for Beth and selecting photos to include for each day. I have taken lots of movies but I will need to take some time to edit out shakiness and stuff that is just junk. At last the sun goes down and it’s time to suit up for the ‘Man Burn’. It is really dusty out so full playa attire is required: skull cap with embedded multi-color el-wire, various necklaces and emblems people have ‘gifted’ me this week (including a rock from a collection that the gal next door in the sarong has been meditating on for the last few years…), 3 shirts (for warmth) with my Scottish ‘Vitruvian Man’ on top, cargo shorts with keys snapped in, orange el-wire around my neck and shoulders, camera case on belt, camelback backpack with water, movie camera, wet-wipes, 3 single shot bottles of scotch and 2 beers, and 4 insane blinky LED’s on it so I don’t get run over in the dark, LED headlight, goggles, breathing mask with new whiskers attached and my glasses in a hard case in case I have to read some fine print. A pink flamingo is added to the camelback at the last minute and its’ wings chatter as they spin for the rest of the night. I walk to the burn and sit on the playa about 2 rows back from the front amid Australians, Germans, and a host of geeks and medical professionals from California. The whole thing, waiting, the fire conclave groups, fireworks and the burn takes about 3 hours. Except for the intense dust storm that rages for 20 minutes or so as the Man burned it was a lot of fun. I navigated my return to camp by using the stars since there was music coming from everywhere and the dust reduced vision to about 50 feet. I heard stories about people who walked for hours before finding the city in the blowing dust. I realize that my ears have been unprotected from the dust and spend half and hour cleaning them and regaining about 50Db of volume to my hearing before going to bed.