Burners on the Run...

"Son, someday this penis sheath will be yours."


"Channel what?"

The Shadow knows...

The BLM is quite strict about visitors leaving the Playa as they found it.

Everybody tries, but occasionally you will see a shadow forgotten or abandoned.

A few are undoubtedly shadows of emigrants or prospectors from days when nobody fully understood the potential harm shadows can have on the environment.

This one is a little puzzling as the small cranial cavity suggests less intelligence than modern man, yet the fat ass and scrawny upper body is quite typical of many modern Silicon Valley types.

Thursday evening - Stairway to Heaven

Our mutant bus continued its slow move across Deep Play and eventually we came upon a tall metal stairwell (titled "Babylon" for some reason) in the middle of nowhere. It is 10 or 11 stories high and is sponsored by a man to commemorate his father, and that is about all I know about that. An LA Times article put its cost at $600,000 and other reports claim over $2 million. It is made of recycled steel, and since most connections are bolted, most of the steel can be reapplied.

This stairwell with viewing platforms simply sits on the Playa – there are no pilings, and no walls. Beams extend horizontally from the ground level corners to increase the footprint. Some floors open to a viewing platform. The viewing areas and the stairs have handrails and are open but feel quite secure. A camera at ground level captures images of passing burners and projects them to a drape covering one side of the structure.

Beautiful? Not really, if found at a construction site downtown. Out here it is impressive, even beautiful, and it will be gone in a week, without a trace.

We joined the horde and dragged our tired bodies up the stairs to the top, confident our mutant ship wouldn’t leave us as the Captain also climbed to the top. The view was extensive but not too exciting at night; fortunately John and Carmen got to it by day, for more pictures.

Continuing in Deep Playa our bus lights caught a structure called The End, so we knew we were at, well, the end. Our ship slowly turned back toward the Esplanade, stopping only in response to stray burners afraid they would miss their last chance at a ride. We were dropped at 9:00 (the street, not the time) and walked home, collapsing exhausted to bed about 2 AM.

Thursday evening - We go Deep Playa

We quickly viewed the temple and climbed back on board our mutant transportation. Although to-hell-and-gone out on the Playa, our conductor announced we would now attempt passage to Deep Playa to examine other objects and just generally see what people were up to.

We made a complete circle of the temple until we reached maybe 3 MPH then launched on a trajectory to Deep Playa, and it was cold. The headlights caught the occasional burner walking or bicycling in the blackness, including a beautiful white jelly fish. We stopped to pick up the jelly fish and found a really tall woman resplendent in a white chiffon head piece as big as any in Beach Blanket Babylon.

We passed time talking to a guy wearing a ballet dress. He introduced himself (he was from Boston and was obviously having a great time) and we introduced ourselves. In his enthusiasm he ignored the good looking stylishly dressed non-smiling women next to him and out of politeness I said something to her; in an uncomfortable voice she said she was with him. This relationship is not going to last.

Thursday evening - The Temple

At 3-5 MPH we crawled slowly across the Playa in our mutant bus, admiring particularly the moonless night and sky of stars, split by the massive Milky Way. The first major project we approached was the Temple, one of the traditional yearly art projects on which burners can write messages, generally spiritual or philosophical. On Sunday Reverend Billy will preach from the temple, probably raging against our corporate dominated consumerist society, then the temple will be burned to the ground.

The temple is gorgeous, as always. Many types and shapes of woods are involved, including curving barrel staves near the entrances. There is a central stairway to the top, messages everywhere with permanent marker – but we were hesitant to climb fearing our mutant ship might leave us stranded in the dark Playa facing a very long walk home.

Carmen very much wanted to see these structures in daylight and ventured out Friday morning on foot with John. The air is very dry on the Playa, and she began to realize she was experiencing a bloody nose. Some volunteers on a BRC Department of Public Works vehicle saw her situation and provided assistance, then offered John and Carmen a tour of the art projects in their DPW vehicle. So a good thing came of a bad thing, and we have Carmen to thank for these additional daylight photos.

Thursday evening - We ride a mutant

The mutant vehicle singled out by Carmen was one of several that ferry burners on no particular schedule and with no published destination.

Our mutant vehicle was built on an old school bus with the insides gutted and replaced with a couple short bench seats and a fake fireplace, all this taking somewhat more than half the length. The front portion was for the Captain and the music DJ, although perhaps the Captain and DJ were one and the same, I couldn’t really see. The side windows were painted black but it wouldn’t have made much difference because the outside of the bus was draped with sheet-like material to bulk-out the shape. Entrance was via a step stool at the emergency exit.

On the top of the bus was a platform and railing, seemingly held on by 2x4s attached to the bus sides. Entrance was via a short step ladder to a flight of metal mesh steps outboard from the side, and only one person was permitted on the steps at a time, for good reasons. After an incredible number of people disembarked we climbed aboard, choosing the topside.

The view topside was very good, particularly if you stood, but it was very cold. This was a moonless night and as we roamed the Playa we were guided only by the lights of distant art structures. Taking pictures at night is difficult. The camera can't be held still enough for a good non-flash shot. If you try flash you find objects are either too far away, or the auto-focus thinks you want a really good picture of airborne Playa dust.

Topside we were hosted by a woman and a man, the latter wearing a heavy coat looking like something out of Star Trek. It turns out he and two others built the art car and it is supposed to represent a plane or perhaps a ship, but they ran out of time. He said it would have been better if they had gotten the propeller done. And things are not as slipshod as they appeared – they contacted the bus manufacturer and gathered information on the bus structure that allowed them to build the top deck without compromising safety. At least they think so. At his point I noticed the deck was held on not by wooden 2x4s, but by steel rails.

Thursday evening - a walk on the wild side

The distant glow that appears to be oilwell fires in Saddam's Iraq are actually blasts from propane flamethrowers. Burners love propane blasts. The blasts are loud, they appear in unexpectated locations, if you are within a 100 yards you can feel the heat, and they impress.

We had a fine dinner in camp and then set out on foot forsaking the bicycles. This gave our butts a rest and eliminated our exposure to bicycle-to-bicycle collisions in the dark. This still left us with bicycle-to-Murray risk and mutant-to-Murray possibilities, so we wore clip-on LED lights to make us more easily seen. Even so, we were near invisible compared with the bikes and people adorned with fluorescent-bright strands of el/wire, powered by little battery packs – a beautiful sight.

It is a 9-block walk to the Esplanade from our camp on J Street between 7:30 and 8:00. We walked the Esplanade to the end at 10:00 absorbing what we could of the excitement without actually, you know, becoming participants. Murrays are reluctant participants, a family trait going back generations. In the neighborhood of 10:00 were several very large geodesic domes with beckoning sensuous entrances, but we did not go in—put off by the crowds, tremendously loud music and earth-shaking bass. But we admired the beautiful structures - did I mention the nearby tepee village?

At this point we could see the lights at the distant end the Esplanade, the Man structure in the clock-center, mutant cars roaming the Playa, and distant Playa art projects. I didn’t really think Carmen would like Burning Man, but I was wrong. She suddenly went hyper, determined to find a way out to the lights. As we stood by rather passively she approached a roving mutant bus and soon we had permission to hop aboard.