Burnt

[mangosteen]

Disclaimer: This is not a troll. Really, I mean it. You see a troll? I don't see a troll. Righty-o. No troll.

Peeve: As someone who has never gone to Burning Man, one thing that really rankles me about talking to previous Burning Man attendees about their experience there, is that the vast majority of them (as in, practically all of them) end up saying some variation on "It's a Burner thing; you wouldn't understand."

Taken from any other source, I view statements of the form "It's a (adjective) thing..." as so much condescending crap, and I'm likely to come back with an Annoying Snappy Response(tm), the scope and colorfulness of which is left as an exercise for the reader.

In the case of Burners, though, the responses have been so consistent, and so insistent that language could not describe it, that I have to figure one of two things is the case:

1. The playa is actually composed of nanoparticles that inhibit certain very specific synaptic connections within the language center of the human brain.

--or--

2. The experience is so significantly outside the realm of "normal" life, that it would be folly to even attempt to explain it to someone who hasn't been there.

I'm dubious of the former, and slightly skeptical of the latter.

So, to those of you who have attended Burning Man at some point in the past (a few days ago, included), I ask of you the following:

Query: Explain to me why Burning Man is impossible to explain in words to someone who has never gone to it. Failing that, if you're game, tell me something about Burning Man that would not be obvious to a reasonably well-informed non-attendee.

Comments

[whipartist.livejournal.com]

Remember the band geek in American Pie?

"So this one time, at Burning Man..."

[mangosteen]

Would you believe that that was subject line choice #1? :)

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

i haven't been to the playa, but have been to burner camping and baitcon, and having done some things which seem to evoke such feelings...

picture new york city. living there. breathing it. it's in you. how do you explain that to someone you run across that's never seen a village larger than 10,000 people? you live in the village for weeks. you "go native". you return to the "real world" of new york. how do you explain the village to another new yorkers, that has never been beyond a 30 block radius of his home and can't understand that even a city like boston closes many things after 6pm, let alone dark?

culture shock.

#

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

a related way:

camping and the bigroom aren't your kink, but that's okay. other people have this kink. how can you explain the desire or need for such kink to someone that doesn't have it. better, if you take them camping, well, they're going to be looking around for some big meaning and ... not get it.

so, i suppose, if you went to burning man, you'd STILL not get it necessarily.

#

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Despite the fact that I don't believe myself to have said that, I assume by your language that I am included in this generalization. The closest thing I can find that I wrote is this, so (more assumption) I figure it's what you're referring to:

The other day as my two ride-sharing fellow-virgins (or recently virgins, anyway) and I were driving back to Reno, I said something like, "Y'know, before I came here, my friends asked me what Burning Man was, and I tried to give some sort of answer, but finally had to point out that I'd never actually been there myself so they should ask me after I get back. Now I've been there, and I don't think I could answer any better than before." They both agreed heartily with the sentiment.

But that wasn't in response to someone asking me what BM is, but rather a meta-question about whether my answer had changed. Plenty of people asked me what BM was, both before and after (in Reno and on the flight back) and I always answered to the best of my abilities in the moment.

On LJ, I figure people can check the web site to get the basic facts, and they're reading what I have to say because they'd like to hear about my personal experiences and point of view.

The basics are simple: it's a big camping event in the desert. There are large art installations, theme camps which do all sorts of things, art vehicles, and lots of people dressed really outrageously. Beyond that, it's a different experience for each person. Someone can tell you what it meant to them to be there, but not what it might mean for you.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

tell me something about Burning Man that would not be obvious to a reasonably well-informed non-attendee

IMHO, no matter how well-informed and how well-prepared you might be, you really don't know exactly what you'll do there or how you'll react to the experience.

Actually, maybe that is obvious. I knew it ahead of time, anyway. But the point is that I knew I wouldn't know until it happened. I think when people go and have a bad time, it is often because they thought they DID know exactly what it'd be like for them.

Anyway, if you're actually interested in chatting on the subject, feel free to poke me on AIM or irc (on irc, I'm my first name). If you want to snark, go ahead and reply in my LJ. We'll snark right back. :)

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

Beyond that, it's a different experience for each person.

from what i've observed of repeat burners, it's also a different experience *each time*. there seems to be a lot of wondering beforehand how that year will go, and fussing over how to prepare for each time.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

My sense, not having been to Burning Man, nor likely ever to go, is that the problem is that it's an experience.

What's it like to sing in harmony with a group of really good friends?
What's it like to bite into a ripe peach?
What's it like to ingest a mind-altering chemical?
What's it like to give birth?

There are things that people who've had those experiences can tell people who haven't, analogies they can make, adjectives they can use, poems they can write, perhaps. But at some level, experiences are essentially ineffable.

So there are a lot of things that people who've gone to Burning Man can tell you, but they are not to be blamed if they feel that they are failing to communicate the essential nature of the experience. I doubt that they mean to exclude you, simply to communicate that it is one of those moments that has to be felt to be grokked.

Someone once quoted Timothy Leary to me as saying something about LSD like "It's exactly like having a very thin pane of glass between you and the rest of the world, only not at all."

[clauclauclaudia]

"I will not turn him into an anecdote, it was an experience. How do we hold onto the experience?" (Six Degrees of Separation)

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

לזוז – הדג נחש
I love that song!

freedomthrufire talks about Burning Man alot and has shown me lots of pictures, and think at this point I've got a decent sense of what Burning Man is like. (I don't recall him ever doing the "it's a burner thing, you wouldn't get it.") That said, I do think it's one of those intense things that you have to experience to really grok - like being in Israel. Pennsic was like that. No matter how much leofwynn talked it up etc, I didn't really get it until I was there. Now I find myself having difficulty explaining what Pennsic feels like. Don't get me wrong, it's doable, it's just hard. I think the "you wouldn't get it" people are just lazy or lousy at describing stuff.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

like being in Israel.

That's just the analogy I've been thinking of, with all the Burner-buzz the past week or two. Since it's a very timely comparison for me. :-)

[coraline]

i have been to burning man (once) and feel that i could describe my experience at least reasonably well.
however, this doesn't mean i think that other people COULD describe it, it just means that i think i missed whatever mystical thing happened to most of the other people i know who went.
i never got the "it's like coming home" and "missing the playa" and all that, though i had a perfectly lovely time.

(i can explain more about what it was like for me, but not now, i'm late for work :)

[sensesurfer.livejournal.com]

I think much of it comes from intensity. I went in 2004 for the first time. I went very last minute and didn't spend much time preparing. I felt very at home on the Playa and enjoyed the experience, but even as I left that year I didn't feel overly effected by the experience. Yes I was wowed by the size, the beautiful art, the naked pretty people, the wild costumes, and the crazy mutant vehicles. I was impressed by the level of commitment that people had made to make the event what it was. But for me ... It wasn't a life changing experience...... And then I got home. Reverse culture shock hit. If you have ever traveled for any length of time outside of the US you can understand this. When you return to the place you live and it feels different.... not right, but you cant place your finger on what is wrong........
Soon after arriving back, I was already planning on next year. I was committed to not to being a tourist again. The event is what it is because of what the participants bring, and I wanted to contribute. I was thinking about my potential to make art for the first time in my adult life. This was where the event changed me. I had been so programmed by my technical education that it had entirely escaped me that I had the potential to do art. I know differently now.
When veterans return to the playa they are welcomed home. "Welcome Home" is a common greeting there early in the event. I didn't understand that when I heard it as I arrived on the playa my first year. I did a month or two after I had gotten back to Boston, and had experienced that reverse culture shock, and then felt longings to be back on the playa during the year.
It also may be difficult for people to describe the event because the event itself is created by the participants. It is relatively easy to describe something that you can sit back and watch, but to describe something that you are part of is more difficult, because that entails understanding your role and place in the chaos.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

well said :)

#

Never a burner

[mizarchivist]

For anyone who knows me for some length of time, you will know I don't camp. I will admit there will be exceptions to this in the future, but I have no intention of going to burningman because ... (don't camp).
However, I have a few theories, too. Everyone's experience is probably radically different and either resembles literally or metaphorically an acid trip in that it is very clear at the time and fades after you come down/back. It's a case of the blind men describing the elephant.
As someone who went to Interlochen for 2 summers (Sorta camping, but in cabins), I concur with what's been said on the theme of intense village of like minds experience. A haven, if you will, that can't always be lived at. Besides, if you lived there forever, it would become your mundane and that would be sad.
Totally don't blame you for being frustrated with the brush-off answer... and understand why some folk would shy away and give the brush-off.

Re: Never a burner

[b00jum.livejournal.com]

Having once been to burning man, I'd have to say a fair number of people who show up are not camping either. Its more that they are portaging in the luxeries of life out onto the playa.

Note: I have no value judgement of this mode, in fact, brining in a fair number of essentials (and beyond) is part of what makes Burning Man so unique. It really isn't "just a camp out" (now with more freaks!).

Overall, I agree with the sentiment that its hard to describe because the experience is so unique. There are many burning man experiences, not all of them profound, unique or fun. I think the fandom or sub-culture get together analogies are dead on. Its really hard to get people to understand your attraction to it, unless they resonate with the part of you that resonates with the experience you had on the playa. And yet, there are more experiences to be had if you would only look.

My view: The playa is a rabbit-hole, it brings people close to the perilous lands. It can be good and evil and in-between. It may alter someone for the rest of thier life or only for a week, but alter it will.

For myself, I plan on going back again someday. Mind you, there is an interesting effect that BM has had, there are now more counter-cultural art gatherings starting to spring up. This is a great thing as you don't have to do BM in order to have the experience that people sought when they had begun it.

But I digress and ramble...

I've never been there..

[plaidsheep.livejournal.com]

That post made me laugh a bit.

Here's a very cynical take on it... (apply appropriate levels of salt)

It's a "You're either one of us, or you're against us" thing (or you'll never "get" us)

My perspective on this is that it's probably like taking a psychedelic drug, or maybe taking something like Esctacy. Everyone has different expectations and different experience based on those expectations.

Psychedelics agree with some, and violently disagree with others.

There's what seems to be a modern "hippie" culture that's grown up around BM - and if you're not one of the "cool kids" you will never ever understand why paying a couple hundred dollars to camp in the dessert with a bunch of freaks artists for a week is worthwhile.

I've always been a bit curious about it, but not to where I would spend any sort of money on it.

I have also felt increasingly less "hip" over the past few years, and too self-conscious to enjoy BM - maybe I'm just getting too mundane.

If I were to camp in the dessert for a long weekend, I would rather it be something like a large outdoor music festival. Just my opinion.

[skreeky]

"You wouldn't understand" is almost always a false statement. The statement they are looking for is "I cannot explain." Here again, we differ in whether we see this as laziness on the part of the speaker, or simple inability. I think it is sometimes one, and sometimes the other. I think it is unfair to assume laziness. However, it is also unfair to place the blame for the noncommunication on the listener when the speaker does not try.

The only time that this really angered me was at a dinner for a Jewish holiday. I was following what was going on just fine, and was enjoying the conversations just fine, and understanding the jokes just fine. And someone turned to me after a joke in mid-laugh and saiod "Oh, that's a Jew thing, YOU wouldn't understand."

The problem is, that I had understood just fine, thanks. As a matter of fact, it was not a topic even remotely unique to Jews - just a usual "small world, everyone knows everyone within this subculture" type anecdote. And while I was thinking "What the fuck makes you think I'm not able to understand the obvious?" and "What the fuck makes you think you're so special?" what I did was smile tightly and say nothing. And my estimation of that person has suffered ever since. The tag she got from that in my mind was "racist." Assumptions are rarely pretty.

[skreeky]

"I cannot explain."
Or as I state below, "I choose not to explain."
Which despite your annoyance, choosing not to explain something to you is their right. There are many personal reasons not to explain various things.
Blaming you for their choice not to explain, still not cool.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

I go to the Jazz Festival at SPAC (http://www.spac.org) every summer. In fact, it's probably the only thing about summer that I actively enjoy. I've described it as "putting your head in tune-space with about 10,000 of your closest friends that you only see once a year".

But then people who don't know jazz (and therefore, music) just cock their heads to one side and say "tune-space?".

Once Upon a Time (R), someone at a Princeton cocktail party asked Albert Einstein if he could explain his theory of relativity to them. He answered, "No". "But why not?"

Albert said that he had a blind friend, and that once, in his company, Albert expressed a desire for a glass of milk.
"Glass I know, but what is milk?"
"Milk is a white liquid."
"Liquid I know, but what is white?"
"White is the color of a swan's feathers."
"Feathers I know, but what is a swan?"
"A swan is a bird with a crooked neck."
"Neck I know, but what is crooked?"
Exasperated, I grabbed his arm, pulled it to full length, and said, "This is straight"; I then bent his arm at the elbow; "And this is crooked".

"Ah! Now I know what you mean by 'milk'!"

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Caveat: I've never been to burningman, and don't really have a desire to go. I have no desire to hang out for days in a desert in the summertime, getting sunburnt to a crisp, no matter how wonderful the company or experience is likely to be. I am simply not a sun worshipper. Move it to someplace more temperate, that has grass or other greenery, and I'll consider it.

With that said, I have come to the conclusion that Burning Man is more of a "unique experience" which affects the emotional part of the brain, instead of the logical part. Since it's very hard to describe emotions, you get those sorts of "you can't understand" comments.

Relate it to religion. Non-Jewish people have been repeatedly told they are unable to understand why Jewish people think/feel the way they do about the Holocost. Catholics who believe that life begins at conception can't comprehend why "right to choose" people want to kill children in the womb.

It's a "belief" thing, an emotional thing, that is beyond words.

With that said, I bet some enterprising writer will eventually emerge from the Burningman world and write an extremely insightful engaging best-seller some day. I suggest you read that when it comes out.

[meredith.livejournal.com]

It's not impossible to explain. The result of the explanation is not usually pleasant, though. You have these great personal experiences, you try to relate them to a (probably) bitter and aggressively anti-burner person with negative preconceptions, and you learn that explaining Burning Man ain't fun, so you don't try anymore.

I just tell people to go, and pretty much leave it at that. I think everyone should go at least once. I won't be going again, though.

[skreeky]

This is why there are several things I really try to avoid explaining to people I think likely to be judgemental - I do not want to waste my limited "cope" on justifying their existence or purpose. I don't tend to say "You wouldn't understand," though. For example, I tend to avoid explaining to non-Susboids what a Susboid is. But I don't say "you wouldn't understand," which insults the enquirer and just brings on more questions with far more negativity embedded in them. Instead, I tend to give a simplistic and truncated version which sates the curiosity without setting up the topic in question for judgemental statements that would offend me deeply.*

I imagine this would also piss off friend Mangosteen, only very slightly less than actually stating "You wouldn't understand."

However, I don't live my life on the premise that just because I understand something gives someone else the right to demand that I explain it to them if I choose not to.

* It's a social group that is defined by an email list that we are all on.

you're obsessed with this

[cthulhia]

obsessed with trying to experience something you STEADFASTLY refuse to experience.

If you want to know what burning man is, just GO. sit in you fucking RV or or be the boy in the bubble the entire time. It's better than you desperately trying to get a fully valid understanding without even so much as trying to attend. But then you can't pronounce yourself better than those who do attend by merely being above it all.

it cannot be succinctly explained. there is no pseudo-witty phrase that won't offend and completely misrepresent the experience had by someone who did participate.

after so many years, the obsession to have such a quip is offensive, or at least dreadfully tedious.

Re: you're obsessed with this

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

regardless of the event...

it's a choice of observation vs participation

even if one goes, if one chooses to simply study them, one won't become one of them. as obi wan said, let go. one pretty much has to immerse and possibly risk drowning.

is this what they call living?

#

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

At the beginning of each semester I ask students to start talking about their drawing and each others'.
"I like that one."
"What do you like about it?"
"I don't know, it's just really good."
"What's good about it? What catches your eye? What part of it do you look at and wish you knew how to do? How does looking at it make you feel? What does the drawing reveal that you didn't see before? Is there something about the mark making that your colleague employed that interests you? Something about the way it sits on the page?"

By the end of the semester most, if not all, of the students have begun to approach fluency and articulation in the language of visual art. But it takes time, and a concerted effort on their part, and experience and patience and support on my part.

Blame the education system. We teach people to be able to talk in facts, it's this or it's that, but not to deal well in poetry or nuance or the sublime. Nor do we teach how to be aware of your feelings about an event, let alone to describe them. It's sad, to me, really sad, because I earnestly believe that if you can take a profound and moving experience and explain it to someone else, then you own that experience more fully and more wholly.

Whats not obvious

[b00jum.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Even that question (whats not obvious to a resonably well-informed non-attendee) is fraught with peril ;) I would say, it depends.. Which non-attendee are we talking about?

Lets assume you, since right now its all about you bubala 8)

First - what you are likely to get: cultural acceptance - I'm a freak, you're a freak, we're freaks together. Outsiders getting together.

What I don't know (whether you grok): Created culture - no commerce, art is temporary.

Other things: Breakdown of norms, even BM often breaks its own norms, its a society that is evolving. Experiencing new art and art happenings and social interactions. Every year, people bring thier creativity and diversity to the play.

While you can't keep from participating on some level, there certainly is a continuum of involvement. Some people become intense in the involvement of making art happen and this transforms them on some level.

Of course, I'm showing my bias (look closely at the grain). I'm filtering the query - "explain" into a view of what is attractive. To really explain would take much more time. I would have to explain about the heat, dust, isolation, challenges and the myriad of things that make up the experience. In the end, I believe thats why people resort to avoiding the question - there is so much to explain.

What is Burning Man?

[b00jum.livejournal.com]

For those of us who have gone - what do we think Burning man is (by experience or observation). Then try to explain one or two of your assertions.

Burning Man is..

Art, Community, Transformation, a big party, Diversity, Sublime, Freaky, Fun, Hot, Dusty, Challenging.

The number one thing I see is the view of art as participatory. The entire thing is an art happening that everyone participates in. The line of spectator and creator becomes blurred. I love this, because my original background is in post-modern performance art. Think of a place where people gather to create random acts of beauty and then burn them.

[catling.livejournal.com]

Hmm. So my take on this is a different flavoring of it:

I can write up various descriptions of the experience of Burning Man. I can show you photos. You can look at other people's photos, etc. All of these things will convey only a fraction of the actual experience. Coming from me, "it has to be experienced directly to get the full effect" is not meant to be dismissive and I don't think it's folly to try to explain the event to someone, it's just not going to convey the full effect. And each person's experience is subjective, and can be very different from year to year depending on set and setting, headspace, companions, weather, etc. I, for example, had a pretty hard year this time.

I think that there are a lot of bits of life that can only be partially conveyed to someone who has not experienced them.

For example, I've not gone diving or skydiving and while I've listened avidly to other people's descriptions of it I'm sure that they convey a mere fraction of what those experiences are actually like. Or, for example, sex... any description of sex really doesn't do the act justice, until you experience bed shaking orgasms of your own you don't really know what they are like.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

And now, my real answer.

Several people have already contributed the major points: it's a vastly different societal structure (like an SF con is, but increased by several orders of magnitude); it's a vastly different physical arrangement, in the desert and the dust and the camping. Culture shock beyond anything I've even come close to experiencing anywhere else--there's the fact that you ARE camping, which makes us expect discomfort and privations and down-to-basics, but then you bounce on a giant trampoline or snuggle in an egg chair or sip a Cosmo on a wood-grain bar that's being trundled on the back of a giant lizard. The brain can't handle all the contradictions and it goes *pop* and stops with the expectations, and this lets you see everything with the unalloyed wonder of a child or an innocent.

But that's for me. The guy next to me might say something completely different.

Let it be said that I haven't drunk of the Kool-Aid. I loathe the techno music which is overwhelmingly what you find at BM, and in fact spent one night last year just riding behind one art car for hours because they were playing metal; I still have too much Midwestern "personal-space"ism keeping me from the pure open fellowship required to drop into a camp I don't know to say "Howdy, I love what you've done with your Hello Shiva". So in some ways and on some days I feel more like an observer than a participant.

But the rest of the time, it's safer space than ever I've known. It's the closest I have ever seen to the concept "an it harm none, do as thou wilt". And that's a darn nifty thing.

I still feel like the blind men describing the elephant, though. That poster's simile was well chosen.

[mangosteen]

[This is not an LJ glitch. I just promised myself I'd look at this post again in ~3 months and respond to people.]

The brain can't handle all the contradictions and it goes *pop* and stops with the expectations, and this lets you see everything with the unalloyed wonder of a child or an innocent.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That sums up pretty much what I was looking to understand.
You see, I have this book. The Codex Seraphinianus. Look at the link. I'll wait. The short form is that you keep looking at it and looking at it, and at some point, you stop trying to analyze it, and you look at the pictures (and the world described) with the wonder of a pre-literate child. It's a large annoying puzzle, but it's also beautiful to behold.

There are so many arbitrary filters we put on ourselves and our behavior, just so we can make it through our day-to-day lives. There's an incredible amount of abstraction and behavioral shorthand. I can see how being in a space where you could turn those filters off could be an incredible release.