Burning Man Grows Up

Can the nation's premier underground event survive its success?

Brian Doherty from the February 2000 issue

(Page 4 of 4)

Harvey, like his partner Michael Michael, has declared that his intention is to change the world. But change it to what? A giant party filled with postmodern art projects? Something that gets destroyed, cleaned up, and rebuilt every month?

Whether he's an enthusiastic booster of radical inclusivity for a beautiful, life-changing experience or an egomaniac trying to build the largest event he can--both opinions circulate--Harvey remains dedicated to making Burning Man bigger and bigger. He seems to think 1 million people could enjoy the Burning Man experience; Michael, more visionary yet, sees 2 million as a good number to shoot for. The more down-to-earth Marian Goodell suggests 50,000--and only if she can get 10 reliable assistants.

If and when any of those figures are reached, perhaps it will be clear whether the festival amounts to something more than proof that people with enough disposable income can recreate the more bohemian neighborhoods of their big-city homes in the middle of a desert. Clearly the trend in Black Rock City over the past several years has been to make it more like the civilization left behind.

But this much is certain: Burning Man can never be like a "real" city unless the ban on commerce is lifted. That is the law that the organizers seem most adamant about maintaining--even though it is violated by their own Center Camp café (the proceeds go to various causes in Gerlach). At this point, Black Rock is a city dedicated to pure play, a prototype for the society Michael Michael speculates will exist when we've solved the problem of production and have nothing to do but enjoy leisure. If science-fictional nanotechnology dreams come true, then Burning Man's 24-hour Mardi Gras-like atmosphere of sensuality and creativity may have more relevance to more lives than we could ever guess.

As it is, people do work at Burning Man, and work remarkably hard, building ephemeral things for the joy of creation, for the fulfillment of teaming with others to pull off the grand gesture, for status and bragging rights in a temporary community. It's a pre-individualist vision of the good life, which in Black Rock is found only in working with and contributing to the polis. No one does anything in Black Rock for money, although the Burning Man organization does give thousands of dollars in grants to artists. "Jesse Helms should love us," Harvey declares. "We don't drink at the public trough, and we support artists with our own, non-tax-deductible money. In fact, we fill the public trough with tens of thousands of dollars."

Of course, most of the art probably wouldn't be to Senator Helms' taste. Consider, for example, Jim Mason's fire symphony, performed in the wee hours of Sunday morning--3 a.m. or so--this year. Mason has five tanks that shoot kerosene jets in the air, arranged in a four-tank circle 100 feet in diameter with one in the center. He has composed a three-movement symphony with musical notes represented by flames of different height and intensity bursting in planned rhythms and patterns from the five tanks. It is a perfect example of an art project that could only be pulled off in the space and emptiness of Black Rock. He conducts, speaking through headphone radio to the five tank operators and their spotters, one of whom is me, who all bear fire extinguishers.

"The Impotence Compensation Symphony will now begin," Mason jokes. It goes off impressively for the first two movements, though falling kerosene starts small fires on the tanks, the empty cracked playa, and a shirt left near a tank. A couple of the ground fires seem threatening, and I'm dashing from my spot on the center tank to help others with my water-pressure extinguisher. I slip in a sheet of kerosene; I right myself frantically. The 100-foot flame jets 10 feet from me are a hot weight crushing down on my skull, palpable, like a brick of fire balanced on my head. I keep patting my hair, certain it's on fire.

Streaks of flame pour down the tank 50 feet behind me. I rush to empty my extinguisher on it, futilely. Someone grabs the extinguisher from my hand. "Run, run, run, it might blow!" Mason is shouting. Performers and crowd form a circle 100 yards wide around the tank, perhaps secretly hoping for one more colorful explosion. Luckily--or alas--the tank, with its nozzle left open, runs out of kerosene before the pressurized liquid explodes.

One act of apparent violence shook the order of Black Rock City this year. A person or persons unknown detonated a small propane container underground outside the city perimeter, but close to the Washoe policemen's camp. Immediately, rumors flew that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had been called in, that undercover agents were roaming the city seeking loose lips, that military helicopters deposited men with Dr. Seuss hats and colorfully decorated bikes to blend in. A BLM officer solemnly (and mistakenly) informed a group of Burning Man participants that the explosive was ammonium nitrate, the stuff used in Oklahoma City. That started questions about militia activity and terrorist attacks.

The mention of the BATF brings to mind parallels between the ironic nihilism of Black Rock City and the earnest millenarianism of another social experiment, the Branch Davidian "compound" outside Waco, Texas: communities separated from the rest of the world, united by outré beliefs, with lots of dangerous explosives, charismatic leaders, possibly exposing children to lewdness. If the BATF got involved, could Burning Man become another Waco? Local politicians certainly don't think that way. As Washoe County Commissioner Jim Shaw tells me, "People like to gather here who maybe believe in weird things, but they aren't bothering anybody, and I don't see why anyone should bother them."

Such words are a reminder that conflicts between alternative communities and the outside world don't have to end in fire--or at least not in hostile conflagration. After Burning Man '99 is just a memory I ask Lt. McHardy about the propane tank explosion. Whatever rumors I've heard, he says, the cops aren't taking it that seriously. McHardy's comments on that explosion could be read as a healthy attitude toward Burning Man as a whole. "The way I see it, someone wanted to see something go boom," he says. "They went out to an area they presumed to be vacant and less hazardous. I might be interested in meeting with the individual, but it wasn't that big of a deal."

It's far from clear that, as Larry Harvey and Michael Michael clearly hope, Burning Man is showing the world a new, better way to live (on an alkali salt flat with no water or electricity?). But the event demonstrates that there's still liberty in America. There are still frontiers--even if you need to endure a complicated permitting process to explore them. Hell, at least in the end they give you the permit.