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| Burn, baby, BURN! |
Finally back from
Burning Man and am almost mostly decompressed. For those of you who don't know, Burning Man is a week long festival in Nevada in an area where nothing grows, no animals, plants, not even insects. There is literally nothing there except dust and distant mountains and the sun and wind. Then 60,000 people descend upon the barren spot and build a city for a week. At the end of the week, large parts of the city are burned down and everything is packed out. The city is a gift culture, which means that the only things you can buy while you're there are ice and coffee. The gift culture is fantastic because everyone gives each other what they need to survive and have a lovely time, community is how everything works so well. Art, music, and self expression are big things out there, a lot of the art is in the form of huge interactive sculptures that are burned at the end to symbolize the ephemerality of existence and there is music everywhere. Burning Man is an incredible experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is open minded, good at sharing, and looking to have a wonderful time, but is willing to battle the elements to survive. There is a certain
Mad Max,
Tank Girl,
Fallout, hippy aesthetic to the whole event and crazy costumes are encouraged.
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Pile at front is collapsed Hexayurt
Structure at back is a set up Hexayurt
None of these people are me, I don't even know them |
Getting everything ready to live out in a harsh environment and make sure that you look amazing every day is quite a bit of work. This year I built a Hexayurt. What the hell is a
Hexayurt, you might ask, well it is a hexagonal (there are other shapes, too) living space created from ridged insulation foam (or another building material, like cardboard or plywood) and tape that is designed to collapse down quite small (mine was 8'x4'x1.5' collapsed and 166sqft when assembled) to be easily transportable then reasonable sized when assembled. The concept has been tested successfully out on The Playa for a few years and is a great way to ensure homes for disaster relief because these homes are designed to keep you cool during the day and warm at night, easy to construct, easy to transport, easy to set up, not too expensive, and minimal waste during the construction process. Suffice to say, Hexayurts are awesome and I'm glad that I built one, but that was just one more thing that I had to do to prepare for the festival.
Back to cleaning up after the amazing, dusty, whimsical experience.
