Burning Man is an annual experimental community and arts event held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, which is in the remote northwestern part of the state. It has evolved from a small beach gathering into one of the world’s most distinctive cultural phenomena. Burning Man began in 1986, when Larry Harvey and Jerry James spontaneously built and burned an 8-foot wooden man on Baker Beach in San Francisco. The event was inspired by Harvey processing a breakup and wanting to create a moment of “radical self-expression.” Friends gathered, and the ritual felt meaningful enough to repeat.
The beach burns continued annually, growing each year. By 1990, about 800 people attended, but when the gathering grew too large and the park police intervened before they could burn the 40-foot effigy, organizers needed a new location. That’s when members of the San Francisco Cacophony Society suggested moving to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert—a vast, flat, dried lakebed that’s federal public land. The first desert burn had about 80 participants. The remote location allowed the event to grow without urban constraints.
Throughout the 1990s, Burning Man developed its distinctive culture. The Ten Principles of Burning Man were articulated (including radical self-expression, radical self-reliance, communal effort, gifting, decommodification, and Leave No Trace). By any measure, the ethos of Running Man is pretty leftist. Some would say it’s anarchistic. When I looked up decommodification it said it’s a concept that refers to the process of removing goods, services, or aspects of life from the market economy — essentially making them available based on need or rights rather than ability to pay. Sounds like socialism to me.
Black Rock City, where Burning Man gathers annually now, emerged as a temporary city with infrastructure, themed camps, and art installations. As the event grew from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of participants, they formed Black Rock City LLC to organize the event. In 1997 a participant died when he ran into the fire during the burn, leading to enhanced safety protocols. I guess that was one radical self expression with too much liability for the LLC. In 2000, attendance reached 25,000 and in 2011 the event “sold out” for the first time at 50,000 tickets. I guess they should have raised the prices. Today, Burning Man typically draws around 70,000-80,000 participants (called “Burners”) for a week in late August/early September. The event features massive art installations, (many of which are burned). theme camps offering experiences, performances, gifts, “mutant” vehicles (art cars), the iconic burning of the Man effigy on Saturday night, and the Temple burn on Sunday (a space for grief and remembrance).
The entire event operates on a “gift economy”—no money changes hands except for ice and coffee at Center Camp. Participants must bring everything they need to survive in harsh desert conditions. Burning Man is said to have influenced art and music festival culture worldwide and Silicon Valley culture (many tech entrepreneurs attend). There have even been what are called Regional Burns (similar events) all around the globe.That all said, the event has drawn increasing criticism for gentrification (It’s expensive surviving harsh desert conditions in August), environmental impact (not as much “Leave No Trace” as they hoped, I guess), exclusivity (tickets are more and more difficult to obtain), and, of course, the ever-popular crass commercialization. Then in. 2023, heavy rains turned the “playa” into mud, stranding 70,000+ people for days, generating widespread media coverage.
Burning Man remains a unique experiment in temporary community, radical self-expression, and participatory art, though debates continue about whether it has stayed true to its countercultural roots or become mainstream spectacle.
Today I left the house for an errand and drove out my driveway past the vacant lot across our street. This lot sold four years ago and the owner has spent that time telling the neighborhood one story after another about his plans to build. In the mean time, other than some dirt being pushed around to make a flat pad and the regular growth of some pretty massive weeds, this has gone on while a half dozen other homes have been built and occupied on this hilltop. There are only so many vacant lots on this hilltop of about 50 homes and they seem to be becoming more and more dear by the day. There are at least three large parcels (7-15 acres each) that want to subdivide into multiple lots, but the county is unwilling to approve that due to a general concern about density in the community of Hidden Meadows overall. That’s a strange issue for an area with houses on 1-3 acres, but the density that concerns them has to do with wildfire evacuation since there is only one public road (the 4-lane Mountain Meadow Road). It’s a big local issue that mostly has to do with not wanting to open the floodgates by a sale of the ragged Boulder Oaks Golf Club for the development of its approximately 150 acres into some 60-100 new homes. It seems contradictory to say, but the topography of this beautiful area is a problem if left to the whims of free-wheeling development.
But nothing except normal county permitting and approval processes prevents our across the street neighbor-to-be from moving forward and yet he persists to slow-play while talking a big game. He has, by now, worn through the goodwill of the community, and everyone thinks he’s a blowhard who’s not serious about building. He’s just barely serious about weed control, which does us all both a visual and invasive gardening disservice.
But today, something was different. I’m used to seeing his derelict old RV parked on the lot along with his PVC Home Depot shed, but today there were perhaps 5 cars on the lot and an entire encampment complete with tents and shade tarps. It looked like there was an event or gathering in the making. This is literally the first sign of life on that lot in 5 years…and to put it mildly, it caused quite a bit of immediate gossip and speculation on the hilltop grapevine. Some thought it was a realty event perhaps to finally sell the lot into productive hands. Others thought it looked more like a family reunion of some sort of camping clan. But it was neighbor Brian with the new pickleball court right next to the new campsite that had the funniest theory. His comment was that perhaps it was a new Burning Man Regional Burn of some sort. We are all too unfamiliar with the lot owner to venture over to ask, so instead we will keep a vigil this weekend for signs of the construction of a 40-foot idol to self-indulgence and any major bonfire of the vanities that might result. The man may have burned through his construction moneys, but there is always money to recreate another tribute to a cultural phenomenon.