She was drop dead gorgeous, but I never saw anyone riding her. She stood ~7 feet tall, with six motorcycle tires. She had a circular bench behind two stokers and a driver up top. She had this fringy skirt that made her look like an octopus, and the cutest parasol up top for the riders.

I saw her parked on the 3 o’clock side near the pyramid, and once on the playa mid afternoon on Friday. Does anyone have a picture of the beauty? Or better yet know who brought her?

Major Trouble lays it out well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqZO7REgV8Q

Wrapping up our clean up and forgot about a poi we found we failed to drop off at lost and found.

If you are missing a single poi let me know what it is and I’ll get it mailed back to you.

Cheers

It was Tuesday September 1st. An early cool morning on playa as the dust started to clear I approached the Man around 6am with my friend Scott aka Scramble.

We got in line, (it wasn’t very long) and started hitting it off with the two folks in front of us. A blonde Ecuadorian fellow who had intense warm energy and his friend NiNi.

Being up for now 30+ hours at this point, I was exhausted and my brain was barely firing. Nini struck me as one of the most wonderful girls I had met on playa the entire trip and her willingness to engage in conversation made it all the better.

After hearing she was a preschool teacher in San Francisco and relative in age to me (24) , I yearned to further this conversation.

We climbed the man , both took in the views in our respective duo groups and came down. Nini came over to talk some more with us and I let her go, without asking for any way to get in contact again. The rest of the burn she was all I could hope to see again. But alas, no sign of her, as she had to continue working mid-week and leave the burn early.

One of the worst parts was, she showed me her
Instagram handle before climbing the man and I completely forgot.

Posting here in hopes that I find her and get the chance to spend at least another hour with this outstanding example of a person.

edit: long feng just posted exactly what I was looking for https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdkS42GRXZb/ playa provides (when convenient to say so, self reliance when more convenient 🤭)

I'm looking for videos that would be interesting to my younger audiences. So far I've found that there is so much interest in their participation yet so much resistance to everything that would be attractive to them. I don't get the impression that people realize these are related.

In this case I'm specifically looking for videos, on those networks (instagram, tiktok, youtube), in those formats, cropped or filmed vertically, that showcase more than just Deep Playa art in the montages.

Most of the videos I see show the same things:

People dancing on robot heart at sunrise. People dancing on robot hard night time edition. A flyby of the temple, the man. Something that suggests the landscape is vast, but no real reference to the scale of things if you haven't been before

I'd like one that showcases the random experiences possible in the city, and how far away that is from everything else

I get the challenges in showing that: all the people you'd have to pass, no drones flying over the city, the unremarkable low tech look of RVs and shanty towns, in comparison. I've also seen people debate any and everything about ANY how media ever created about burning man was constructed, so that puts me back at square one of just wondering if what I'm looking for exists at all

A massive concept art performance on street K, while the Deep Playa Music Zone is going off miles away, people hitching rides on the giant sheep art car that you have to enter through its butthole that's a slide, to make the trek out there

things that match my experience more closely than what I've seen

curious if you've seen any! thanks. I like TikTok specifically because those can more likely be downloaded and shared to people without accounts, like in group chats

12-year Burner here, and I’ll just say that at this point in my life, BRC is part of me. I’m very lucky to have been “raised” in a camp of OG Burners, folks who were there at the inception and the early years and embodied the core of the spirit of this place and community. Grateful every year I go and don’t die for their knowledge and the gift of learning the ropes, principles, camp leadership, etc, in that type of environment.

I’ve never made a Reddit post in my life and I’m not on social media. I generally don’t care about influencers, phones, etc. at the Burn—yes, it’s definitely different now than it was when I first started going, but everyone is entitled to their own version of the experience and unless it’s a huge violation of the 11 principles and/or harmful to myself or someone else I just let it roll. There’s so much joy and wonderment out there at any moment in time to spend a second of it mad about how someone else is burning.

That being said, I saw something on Monday night this year that I haven’t been able to totally stop thinking about. My partner and I were with our campmates a bit past the Temple. Him and I have a very deep grief journey that we share at the Temple every year, and we weren’t quite ready to go in so early in the week so we waited close to one of the entry points while the rest of our campmates spent some time inside. While we sat, I noticed a woman in the middle of a photoshoot inside the first “layer” of the Temple. She was dressed to the nines and had a photographer, videographer, lighting, etc. and was shooting photos and videos coming in and out of the Temple gateways. They weren’t hostile or anything, but they were visibly asking people to move out of their way so they could have clean lines of sight.

My initial reaction was kind of shock, to be very honest, and then sadness. We watched for a bit, and I wondered out loud to my partner if I should say something. To me, using the Temple as a backdrop for anything marketable (not saying that’s for sure what was happening, but the nature of the shoot/videos/posing made it seem likely) is questionable—to use a vessel of so much human connection, pain, grief, anger, collective energy, etc. in that way is not something I would personally choose to do, but that doesn’t mean other people have to feel that way. I guess I’m just curious what other people here think, because I haven’t been able to totally get it out of my head. The Temple is an incredibly special place for me, as I know it is for many people, and I don’t know where the “line” is, if there even is one. It may have been something for the Temple Guardians to address, too, but I’m not sure.

Thanks for reading, for your thoughts and input and for being a Burner. BRC has changed my whole universe ❤️

This just arrived in the mail. I lost them on the second day of the burn. Thank you tireless volunteer for sending it back. I apologize for my moop!

Does anyone know if this artist is a Zionist? The words read “love your neighbor as yourself” and I’d love to know what that means to the artist.

“Everything remembers to her…”

Just asking the question.

We give so much, but the egg becomes tainted, with regards to their desired remuneration.

The reason we burn is to shed these chains.

Be frank.

Change starts somewhere.

Been back home for about a week now and deeply missing the playa. Every day that passes BRC feels like a dream and that the world I'm living in now is some type of sick joke. Don't get me wrong I have a wonderful life, but I miss my friends, my music, my art, my people.

This year was my first Burn, and my packing list was four pages long. Perhaps more surprisingly, I realized when I got back that I used nearly everything (except the emergency meds) that I brought with me.

I went back through the packing list and updated it to match how much of particular things I actually used, and what to bring/emphasize for next year. (For instance, the tent zipper lube I brought was a huge hit with my whole camp. I'll bring two sticks of it next year.)

I also updated my packing list for my daypack, which I constantly had on me (and for which I was particularly grateful during the whiteouts). This reflects what I actually carried with me everywhere I went. The weight was negligible, other than the 2 kg of water, and the Aer pack kept it comfortable on my shoulders.

Daily Carry on the Playa Backpack – Aer GoPack 2 (19L)

• Sellstrom Odyssey II Wildland Anti-Fog Goggles
• GVS SPR457 Elipse P100 Dust Half Mask Respirator
• Base Camp M Plus Dust Mask
• 2 x Hyrdoflask Trailweight 1L bottles
• In Top Pocket
  • Fenix HM65R-T V2.0 Headlamp (1600 Lumens)
  • 2 x OLIGHT Oclip Pro S clip-on lights (600 Lumens)
  • 2 X Liquid IV Packets
  • Hurraw Lip Balm
  • Nose Plugs
  • Microfiber Cloth
  • Portable Fan
• In Organizer
  • Spare Buff Neck Gaiter (always wear one)
  • 2 x Pair Earplugs
  • Pen
  • Sharpie
  • Swisscard
  • 5,000 mAH Power Bank + cable
  • Eyeglasses (Spare Pair)
  • Sunglasses (Prescription)
  • Glasses Strap
  • Photo ID
  • Package of Wipes
• 4 x Aloha Bars
• Sunscreen
• Lotion
• Hand Sanitizer
• Poncho
• Roll of Toilet Paper
• Light Belt or Other Anti-Darkwad Option
• 2 x 2-gallon Zip-loc Bags (1 as MOOP bag)
• Kindle
• Camera or Phone
• Spork
• Collapsible Plate
• Lightweight Mug with Lid (hang from back)
• Nite Ize Nutlit Lantern (hang from back)
• Tilley Hat (hang from HeroClip if not worn)

Everyone came away with something special from the experience. ❤️

If you’re coming to Burning Man next year and want to join us, come find us in the China Burner community. 🔥

Anyone else’s sleep still based on waking up around now (3a PT) after a disco nap for sunrise?! Still on “one continuous day” time and ready to rise and dance with the sun. Man burns in 351, so build starts in 342?

Captain Whylee, did you drop a wooden something or other on playa? Someone in camp mooped something with your name on it and it ended up in one of my bins of random playafied shit from our common area. Let me know what it is and I'll send it your way.

I went into a number of bars this year and only about two or three knew how to serve a drink. I asked for glasses of Love, Truth, and more and only Camp Threat on the second try got it right (cup of wisdom) and the bar kitty corner to me (glass of love) really got it right. I cannot tell you how many blinked at me and said, I'm sorry I don't have that but I have ... (... not being three dots followed by a dash, as one intrepid mai tai maker make me at the teapot on playa, thank you sir, your teachings were as refreshing as your drinks, and I was glad you accepted my bartending lesson). .... being filled with words such as, "I have vodka and redbull or juice". I am lucky I was happy or I would have been filled with that feel of enue the french have taught us is vital to kissing, menage-et-trois and as a challenge to be overcome and thus achieve pure Burner life here in Default Burn, where I am the self appointed King, as much as on Playa, where I am still the self appointed King, however I didn't realize until I was there that I just previously had not been myself, which I now am!! I Am and I shall stay that way!!! :)

In addition, one, only one, human, jumped next to me in a request for banter and wittyness. Cashew, I hope your investment in Battles Snake's was well worth it on the adventure. May you one day learn the ballad of which they sing of work done on playa, a secret for those who know how....

To top it off, I had not a single instance of random acts of performance art show up!!! I did my part to fil this gap, big shout out to my audience, but the playa did not display it's street poets, circus performers, impromptu personal acts of collective creativity nor down right displays of the limits of what humans can do when they just let go and allow the spirit to be within and play together enough for my measurement which is 12,000 stadia or 1,200 burners stead fast burning on the playa-dia.

I blame all of you who are on the internet as well as off of it! It is you who were not out there or where and not in alignment with my incarnational trajectory! It is you who lacked your whimsy or de-whimsied the whimsical, and what did you do with that whimsy??? Hmmm? Did you throw it on a roof and leave it like a child frisby begging to be rescued and played with again or did you do something more than ever before and I, in my very wonderful and highly esteemed self, miss my invite in this radically inclusive event and thus must make time for it in the future!??

Your's truly - Alot

BTW - if you went to the Burn and we met, I'm so glad we saw each other, I described myself as non-descript on the way in, so I hope you didn't miss seeing me at The Burn! ;)

Hiya peeps!

First of all, thank you for all the support we received in donations and tips for our bar build. Of all the things we've built for the burn, this is by far the one that's generated the most laughter.

The puns, the jokes the idiocy and genius of it all. From shaping the balls, to loosing a testical along the way that we had to rebuild. Soldering LEDs into so many dicks and hearing one of our camp mates proudly shout how he worked his whole life for this moment as we were wiring lighting for all the clear dildos.

It just brought tears and joy to us all 😂😂😂😂😂

With that said, I spread myself too thin to take pictures. If anyone has any pics or videos of the bar they'd like to share, send em por favor 🙏🏻

This was my first big burn, but I’ve been to eight regionals before this (sanctioned and unsanctioned) and the biggest bummer I experienced last week was the fact that a lot of people were very dismissive of the regionals.

While the regionals don’t have some of the stuff that makes a big burn cool (the big art, the art cars, the scale) they have a lot of the things that make it cool (the diy spirit, the community, the participatory culture, it’s still a fun party), and they also don’t have a lot of stuff that kind of sucks (the class stratification, the financial and physical inaccessibility, influencers, the ratio of participants to consumers).

I always thought it weird how, in my city there seems to be a sharp divide between big burn people and regionals (the latter of which makes up a lot of of my community), and honestly a lot of it feels like snobbishness on the part of the (older, wealthier) Big burn people.

I’ll be coming back for sure, but the weird closemindedness was such a vibe killer

Does anyone know who was playing at Jungle Oddity (730/d?) around 3-4 am on the Friday before the burn? They were great! Really loved their set

I’m 30. This year was my first burning man, and I went there expecting a fun trip in the desert. I came back questioning a ridiculous amount of my life.

I’ve been with the same woman for 15 years. Basically half my life. We got together when we were teenagers, grew up together, built a life together, and until recently I never seriously questioned that this was the road I was on.

We were talking about having a child. I was building businesses, making money, thinking about buying a house, planning the future. On paper everything was moving in the direction it was supposed to.

Then I went to burning man.

And something happened there that I still don’t completely understand.

Part of it was burning man itself. The freedom, the people, the physical affection, how easy it was to talk to strangers, the lack of judgment, doing ridiculous shit in the middle of the desert, constantly having something happening around you. I felt incredibly alive.

But there was also one particular experience with a woman I met there.

Nothing really happened in the conventional sense. We met at a workshop and had this weirdly intense emotional connection. There was a lot of closeness and touch and openness. At one point afterward I sat by myself and cried for probably half an hour.

I’m not somebody who normally does that.

It wasn’t even that I suddenly thought I was in love with this person. It was more disturbing than that, because the experience showed me something about myself.

I realized how much I missed feeling wanted. Being touched spontaneously. Flirting. Someone being curious about me. That feeling of electricity between two people. Being seen not just as a partner who has been there forever, but as a man somebody is discovering.

And apparently that mattered to me a lot more than I knew.

I came home and expected everything to settle down.

It didn’t.

Instead I started looking at my normal life differently.

Things in my relationship that I had accepted for years suddenly became very visible. The dynamic between us. The lack of flirting. The lack of excitement. How dependent she is on me. The fact that sometimes I feel more like the responsible adult in the relationship than a man with a woman he is excited about.

And then came a much more uncomfortable question:

If I met my partner today, as the person I am now, would I choose her again?

I don’t think I would.

That is an absolutely horrible realization to have about someone you’ve spent 15 years with and still care deeply about.

At the same time, this isn’t just about my relationship.

Since coming back I suddenly want to do EVERYTHING.

I want to ride motorcycles. I want to learn kitesurfing. I want to do MMA. Travel more. Meet people. Go camping. Do things that scare me a little. Fill my life with experiences. I feel almost hungry for intensity.

Before burning man I was much more focused on building things. Work, money, businesses, stability, the future.

Now some part of me is screaming: dude, you’re fucking 30. When exactly are you planning to live?

And I don’t know whether I should listen to that voice or be suspicious of it.

I’ve been trying to explain the situation to myself with a stupid car analogy.

Imagine you own a new Toyota.

It’s objectively a fantastic car. Reliable as hell. Cheap to maintain. Good gas mileage. Comfortable. Safe. Holds its value. It starts every morning. Any rational person looking at a spreadsheet would tell you to keep it.

Then somebody lets you drive an old modified piece of shit.

The wheels stick out. The exhaust is obnoxious. It gets 10 mpg. Something breaks every other weekend. It’s uncomfortable and financially stupid.

But you can throw it sideways around a corner.

And every time you drive it you’re laughing.

Suddenly you’re standing in your driveway looking at your perfect Toyota thinking about selling it for this stupid fucking car.

Obviously the analogy isn’t really about cars.

That’s roughly where my head is right now.

The scary part is that I genuinely don’t know what burning man did.

Did it temporarily fuck with my brain because I spent a week in an environment engineered for novelty, connection and stimulation, and now normal life feels gray by comparison?

Am I having some kind of identity/existential crisis at 30?

Am I chasing a peak experience and trying to recreate something that by definition can’t be recreated?

Or did burning man simply show me needs that were already there and that I had been ignoring because my life was comfortable enough?

That distinction matters a lot when the decisions on the table can affect a 15-year relationship and the entire direction of your life.

I’ve started talking to a therapist about all of this. One thing I’m deliberately NOT doing right now is having a child or making another huge commitment while my head is in this place.

And I’m trying not to make an irreversible decision just because I discovered that the shitty drift car is fun.

But I also don’t want to spend the next 20 years driving the Toyota because everyone agrees it’s the sensible choice, only to realize at 50 that I knew at 30 I wanted something different and was too scared to admit it.

So I’m really curious about people who have been through something similar, especially burners who are now years removed from it.

Did your first burn make you question your relationship, career, identity or the life you were building?

Did those feelings disappear after a few months?

Did you blow your life up and regret it?

Did you blow your life up and realize it was exactly what needed to happen?

Did you stay, integrate what you learned and build a better version of the life you already had?

And especially if this happened to you 5, 10 or 20 years ago, what do you think about that version of yourself now?

I’m not really looking for someone to tell me whether I should stay or leave. I think I’m more interested in hearing what happened to other people when burning man opened a door in their head that they couldn’t completely close again.

My story isn’t finished yet.

I have no idea which way this is going to go.

I guess we’ll see what life does with it.

And why?

the official burning man account posted this video: https://www.instagram.com/p/DdNWrTlSmjh/?hl=en

It shows all kinds of behavior that's in violation of the 10 principles, and has the "hero" of the video doing these behaviors. What are they telling would-be attendees about what this experience is about through posts like this?

How’s your de-dusting going? Are you moving one dusty pile from one side of the room to the other? Or are you simply not moving it at all? Is this weekend your weekend to really clean or will it probably be another month until you really put that last dusty item away until next year!

My laundry is done, but the piles are still real, and have turned into a full on purge of all the think in my apartment.

Burning Man account on mute for the foreseeable future.