Going Light
Aug. 25th, 2003 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikTickets are in hand; time off begins on Wednesday. We spend the day packing and last-minute-prepping and then head out to the playa. This'll be my 7th BurningMan attendance, if I'm right. Due to the lack of time and money this year we're going on the Excessively Light and Cheap plan. In a way it'll be like returning to our roots.
The first b'Man that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
revar, Andre and I attended was just the three of us and some camping gear tossed into my old Pontiac Trans-sport minivan. We bought firewood and food at some podunk grocery store in Reno, having no idea what we were in for. It was a wild three days (we were there for fri/sat/sun only) -- wilder than any other year I've been there. That was the last of the Free Range BurningMans, back when they used to keep you out by not giving you GPS coordinates. It was 20 miles farther out into the playa and utterly unstructured. Comparing then to now is like comparing a rave party shipwrecked on their own island vs. busloads of toursts being dropped at the plastic consumer happiness known as Disneyland.
Each year we've brought more and more infrastructure. We've created beautiful things and had some amazing successes... but have also burned through finances and (unfortunately) friendships due to them. Most of the ones who got grumpy with me were the ones that felt I brought too much physical work into the equation as we built our little survivalist-city -- but the entire set of still-distant-to-this-day emotions about that are best left for other posts. Last year we simply couldn't get our act nor our finances together in time to keep the projects going and we crashed out, like our own little dotcom, missing the event entirely as a result. This year we both wanted to go but neither of us wanted the effort or expense.
So... a half-week off, a tent for Revar to sleep in (I sleep in the Element), food, chairs, sunscreen and a cheapie shade structure. This time it's about the place and the people around us and not the huge array of gear we bring. We'll still be participants -- we're going to be there to help, enable and play -- but we won't have our own camp to share. I'm hoping the experience helps me come to a 'sing or get of the damn stage' type of decision about future attendance. If I can go back to the fest with nothing but the basics and still enjoy the heck out of myself then it's worth sticking with -- and planning throughout the year for. If I find myself blase' about the whole experience then this is a good end of the cycle; friends, a car, and the desert, just like it started.
Even with how little we're taking, there's still prep to do. I've done, well... almost nothing. Wednesday is going to be insane.
*whiskertwitch*
The first b'Man that
revar, Andre and I attended was just the three of us and some camping gear tossed into my old Pontiac Trans-sport minivan. We bought firewood and food at some podunk grocery store in Reno, having no idea what we were in for. It was a wild three days (we were there for fri/sat/sun only) -- wilder than any other year I've been there. That was the last of the Free Range BurningMans, back when they used to keep you out by not giving you GPS coordinates. It was 20 miles farther out into the playa and utterly unstructured. Comparing then to now is like comparing a rave party shipwrecked on their own island vs. busloads of toursts being dropped at the plastic consumer happiness known as Disneyland.Each year we've brought more and more infrastructure. We've created beautiful things and had some amazing successes... but have also burned through finances and (unfortunately) friendships due to them. Most of the ones who got grumpy with me were the ones that felt I brought too much physical work into the equation as we built our little survivalist-city -- but the entire set of still-distant-to-this-day emotions about that are best left for other posts. Last year we simply couldn't get our act nor our finances together in time to keep the projects going and we crashed out, like our own little dotcom, missing the event entirely as a result. This year we both wanted to go but neither of us wanted the effort or expense.
So... a half-week off, a tent for Revar to sleep in (I sleep in the Element), food, chairs, sunscreen and a cheapie shade structure. This time it's about the place and the people around us and not the huge array of gear we bring. We'll still be participants -- we're going to be there to help, enable and play -- but we won't have our own camp to share. I'm hoping the experience helps me come to a 'sing or get of the damn stage' type of decision about future attendance. If I can go back to the fest with nothing but the basics and still enjoy the heck out of myself then it's worth sticking with -- and planning throughout the year for. If I find myself blase' about the whole experience then this is a good end of the cycle; friends, a car, and the desert, just like it started.
Even with how little we're taking, there's still prep to do. I've done, well... almost nothing. Wednesday is going to be insane.
*whiskertwitch*
