August 26, 2024

"Last year, torrential rains transformed the playa’s fine dust into a clay-like paste that clung to shoes like resin."

"Vehicles were immobilized; even walking was a slog. It was so calamitous that President Joe Biden was briefed on the situation. This was 'punishing for people who treat Burning Man like Coachella,' said Ross Melford, an art dealer from Santa Cruz, Calif.... 'This isn’t a music festival, with free beer and sponsors,' Melford [said]. He witnessed panicked attendees attempt to drive in the mud, against official advice, and immediately get stuck. 'We had no remorse for these people and reveled in their panic,' he said."

From "Burning Man isn’t sold out — and the die-hards are thrilled/Following last year’s disastrous rains, ticket sales at the psychedelic desert party are flagging" (WaPo).

57 comments:

Christopher B said...

Looks like nobody likes tourists.

Just an old country lawyer said...

I love your insatiable, wide ranging curiosity about the people with whom we share this place. Even when, as in this instance, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Dave Begley said...

What did Joe Biden do to help those people? What did Harris do? Nothing!

Christopher B said...

That 'mud' tag is an interesting assortment of posts.

Rafe said...

I very much second this sentiment in all its particulars - with an acknowledged emphasis on “not giving a damn,” but still…

Rafe said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tcrosse said...

What do we want?
Nothing!
When do we want it?
Never!

rhhardin said...

I recall the news story but nobody ever explained what it was, so I don't know. I assume it's about music but all modern popular music sucks.

Leland said...

Already one death at burning man and it has only been a day.

Dave Begley said...

I’m happy that the Dems at Burning Man can enjoy their sex and drug orgies this year.

Wince said...

Burning Man 2024: where price gouging meets recession.

mezzrow said...

We hope that the Burning Man attendees get each and every thing they deserve this year.

Iman said...

A slow start…

narciso said...

A drug and sex bacchanal

Aggie said...

So all the gritty diehards are grinning, now that the squares and wanna-be's have lost interest. But...... who is left to adore them? Is there no one left to dabble? It's tough to find True Believers in this job market, even with a 'gig' economy.

narciso said...

If they actually burned one or two they would take the hint

narciso said...

This regime is a puppet of qatar and iran

tim maguire said...

'We had no remorse for these people and reveled in their panic,' he said."

How very Burning Man of you.

rehajm said...

I mean it's great- to each his own, and I like it since those people won't be anywhere I want to be for a week. The trouble I have- these leftie/fruitcake oriented events catch on, then the money gets big. These people tend to reject funding from capitalism so inevitably through a maze of NGOs, vague language in hastily cobbled CRs and shells they end up somewhere between government subsidized 'art festivals' and fully funded government 'infrastructure' projects...

rehajm said...

The hot cosplay women get to spend a little more time away from the auto shows, so that's good for them, too...

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Progressive compassion in one succinct statement: "We had no remorse for these people and reveled in their panic," he said. Reveled in it. Evil.

n.n said...

Cecile's scalpel would indicate that puff the hallucinating druggie was aborted by the sands with progressive prices of hallucinogenic weed and other products that they could not afford.

gilbar said...

isn't the shortage of hot cosplay women, the REAL DANGER to our Country?
wouldn't REAL LEADERS be doing Every Thing they could to increase the numbers and availability of hot cosplay women?
Do we REALLY want to live in a world without enough hot cosplay women to supply demand?

Peachy said...

Trends... fads... moo.

Howard said...

... said the childless cat lady

rehajm said...

Good point. Government price controls always lead to shortages. Big problem...

Narayanan said...

why should Federal Government be involved in this at all?

Howard said...

Back in the mid 80's I was in mud locker in the geothermal industry and lived at the South West end of Owens valley, a dry lake bed. The dust storms we experienced were otherworldly of a dystopian future after the nuclear Holocaust. I could never understand why anyone would want to do that on vacation. However when I left in Santa Cruz in the '90s and the 2000s up through the late teens you would see the people getting ready for Birmingham and all your questions about motivation and attitude of burners or answered. I'm glad to see that only the hard cases are going this year it must be so fun for them.

Magson said...

I have a friend who attended last year. She said that the rain made it "a little challenging" but that it was nowhere near as bad as the news articles about it said.

Aggie said...

Dam you, Spelczech !

Ice Nine said...

I just love the peeps here telling us all about Burning Man and how terrible it is. They're like the old Bill Murray SNL skit in which he played a movie reviewer who reviewed flicks he had never seen.

I went to Burning Man, sometime in the 90s, out of curiosity. It was one of the most fun weekends I've ever had. The offbeat art and performances were great. I've certainly done my share of drugs but I didn't so much as take a whiff. There were most certainly people there who had partaken of one drug or another - mostly MJ, it seemed - but that was an incidental feature and hardly a drug orgy. As for sex orgies - I managed to miss them all - and we walked around the Playa all day. There were naked people here and there, most of them exhibiting really cool body painting. I'm sure there was some sordid stuff going on in certain tents, that you would have had to look for and be intrusive in order to witness. I will say it: It was largely wholesome - yeah, edgy - fun and nothing more.

Maybe it has radically changed (besides the hip, flashy crowd polluting it) since I was there, but I've missed the reports if it has. I got nothing for Burning Man; don't care about it in the least other than that one-off attendance of mine. It's just that people's criticism of it would be more compelling if they actually knew what they were talking about.

Howard said...

Is there a German word like schadenfreude that describes the state of a human being who experiences pain and anguish over someone else having too much fun? Perhaps I'm looking to the wrong country, maybe Italy has the right word to describe the depressive state induced by other people enjoying life.

Howard said...

How is that different from the conservative I did it all myself lifting my own bootstraps attitude towards the poor and homeless and oppressed minorities? You should pay more attention to the early work of Jordan peterson. He makes a great case how this is the normal human condition therefore anyone can become a Nazi. It's the same motivation that Spurs you on to feel superior to the burners for their vial behavior. That's okay we all do it. I'm getting quite a kick out of all of the dried up lonely cat lady comments that show the extreme jealousy of the joy and celebration that be crazy burners revel in.

Howard said...

Exactly. Marla the tourist was the person that sent the narrator into the mental breakdown that resulted in his creation of Tyler durden fight club and project mayhem

Howard said...

That's a pretty high standard there cowboy

RCOCEAN II said...

This sort of "organized Fun" always turns me off. Burning man long ago turned into commerical enterprise overrun with people. You don't need to go to Desert to have a sex orgy, listen to bad music, or take drugs. You can do that in NYC or SF.

Fritz said...

First world problem.

traditionalguy said...

Serves the Druggies right for not changing the name. What about Burning Woman?

Iman said...

“maybe Italy has the right word to describe the depressive state induced by other people enjoying life.”

howardmerdalini

Deep State Reformer said...

Moving the event from the SF Bay area to a desert wasteland in NV in order to keep it pure sure didn't work out. Instead BM morphed from a celebration into a business, and then to a racket as such things usually do. Fritz is correct about no one GAF except some affluent WP and the feature writers at State Media outlets that cater to them.

Iman said...

Burning Weenies… God bless and good luck to them.

Kakistocracy said...

My experience (20 yrs ago) was beyond fulfilling -- wonderful camps with lovely generous people. Interesting art from tiny to enormous. Have never spotted or cared about celebrities, they seem to be a minority among the people attending. I have seen a camp full of techies from CA -- looked miserable -- tents and shift pods under a giant tarp and bikes. Our camp was funky and fun, lots of light and banners, a bar and dancing. Lots of camps like ours and some were much better. You get out what you put in.

tcrosse said...

Puritanismo.

PM said...

According to the SF Chronicle, for the second year in a row, there are more women than men at Burning Man, which kind of gives the name a nice spin.

mikee said...

Woodstock veterans scoff aloud at Burning Man rain issues.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Panic is a horrible thing that often causes more damage than whatever causes the panic. So I have compassion for people who panic when their vehicle is stuck in the inhospitable and likely quite foreign to them, desert. That you identify with the "joy and celebration" of the evil Burners who "reveled in their panic" is not surprising, Howard. ("Reveled!" They took pleasure in other people's pain.) Pretty on-brand for you. But to me their wicked delight in seeing other people panic tells me they are decidedly not the love and good feelings hippies we have been led to believe make up Burning Man crowds. I know Love. I know Hippies. And I know the desert very well, where mistakes are brutally punished by Nature. Thank God I don't know panic, for He blessed me with the ability to act decisively in emergencies as if seeing events in slow motion. I hope I'd do better than the kind of lowlife that would laugh at their fellow party-goers stuck in the desert, and I sure as hell know I wouldn't praise their "joy."

Christopher B said...

ya beat me to it, tcrosse

Christopher B said...

Howard has all the self-awareness of ChatGPT

Bob Boyd said...

"We had no remorse for these people and reveled in their panic,"

Guy sounds like a real stick in the mud.

Howard said...

I'm stealing that one for use in real life, thanks

JIM said...

Just like Woodstock. Except without awesome music. The Hippie vibe is still dreary and smelly. And unprepared. Violating the first rule of the Boy Scouts creed.

Howard said...

Are we better now?

Howard said...

Touche

Howard said...

Sounds like you hit it at it's zenith

KellyM said...

Ah, I’d forgotten all about Burning Man happening this week – it certainly explains why the streets downtown SF seem quiet and empty, and traffic is light. But I’m not surprised that the event isn’t sold out; what was likely a once-a-year splurge in past years is now just a budget buster for many.

The closest I ever got to Burning Man was in 2020 when everything was shut down. Husband and I did an Oregon/Nevada road trip and decided to camp one night on the Playa. It was the middle of August, and it was hot, dusty, and very windy. The desert is ringed by beautiful mountains and is so vast that you while you can see vehicles racing by, you can’t hear them as they’re still many miles away. You can drive at 60 MPH in any direction and feel like you’re the only one there. It’s strongly suggested that at night you post a couple of lights in your camp to give others fair warning that you’re out there.

If the festival isn’t up your alley take a detour to the Fly Ranch Geyser. One of those engineering mistakes that came to a good end: https://www.blackrockdesert.org/

Jim at said...

It's just that people's criticism of it would be more compelling if they actually knew what they were talking about.

Exactly. I went a few years ago with some good friends from the Twin Cities. It's not for everybody, but I had a blast. It's just ...., well, different.

PM said...

Now this:
"Woman dies on first day of Burning Man festival"