"The trolls have a particular following in the United States, where Dambo has scattered them across 22 states, with plans to build them in the remaining 28."

"He was drawn to America’s 'big, wild spaces,' he said, adding, 'We don’t have anywhere you can get lost like that in Denmark.' In Breckenridge, Colo., one of the trolls drew such large crowds that it was relocated to a more out-of-the-way location. A troll that he created for the 2025 Burning Man festival now has a permanent home at Filoli, a historic property about 30 miles from San Francisco. And this week, one of Dambo’s trolls burned down in a park in Austin, Texas, the city’s Fire Department said...."

I'm reading "He’s Trolling Your Trash, and Turning It Into Art/Thomas Dambo built a global following by turning Denmark’s scrap into giant, hidden forest creatures. Now, the art world is finally letting him inside" (NYT)(gift link, for the photographs and because I focused on the part of the text that's about the arson in Austin but there are other angles on Dambo).

Speaking of Burning Man — Dambo built a troll that was at a Burning Man festival — I've been wondering if the burning of the Austin troll was influenced by the tradition of burning a large wooden sculptural figure — not Dambo's troll —  at Burning Man.

I bounced this theory off Grok, which noted that the burning at Burning Man is done according to a plan, presented as art, and drawing a crowd that experiences the fire as a ritual or celebration. The Austin troll burning happened without a ceremony or crowd or air of artiness. As far as we know. Unless it was some very elite and nihilist group of art lovers.

Grok, write a short short story in which the burning of the Austin troll WAS done by a small group of elite nihilists who absolutely believed in what they were doing as art.

Excerpt from the story: "The troll was too sincere. Eighteen feet of reclaimed wood and optimism, grinning like a simpleton at the joggers and children and civic-minded Austinites who posted heart emojis under her photos. Thomas Dambo had built her to remind people of recycling and wonder and other gentle lies. The Consortium found this unbearable. 'Sentiment is violence,' Elena whispered as they poured the accelerant...."

"Am I the only one in the city being lectured on dates about Burning Man?..."

"... I hadn’t even finished chewing my first mouthful of pasta before his 37-minute tale began. (Yes, I timed it.) He fiddled excitedly with a loose dreadlock as I once again fell victim to an eternity of spiritual mansplaining. The formula was all too familiar. A compulsory mention of the 10 'core principles' of Burning Man, which, in more obnoxious settings, have also been referred to as 'the truths.' 'Inclusion is the core of our culture' he said. 'It’s written in the charter.'... [A]ttending Burning Man often costs a minimum of $5,000. And what kind of person my age, early career, has nine days to spend frolicking in a desert?..."

Writes Cate Twining-Ward, in "Men, Please Stop Talking About Burning Man/Am I the only woman meeting Burning Mansplainers on dates?" (NYT)(free-access link).

"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).

"People I dated seriously, subsequently, were people of substance. Distinguished in their professions."

Said Harvard lawprof Noah Feldman, quoted in "She Pioneered Internet Fame, He Helped Draft a Constitution. Now They’re in Love. Who would have guessed that the former New York media obsession Julia Allison and the law scholar Noah Feldman would make a great couple?" (NYT).

That quote is poetry!

Another Feldman quote: "I was not at an optimistic point in my romantic life. Will anyone ever meet any human ever again?" That quote, too, is poetry, but it loses its punch in context. He was talking about the covid lockdown.

About Allison:

"Because for the Burning Man episode we spent so much money, so much time out there. And we can’t use any frame of it."

"And that was just, like, so annoying. But I felt like we still needed to include it, because it ultimately made the episodes stronger that we couldn’t get access to Burning Man because the whole episode is kind of about gatekeeping.... I didn’t know how abnormal it was to have such a devastating dust storm and the heat and all that stuff. Like, I could barely do anything during the day because of how fucked up it was outside.... [F]or the most part, I was shadowing the sewage-treatment people. So I was just in these porta potties that were 115 degrees, studying the infrastructure of Burning Man, in a way—like, the lost and found and all this other stuff...."

From "John Wilson walks us through the series finale of How To With John Wilson/The filmmaker discusses why he identifies more with 'the self-castration guy' than Ryan Seacrest, how his HBO show will finally pay off in 100 years, and more" (AV Club).

"How To With John Wilson" was my favorite TV show, and now it's over, after 3 seasons. Earlier this season, there was an episode — "How to Find a Public Restroom" — where he traveled to Burning Man but then he couldn't use any of the footage he shot. It was the devastating dust storm year. This year, of course, we're seeing it's the devastating rainstorm year. 

At Twitter, low-level wit flows like rain...

98% of the crowd literally makes the same joke...

 

More like you always hated Burning Man anyway.

“That spirit" — a "gift" culture — "if spread in the world and widely adopted, would condition how people, as consumers in the marketplace, behave."

"Whereas if all of your self worth and esteem is invested in how much you consume, how many likes you get, or other quantifiable measures, the desire to simply possess things trumps our ability or capability to make moral connections with people around us. There should be room in the world for both systems to flourish. If they did, they would inform one another."

Said Larry Harvey, quoted in the 2014 Atlantic article, "The Wonderful, Weird Economy of Burning Man/Burners spend thousands preparing for the money-free event. But just as the desert community cannot fully escape capitalism, neither can capitalism remain untouched by the 'gift economy.'"

I clicked through to that article from "Larry Harvey, the Man Behind Burning Man, Is Dead at 70" (NYT).

"Emergency personnel gather in a huddle after giving up their pursuit of a participant who ran into the flames at the Man burn."

Burning Man (Daily Mail).

Approximately 70,000 people from all over the world have gathered for the annual Burning Man festival, which is taking place in the Black Rock Desert. But crowds were horrified when one reveller made a beeline for the giant wooden effigy and was engulfed by the flames....

It's not surprising, really. Isn't the whole thing designed to produce a mental break from reality and weird ideation around spectacular fire?

I was going to make fun of the man who "Lives Every Day Like He’s at Burning Man."

But then I saw that the first thing he took issue with was an official Althouse bugaboo, straws!

[L]ast week, I found myself sitting around a table at Roberta’s Pizza with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, getting an in-depth lesson on the blight of plastic straws.

“We consume 500 million straws each day. The equivalent of 127 school buses filled with straws. It’s disgusting, ” Adrian Grenier declares the minute I sit down, brandishing a plastic straw that the waiter had forgotten to remove. “There should be children in those school buses, going to school, to learn, not straws,” he adds, wryly.

Grenier orders me a mezcal soda, his drink of choice. “No straw, no fruit,” he tells the waiter... Grenier is very passionate — about straws, pollution, whales, the ocean, conservation, his vinyl collection... and he talks with the unfiltered confidence of a man who is used to people listening to what he has to say. He is a fan of hugs, and back-touching, and scooping food onto your plate even if you indicate that you’re full....

Here's my anti-straw post from a couple weeks ago. My problem was not environmental, it was that you look foolish if you are a man. My problem is avoided by being a woman. Grenier's problem is avoided by using paper straws. I agree that paper straws are much better — aesthetically and environmentally. So if you are a woman, click on that link and you can get some nice old-time paper straws.

"There’s also a twelve-step aspect to improv’s appeal..."

"... the notion that, at the end of all the regimentation and rule-following, you may be not only a funnier performer but also a better person. U.C.B. alumni I spoke with likened the effects of classes to immersion therapy, meditation, and 'creative cross-training.' Others credited improv with helping them to overcome shyness and writer’s block, learn how to listen, and hone their skills in hitting on women."

From "HOW THE UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE IMPROVISED A COMEDY EMPIRE," by Emma Allen in The New Yorker — which I also just cited at the end of the previous post, the one about the dipshit revolution at Burning Man.

But isn't the whole thing a vacation from sense? If you create another world, then what sense flows from that?

"Mob justice at Burning Man: Luxury camp that lets guests pay to skip the complex logistics of attending desert festival is vandalized by a 'band of hooligans' who cut power lines and glued doors shut."

'What happened last night should be known on social media,' [White Ocean Camp] wrote in a post on its Facebook page.  'A very unfortunate and saddening event happened last night at White Ocean, something we thought would never be possible in OUR Burning Man utopia. A band of hooligans raided our camp, stole from us, pulled and sliced all of our electrical lines leaving us with no refrigeration and wasting our food and, glued our trailer doors shut, vandalized most of our camping infrastructure, dumped 200 gallons of potable water flooding our camp.... We have felt like we've been sabotaged from every angle, but last night's chain of events, while we were all out enjoying our beautiful home, was an absolute and definitive confirmation that some feel we are not deserving of Burning Man... We actually had someone from the organization tell us that in paraphrase "it makes sense that you have been sabotaged as you are a closed camp and not welcoming."'

Well, of course, it makes sense. 

But isn't the whole thing a vacation from sense? Nonsense gives rise to new sense. If you create another world, then what sense flows from that?

"If this unusual thing is true, what else is true?"/Si Haec Insolita Res Vera Est, Quid Exinde Verum Est?" That's the motto of the improv organization Upright Citizens Brigade, which I happened to be reading about (in The New Yorker) when I encountered this dipshit revolution at Burning Man.

Burned by Burning Man.

Re-burned by the court.