BURNING MAN 2002 FOUR OF SIX
4. The drama above, the city below
Friday was hotter, with storms
rising from the North. Dust devils in that direction writhed brightly
against a dark gray cloud shrouded background, which as one looked
up divided itself into the bottoms of dense nearly joined rolling
clouds. Great surges of cumulous clouds, sometimes only glimpsed
between the shredded gray clouds at the edge of the great cloud
front, rolled mightily against the dark blue desert sky. Above
and beyond rose the widwspread mass of fused rolling clouds at
the storm center, driven into an upper 'anvil' topping which steadily
arched across the sky. The arrival of the storm seemed especially
punctuated by the spreading anvil edge starting to block the sun.
A cool wind began to pick up, and I decided to walk out to the
empty central region to get a better view of what was coming.
Out there the sense of drama was heightened by long lines of sight.
From the North, opposite to the direction I have seen past storms
come from, the sky was very dark with foreground dust devils lazily
escorting larger rolling compact dust clouds between them. The
larger dust storms left moving ground hugging residues behind.
There was only modest dust being picked up near me, and I finally
emerged past the Esplanade to get a good look at the far surroundings.
Spread out along the horizon was
what I was dreading but still watching for, a large dust front
emerging from the darkness. It was at first barely detectable,
a wide ragged region of the sky near the horizon of a slightly
lighter color, then the lobes of the vast dust front steadily
surged forward, giving the appearance of a wide ghostly storm
squall.
This dust storm was unbelievably huge, and still very distant.
This was different than the indistinct ground hugging clouds I
had seen in earlier years, this looked like an entire bearing
down on us. I began hurrying back to camp, calling on people nearby
to take cover. Lightning strikes began to appear above the distant
dust storm, and the cool breezes became gusts which were beginning
to sweep along powdery dust.
A few sirens began being whining
and more people seemed to be in a hurry. Just before I shot a
last series of images and abandoned the view, I stopped and marveled
at the huge dust storm bearing down on us. It covered a quarter
of the horizon, with distinct surging lobes which reminded me
of a vast tan colored avalanche bearing down on us. It appeared
truly ominous and I really should be protecting my tent in such
an emergency, so I soon was back at camp adding tape here and
there to reinforce the mylar covering of my tent.
Satisfied, I stood around trying
to guess when the storm would actually reach us. To my left, the
West, the dust rolled in with a huge overhang, like a giant softly
defined unrolling carpet. To my right, the East, the edge of the
dust mass formed a rounded slope to the ground as with an advancing
glacier or a tropical rain squall, with the slope not quite becoming
vertical. I was astonished to see this northern edge of the dust
storm pass BEHIND the mountains, obviously towering thousands
of feet above them! Slowly this dusty front passed behind the
mountains, then they too were steadily engulfed in the approaching
tan gray mass.
On the other side of the sky the
thinner outer portions of the dust front blindingly caught the
sunlight still shining through thin clouds, then the denser main
mass rolled upon us. Lightning periodically appeared as jagged
vertical sparks, and thunder rolled across the valley. A light
tapping began on the plastic surfaces, rainfall at last reaching
us. I was exhilarated, not having experienced rain for months
back at Palm Springs. I yelled at the storm, and thunder again
rolled over the tent city. To my East I saw a region of severe
dust storms streaming across the ground like a stampede of ghostly
buffalo. This active dust region seemed to scour a path across
the middle of Black Rock City, but the damage was limited by the
general dispersal of the storm by this time to dispersed pockets
of activity which left most of the tent city untouched. The rain
ceased before the drops covered much more than 50 percent of the
ground, not quite enough to make the ground muddy but just enough
to gather into a few puddles on plastic surfaces. 
The
biggest effect of the sprinkling was to keep down the dust. 
The tremendous mass of the dust
storm passed us by and allowed a view of the higher cloud ceiling
which by now was beginning to glow with light from the West. I
paused to admire the golden light beginning to gather, and I paused
to take a few pictures although I was in a hurry to get to the
Man. At one point a swath of falling rain picked up the yellow
orange light of the hidden Sun. The many Western facing portions
of the overall cloud ceiling were catching indirectly the light
they would soon be bathed with. The sunset photo images on my
little LCD screen on my digital camera then revealed the camera
was accidentally set to Black and White mode, apparently for all
the images I had taken that day. Fortunately I had made it a point
to bring my film camera. Whenever a memorable sight presented
itself I made it a point to use both my digital camera and a 35mm
film camera with Kodachrome 64 slides, an exquisite but endangered
species of film.
Although I initially cursed myself for my mistake,
it turned out those images looked good as black and white, and
I later got good results from manipulating the contrast as well
as applying sepia tone and hand tinting as one using black and
white film might do. Making the switch to color on the digital
camera, I was soon to be glad I discovered that error when I did.
The sky was covered with ragged churning clouds seemingly being
torn about and recombined by turbulent slow motion currents, with
a gathering red glow washing over the undersides of those nearest
the western cloud clearing. People in the distance began whooping
it up and drumming in a communal expression of appreciation of
the sight.
Reaching the Man, I was treated
to the most beautiful sunset of the event and among the best I
have seen on the Playa. A golden pink glow filled the space between
the furthest clouds and the mountainous horizon, and vivid rosy
light played across the bottoms of closer clouds. The dramatic
darker masses overhead looked like they might have been painted
by an artist barely able to restrain ones self while trying to
convey vast chaotic world changing forces. Slowly the red light
faded, and the blue neon colossus stood tall against the more
subdued but still spectacular desert skies, slowly dominating
the view as the light faded. Drumming was audible from many distant
locations and garishly lit vehicles of all shapes and sizes moved
in the distance. Again the sonar 'ping' echoed eerily, and techno
music from all sides asserted itself as the definitive pulse of
the event. 
The great pirate ship was finally
completed, with sails designed with wide holes to guard against
loss of control in a strong wind. The ship was mobile, heading
slowly across the night. A couple other smaller ships were major
works in themselves, and the one I saw earlier with the singers
was being pulled down the streets by many people pulling on the
same rope once used to raise the Man effigies. Live music from
instruments familiar and strange was played from the deck.
Among the greatest mobile art objects
of all time appeared this year in the form of a great white whale.
This was built around a structure erected over a vehicle, supporting
a large segmented framework on which was stretched a sheet fabric
skin. The structure reminded me of a Zeppelin, the whale being
perhaps a little over a hundred feet long. The tail was articulated,
someone inside pulling handles which made the horizontally aligned
tail flap up and down. A series of interior lights made the whale
uniformly bright against the darkness.
Another more solidly built art vehicle took the form
of a giant shark, with outlines in neon. Its size was very impressive
and the modeling was very well done. There were several other
very large art conveyances built to carry many people, continuing
a trend highlighted by the appearance of the giant 'Draco' vehicle
a few years ago. This now traditional 'dragon train' was present
this year as well.
The rattle of a
machine gun came and went in the distance, at last getting close
enough to get a good look at it. A man sat behind a mockup machine
gun, which spouted flames in bursts of backfire audible perhaps
a half mile away.
One sizable camp featured some accomplished fire dancing
as well as several large mobile fire cauldrons, whose metal sides
glowed bright red. In one a chimney like small tower was bent
so the top flames escaped to the side. There must have been copper
or other chemical enrichment of the fuel inside because the flames
complexly rolling from the glowing throat were a vivid green with
blue highlights. It was incredibly beautiful, emerald fire pouring
out in a sight something like looking into a rapidly dissolving
land reforming luminous cave.
This was the greatest night of continuous 'routine'
activity, and the last in which all the landmarks would stand
intact. People wandered through it all, and fireworks sputtered
skywards from a dozen places. Dancing, loving, wandering, and
stationary people participated and bathed in it. Flashing strobes
and steady pools of color reached into the dusty night sky and
the great green laser wrote flickering ghostly pure green patterns
above it all. While wandering about one young man came up to me
and gave me a bright 'glow stick' with a string to wear around
my neck, saying it would make me safer. I gratefully accepted
and the green glow tinted my surroundings the rest of the night.
One saga I read about later which
deserves passing mention is the 'Great dubloon Fiasco'. Apparently
one had to visit several villages and undergo some ritual or other
and obtain a string of colored beads at each. When all five different
colored beads were obtained they could be exchanged for a gold
colored 'dubloon' which would allow access to the top story. This
not only involved a lot of traveling for those wanting the slightly
higher view than was freely available, it forced some camps to
devote people and effort to address continuous inquiries. It also
provided an avenur of interaction and participation to many, so
far so good.
Across the Playa some people were giving away the
gold 'dubloon' coins like candy to passers by. Aside from such
random acquisitions most of those who actually went on the quest
to get the five bead strands were kids or first timers. Apparently
word got out that caches of these 'dubloons' were stored in the
Mans pedestal since twice early in the mornings people broke in
and stole hundreds of them, in some cases scattering them around
art pieces and even across the empty Playa. Others kept their
'dubloons' because they liked the design or otherwise considered
it a 'collectable', keeping more out of circulation.
On Friday one group of people had obtained each bead
string at each designated camp while undergoing adventures at
each leg of the journey, arriving at a designated site, 'the Playa
Serpent', to trade for the coin. Upon their arrival they found
a crowd asking them if they had the 'dubloons'! A delivery the
previous day had never been made and repeated visits by people
who had obtained all the bead strings resulted in many returning
later, getting frustration rather than reward for their efforts.
Someone official then arrived on a bicycle with a few 'dubloons'
and handed them out to a lucky few nearby.
After waiting a while longer another messenger arrived from the
Man announcing there were no more 'dubloons' to trade! This precipitated
a minor rebellion of people yelling 'Aaargh!", making a partly
joyous ruckus, then biking and marching to trade their trinkets
directly for passage into the Mans pedestal. They stormed to the
entrance and pounded on the door with a mixture of impatience
and hilarity. A ranger inside radioed for help and people appeared,
judged the crowds mood as not destructive, and proceeded to form
them into a line for orderly admittance. During all this someone
arrived with more 'dubloons' and some left the impromptu line
to undergo the standard trade of bead strings for the coins!
TO PAGE FIVE