This is by far the dustiest Burning Man I have
yet experienced. Somehow the dense blowing dust rolling over the
Tent City often appear especially dark this year, enough at times
to make one wonder if something is burning. In earlier years I
saw in such dust clouds a more uniform lighter appearance.
Walking back towards the Man, the lull in the winds gives way to walls of rolling dust sweeping in from the South, hiding the tent city in an approaching false horizon. Ragged dark shreds tower over the more vaguely defined bright ground hugging mass. I quickly zip my cameras into their bag and wrap my Bedouin style head cover over my face below my goggles. Several bicyclists nearby resign themselves to being caught in the storm, stopping and turning their backs to the wall of dust as they are engulfed. An avalanche of ivory colored powder covers my surroundings as winds suddenly tug at my clothes. Masses of opaque dust the size of buildings multiply and merge, obscuring the surroundings as they pass by.
The airborne powder in the direction of the Sun brightly glows as the sunlight is 'forward scattered' through it., causing every wide sheet and thin tendril of floating dust brilliantly to stand out from the textured ground itself. With the Sun at my back the onrushing layer of suspended dust appears darker and grayer than the playa surface, with the cast shadows of the dust more obvious.
For perhaps a half hour my world is limited to my immediate surroundings. I am experiencing 'white out' conditions in near gale winds. One thinks of the view from an airliner while flying between dense but broken cloud layers. The majority of the blowing dust whips by below my eye level most of the time. Dense larger wind driven masses continually shed in their wakes a slower ground hugging residue of writhing tendrils suggesting ghostly snakes. These ethereal serpents dissolve and reform as they glide effortlessly over the ground. Scraps of paper and other small debris are carried along with the dust. Aside from the dynamics of the nearby dust all I see is the brownish ground within about a 30 foot (10 meter) radius with a vaguely defined light tan fog blocking the view toward the horizon, giving an illusion of a fuzzy doughnut shape surrounding me. This tan dust pall gives way overhead to the cobalt blue sky.
Some clouds can be seen dimly to the west above and
beyond the dust storm, and some I cannot see begin to block the
light of the Sun. As my surroundings are deprived of direct sunlight
the color balance of the scene dramatically changes from the golden
tan of late afternoon into a darker icy blue as the sky becomes
the dominant lighting. For a moment one can imagine being in Antarctica
watching snow being driven along, and indeed the winds now carry
a sudden chill. Loose ends of my clothes and headgear flutter
like little flags. The sunlight returns as gradually as it had
faded, steadily returning the color of the scene to a light tan
brown accentuated by the color contrast with the previous lighting
my eyes had just had a chance to get used to. After a while I
remove the goggles, so long as I face downwind hardly any dust
reaches my face. I try to obtain some kind of video record of
all this, sheltering my digital camcorder as much as possible
while trying to capture glimpses of views indifferent directions.
This is my immediate recollection of being
in a major dust storm, and alas it is all I have left of this
storm. I attempted to capture some of the event on Digital Video
tape while I thought conditions would allow it, however sheltering
the camera as much as possible came to naught probably because
of the dust being driven into the camcorder and affecting the
tape itself. Thus one of the four tapes I exposed at Burning Man
was ruined. I did make a special effort to study the dust devils
in their variety, since they are an aspect of the playa one would
also expect to see often on the surface of Mars and I may well
be working on a visualization which would benefit from such reference
material. Much of the dust devil photography of which frames are
shown here is from later surviving tapes.
Finally the winds subsided and the majority of the walls of dust
moved on toward the North, leaving a calm nearby which seemed
a distinct condition in itself rather than a routine state. Nearby
people on bikes who had also waited out the storm stirred from
their bowed stances, unwrapped themselves and shook off the dust,
then rode on. The Man steadily emerged from the dust pall as it
too was passed by the storm. It appeared that Center Camp was
next to get overrun by the overlapping dust plumes.
I decided to check out how my camp was doing. Somewhere in the
dust storms a purple head scarf I had tied into a loop for use
as a headband had been left behind. Arriving at my tent I saw
the remnants of my mylar cover fluttering in the breeze. Disgusted,
I tore up all the lower shredded portions and threw them in a
trash bag, then I put the rain cover over the tent to preserve
the surviving upper sections of insulation and perhaps provide
some shade over the tent itself.
I had fortunately laid a sheet over my sleeping
bag and pillow which caught the constant accumulation of dust
even in the closed tent. Over the course of the day every little
depression had become filled with the talcum-like tan powder.
Carefully lifting up the sheet by the corners I shook it off outside
adding a modest puff of dust to rejoin its windy migration. I
saw powder in every depression in the tent not covered by the
sheet. When cleaning the tent interior I found a wet bar towel
the best way to wipe away dust from the floor without simply redistributing
much of it as with a broom. I used small towels to wash first
myself, then to wipe down the tent until they became too muddy,
finally to be washed out in the gray water just before it was
cast aside for evaporation.
As daylight ended a fine sunset emerged from behind the receding dust storm, with the deep red last rays of sunlight playing across the undersides of the remaining clouds. I usually tried to be at the Man already on such occasions.
After admiring the sight I again wandered
towards the Man, and saw along the way a 'demonstration' of people
enthusiastically marching in a mini parade. Arriving at the open
dome supporting the Man, I paused to look at the little stages
with submitted images inside situated in the outer pedestal. This
year the pedestal contained interactive attractions including
a heroically dust proofed telescope. Music and chanting rose up
nearby, and as night fell I found myself watching an amazing 'mini
opera' of sorts with a trio of woman singers forming a chorus
to a circle of singers and ritualistic performers encouraging
the liberation of our spirits from the shackles of self imposed
mediocrity.
I let myself drift in between attractions in the night and discovered
hidden wonderful things. An art car decorated like a jellyfish
glided by, built around a car with a wide parachute like canopy
and an inner ring of dangling tentacles, all lit blur and green
from within. As the vehicle turns the tentacles spread out from
centrifugal force, emulating underwater swimming pulsations. A
long arrow carried by a lengthily car often appeared in the distance
as if a message from fate pointed the way for passers-by.
Out in the empty darkness were
a circle of poles and a self contained sound system broadcasting
a startlingly clear and lifelike voice inside the circle. It told
of about the library of Alexandria and the murder of its last
librarian, Hypatia, by Christian rabble and about the ancient
Gods and efforts to wipe out paganism.
A sizable gathering of art cars converged on an area of stages
and crowds dancing to music in the clear zone near the 7: o'clock
entrance. A fairly large pagoda like structure was set afire about
midnight in the first of several major bonfires occurring over
the later days of the event.
I carried my tripod out into the darkness just twice since it
is such a hassle, but by doing so I could obtain good night photographs.
A technique I have used to good advantage is to obtain varying
exposures at night of the same scene in rapid succession using
a range of exposures. I was able to later combine three optimum
exposures to capture 'wide dynamic range' images showing the neon
tubes themselves as well as the surroundings being brightly lit
by these very bulbs, and even the dim regions beyond.
There was so much more I paused at to admire and occasionally
photograph than I can take the time to write about, and much more
I heard of but did not see. To my dismay on my way back to camp
I had somehow lost the top to my canteen, thereafter losing water
faster than I could afford to. I had to retire the canteen and
reuse a plastic liter bottle of water for the rest of the event.
The winds were icy cold late at night, and while preparing to
rest I noticed my fingers felt like they were dirty no matter
how clean they were. Inspection by flashlight revealed playa dust
filling every pore and fingerprint groove. Again it was a near
freezing night in which one took measures to contain your body
heat.
Friday is the last full day the community will be intact, the day to take stock of what one would really like to see. Top on my list was the last of the series of temples conceived by David Best. I knew feverish work continued through the week, often under awful conditions. As I walked to the temple the central spire. one of the most visible of the distant landmarks, was seen to be part of a lower elaborate elevated walkway. the closer I got the more astonishing the project, the Temple Of Stars, revealed itself to be.
This temple was not only quite tall,
it extended itself on either side of the main axis of the 'spine'
of Black Rock City in narrow elevated walkways extending about
1300 ft to either side. I walked out to one of the far ends of
the wooden path and started walking the quarter mile length of
the walkway. There were many arches built into the path which,
along with the handholds on either side, gave the impression of
walking in a corridor.
Many people going both directions would be encountered the entire
journey, with the traffic along this very long access route flowing
to and from the elevated central complex. 'C' shaped footbridges
steep at their edges like those in a Japanese Tea Garden were
situated on either side of the center, also allowing people to
pass by under them. Larger towers allowing a modest number of
people to congregate were placed near the center, then a final
walk across an elaborate bridge brought one to the huge hollow
central spire. Standing on the second story walkway one could
look down into the interior where people were quietly picking
their way through and leaving tributes to departed loved ones.
Above was a dizzying tunnel like sight of complexly perforated
wooden panels built into a tapering spire. it gave the illusion
of perspective in a much larger scale than the already impressive
size of this magnificent structure. From this platform it was
seen that the long walkways gradually curved, apparently following
the city wide concentric pattern around the Man.
After climbing down and walking to the other extreme
end of the walkway I doubled back and admired the interior of
the Temple Of Stars from the ground level. This was as always
a place of Solomon pilgrimage, people leaving photos, books, momentoes,
and written tributes on the walls as intended. There were sorrowful
and hopeful words about loved ones and dozens of shrines established
in reachable places. Inside it was cramped compared with previous
years, but the experience of being on the second level more than
made up the difference. As in previous years masses of scrap pieces
were bundled into bizarre shapes like stylized trees and spiny
magnified sea bottom life forms.
Heading out from the Temple, already a great distance out, it was only a modest further walk to reach the orange plastic 'Perimeter Fence' some 6500 feet from the Man. This forms a giant pentagon enclosing an area of 100 million square feet, and forms the virtual 'edge of the world' as far as event participants are concerned. Beyond this fence patrols were conducted day and night to prevent people from sneaking in. Standing at the fence it was intriguing to see the horizon partially defined by the extremely flat Playa surface starting to hide the bases of the furthest mountains, a visual demonstration of the curvature of the Earth. I wondered what it would be like to visit the Playa when nothing else was taking place there, all alone in the flatness.