BLACK ROCK CITY, NEVADA — Night is approaching. You can see it in the purpling sky and blood-red mountains, sense it in the now cooling air, smell it in the combined cooking smell of a dozen camp dinners, a smell dominated, as usual, by bacon. (Which, trust me on this, tastes a thousand times better out here in the desert than it does back home).
But most of all you can hear the night approaching — hear it in the bullhorn sirens, the human whoops and chatter, the background thump of distant sound camps; all of these sounds rising steadily, along with the increasing likelihood of a crowded art car passing your camp with its own insistent melody. It's a drumbeat drawing you and your friends out towards the Esplanade like a techno version of the pied piper.
Time to begin another epic evening in the never-dull world of the Black Rock playa.
Because, as I argued last week, there has been so widespread a misrepresentation of what Burning Man actually is (think less hippie, more punk), misunderstandings abound. One of the most fundamental is that the important artistic part of this event takes place during the day, and that night is for nothing more than drug-fueled partying.
This is emphatically not so, not least of all the drug part. As all veteran Burners know, the art alone is overstimulating enough — especially combined with the omnipresent music — to put one in an altered state of extreme appreciation.
And that goes double at night. Night is when the playa becomes the vast flat black canvas for a thousand electric artists, and it looks like the ultimate 8-bit computer game. This place on its own is more than enough to feed your head.
Case in point: the most eye-opening art project on the playa this year, the 72-foot tall wooden masterpiece known as the Embrace, above. By day, it’s impressive enough — a heartwarming monument to coupledom visible across much of this growing city.
But by night, strategically lit from inside, it’s breathtaking — a worthy destination for all bright-eyed and largely sober playa adventurers.
So come with us now as we simulate a stroll in that direction. It's about time we tried to balance out all those daytime shots that pervade the media, which always seem to focus on the naked and the body-painted (I can’t think why).
Nighttime pictures will of necessity be more candid ones, not to mention clothed, but they will also be more representative of what Burners hold dear to their hearts about this place.
To properly experience this simulated playa adventure, please picture yourself doing the following: put together some very warm clothing, especially on your head, because cloudless playa nights get freezing cold fast. Season it with brightly-lit things -- blinkies, headlamps, EL wire -- because there’s nothing worse than being someone who causes bikes or art cars to swerve at the last minute — a “darktard,” in Burner parlance. (Indeed, in the wake of Thursday's tragic art car death on the playa, this message only becomes more vital.)
Leave your smartphone at camp -- there's no point trying to capture Instagrams or Vines now, because all you'll get is darkness. Instead, focus on the mundane. Load up with a large amount of water, preferably a Camelbak or similar, because the desert dehydrates you dangerously at night too. And remember to hit the Porta-potties near camp, because you have to pee out here about as constantly as you have to drink.
(This is one of the reasons why it barely matters that tech billionaires spend many thousands of dollars on so-called turnkey camps — rich or poor, you all have to hunt desperately for one of these uber-basic toilets about ten times per nighttime excursion.)
If you're heading out in a group and want to stick together amidst all these distractions and dire needs, you'll need some serious cat-herding skills. Or you could do what these guys did, and use a beautiful neon-lit rain cloud on a stick as the playa equivalent of a tour guide's umbrella.
Begin by walking inwards towards the Man from your camp, likely in the outer suburbs of Black Rock, where even the black light camps are empty but for the occasional cosy dinosaur suit-wearing lurker:
This might seem far from the action, but you'll soon encounter an art car heading your way, almost all of them happy to give you a ride if they have space. So what shall we choose? perhaps something clean-looking and basic like this arcade-style tank:
Or maybe something more intricate, like this impressive boom box art car -- which has just as good a sound system as you'd imagine.
And as for this monstrosity masquerading as a nightmare sheep, but really something called the Wool Bus? Oh, sure, it might look like fun dancing up there, but there's only one way to get in -- in the back, via a fabric tunnel representation of, well, let's just say it's probably your least favorite part of a sheep.
Jump off close to the front street, the Esplanade, where you start to see a wide variety of curious sights that could easily tempt away the more easily distracted members of your group. Even if you've passed this way earlier today, there's always something new being constructed. For example, why is that image of the Burning Man carrying a skateboard? Look closer and you'll discover Black Rock City now has a skate park.
Stand still anywhere for two seconds, and some wonderful synchronicity will happen. To take one tiny example, you might be passing the Roller Disco when a guy walks by with a neon sign protesting dancing.
The moment passes in a second, but what lasts longer is the certain knowledge that the guy made the sign just so that kind of random juxtaposition would give you a chuckle. This is why I like to describe Burning Man as a city of 50,000 improv artists, all furiously making props.
Let's check in at this point: are you drinking enough water? Yes? Then you probably need to run and find a bathroom. Don't worry, we'll wait. We're mesmerized by what's happening here:
Turns out it's one guy inspecting another guy's costume that appears to be a cross between an H.R. Giger alien and a Wisconsin cheese hat. But this kind of disorienting, double-take provoking vision is happening all the time. (See what I mean about not needing drugs?)
Speaking of which, look over there -- are those galaxies hanging in mid air?
and as with a lot of Burning Man art, seeing the trick to how it's done -- illuminated when jets of fire shoot out of some distant machine with a sudden hissing whoosh, which happens a lot here -- doesn't take away the fascination of the art itself.
Pretty soon you're distracted and overstimulated as all get out, and the night starts to devolve into a fascinating series of near-abstract images of, say, color-changing hexagons or the intricate design of a theme camp's roof:
Which makes this a good moment for an impromptu dance break to focus and gather your thoughts. Perhaps on this dance floor composed of color-changing circles?
Of course, the best way to orient yourself on the playa is to go pay homage to the Man. Here he is in all his 2014 glory:
Some veteran Burners are grumbling, as veteran Burners are wont to do, that the man has changed -- he's barrel-chested this year, rather than displaying more skeletal ribs. Indeed, he does look more Disney-esque than he has in years past.
But there is another welcome change at the same time -- instead of his being on a plinth, you can actually walk up and touch the iconic fellow, which you haven't been able to do at a Burning Man this century.
The Embrace is easily visible from the Man, so let's head over there. But pay attention -- that giant squid is driving a bit faster than the 5 mph playa speed limit.
There it is, finally, the destination of our peripatetic journey. Witness the Embrace, a sculpture that looks different from all angles:
Step inside and you'll find two tremendous hearts -- one all curved wrought iron, the other full of working mechanical gears that opens and closes the heart.
