Antero wrote:
Honestly, I long for a return of a proper Saturnalia or other major festival, where society joins together in absolute and joyous collapse for a few days.

I'm definitely ALL FOR THIS, but like a typical spoiled US citizen, I want to pick the guest list...

i say burning man is better than shooting people.

lots of kids skip the camping/festival thing and go right into shooting automatic weapons(armed services)

at living people

burning man is creative
and it involves probably good
interaction that is good for our
culture in north america

maybe?

e.e. cummings?

Hippies.

I was just talking with a friend whose girlfriend got back from Burning Man and while I can never see myself going to it(crowds, deserts, heat), it sounds fine for what it is. You get out of it whatever you put into it, and I'm fine with it. I'm reminded of the Shellac lyric "it's alright if it makes you feel better." It's not my cup of tea but at the same time if you can take something out of it, good for you.

yut wrote:that sucks how free and existential they think they are because they have dreads, tatoos, multi-colored hair, piercings, etc. and they just look like a smaller subset of cretins. There's nothing original about it, but they claim to be these existential bon-vivants who are so into non-conformity and so individual...

Most of these people lead lemming-like, unexamined lives and do whatever people in their anti-culture clique think is cool. But they will tell you how weird and non-conformist they are.

I don't mind if these folks get together and have fun, but let's stop with how original and free these "weirdos" are. They just conform to a different standard.

If you want to find free-spirited and free-thinking people, look for the modern theorists in any university. Look beyond the clothes, hair, bullshit, etc. and listen to the ideas... This is just a big party with a sheen of environmentalism and bullshit pseudo-left-wing politics.

i pretty much agree with all of this. i've never been to burning man but i know a LOT of people who have been (i live on the central california coast not far from where burning man began, so they are everywhere) and who go regularly and NONE of these people i'd want to hang out with, ever. if marsupialized likes it cuz he can get laid easily, that's one thing. but there is a definite pretense in everyone i've met who attends: the talk of their "tribes" and how they are going to prepare. for a bunch of "free" people they all feel a large need to conform to the culture of burning man.

also, every guy i've ever met and every girl i've ever met who regularly attends (and this applies to most "hippies" and "new agers") conform perfectly to typical male/female roles. perfectly.

of course, i'm using a sample of about 20 burners to extrapolate on the other 29,980 but that's ok with me.

it's a corporate event at this point. insurance, government deals.

lemur68 wrote:Burning Man Burnt Early; Thousands Of Mellows Harshed

nice mugshot.

performance artist. somehow that's fitting, and ironic. arson?

a burning man non-conformist is born.

Man, he just looks like a dick.

he looks exactly like a performance artist from san francisco.

i'm sure he's a dick. but what he did is hilarious on so many levels.