(I'm re-posting this from my friend Helen Harvesters blog on myspace. She's rad.)

--I Hate Burning Man --
(or "we don't need vacations to remind us to be artists" -and- "a smug bunch of exclusionary fuckwads")

Helen:
Monday, August 20, 2007

I Hate Burning Man


Apparently I don't know how to put a fucking picture on my blog. How humiliating. Here's a link:

Okay, so these people are dirty, and strangers, and her hair is henna-ed. That's not what pisses me off.

I "get" the "idea" of Burning Man. All my friends are going in a few a days, so I've been doing some image searches and research and all that. Apart from the naked people, I also I saw lots of beautiful photos of lovely statues and enormous wood edifices. I saw happy people doing whatever the hell they pleased, owning themselves and their ideas and living as fully as they wanted and acting on their impulses. For the most part, I liked what I saw. I just don't understand why it has to take place on Mars.

Why do you have to shut out the rest of the world to have a "collective artistic experience"? What's so "collective" about a few thousand strangers running into the desert for a week and cutting themselves off from everyone they love who happens not to come? Forget the people you love. What about the ARTISTS on the outside? What selfish insularity. I think you need to invite the world IN to have a "collective artistic experience".

Conclusion? I'd rather go to the Olympics than stupid old Burning Man any day. Even if they ARE in China. As a consumer on planet Earth, I'd know I was welcome.


Whiskey Tango Foxtrot:

A) I'm not going to Burning Man.

B) You'd only get foot rot if you went.

C) We work hard as artists in our life; we don't need vacations to remind us to be artists. We live the life most of these people want. It's harder than they think.

D) I *totally* want to go to Beijing in 2008. My ShiFu is competing!

Posted by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on Monday, August 20, 2007 at 11:31 AM


Helen:

1) Yes! You are my friend! And you are not going! Hurrahspendeverydaywithme.

2) I don't want to. Go or get foot rot.

3) You got it with C). "Let's go into the desert and roll around in the mud and fuck and dress like lampshades and be uniformly unique. It's so easy to be artistic. It's so fuuuuuunnnnnn." (one week later) "God, I feel alive. That should last me for a year. Time to go back to Microsoft."

Of course, it means more coming from you than from a sell-out like me, but I really needed health insurance.

Posted by H.T.L.H. on Monday, August 20, 2007 at 8:03 PM


juniper:

I always liked you, Helen Harvester. You and your Burning Man hating ways are a-o.k. with me.
I have a lengthy rant in me, but we'll see if I can change it up for something a bit more coherent and brief.

The Seattle Burners I know are a smug bunch of exclusionary fuckwads. There, I've said it. (Though now I'm remembering that Chris goes to BM, and I like him, so we'll give him a pass.) Their art is so pure, don't you know, they're all "pansexual" and poly-amorous and not interested in the commercial capitalist trappings of life outside their desert oasis of sex juice and mushrooms.

And I found out there's something there called a Beaver Eating contest. I'm throwing up a little in my mouth just thinking about it.

They make me want to purchase a big fat print of a Thomas Kincaid painting at Wal*Mart and hang it over my Pottery Barn Sofa while drinking a venti Frappuccino and listening to Celine Dion in my Juicy Couture terry cloth track suit.


Posted by juniper on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 4:08 PM