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Black Rock City, Nevada, the site of Burning Man, can be seen right after you leave the town of Gerlach.

It's only 4 miles away.

It reaches clear across the ancient lake bed. The size is overwhelming. 20,000 people creating a city that lasts a week and is then completely obliterated, only to be created once again the following year.

It’s a festival of birth, death and renewal. A celebration of this kind on this scale has not been created for hundreds of years. The fact that Burning Man has survived for 12 years is astonishing. The most exhilarating aspect is its freedom from corporate sponsorship.

People are doing what they're doing for their own pleasure. They are not conducting careers.

When I got to Gerlach I could see the dust storm on the Playa [the desert where the festival is held which is Spanish for “beach”]. It was a thick cloud that seemed to be about 20 feet high and it reached across the lake bed which was several miles wide.

I went through the Black Rock City “Welcoming Gate” and drove to a site where I attempted to pitch my tent, but the wind was intense. I was being sandblasted with very large grains of gravel-like sand!

I was not able to set up my tent. Someone came over to me and suggested that since it was reported that a storm was coming in I should get my car off the Playa, because it would be stuck in the mud, and I would have no shelter.

I went back to Gerlach and booked a night at Bruno's Motel. It had central air conditioning and plenty of hot water in the shower. I met several people who had been to the Playa and had the same experience I had.

The next morning I went back for another attempt at pitching my tent.

This time a succeeded, but not long after my successful attempt I was informed by a Black Rock City zoning official that I was in a space reserved for theme camps. I told her that I couldn't move by myself, because I had a hip replacement that didn't work too well and I didn't have the energy to pitch my tent a second time. She volunteered to get me some help. Two young people appeared shortly. We pulled up stakes and in a few minutes I was settled in a new place.

Everywhere you look you see people dressed and undressed weirdly. Funny skin painting. Goofy clothing.

Everyone is coexisting.

There is no pretension.

Burning Man has a long history that began with the founding of DADA in 1916 by a group of artists in Zurich, Switzerland. It was in the middle of World War 1. They felt that Humanity had gone insane.

Artists have been saying for over a hundred years that Everything is Art! Everyone is an Artist! There is no Not Art!

One of the most noticeable things about the environment at Black Rock City is the electricity. It is a WIRED CITY. There are generators all over the place. There are several radio stations.

People are getting smarter. Information is being exchanged at an astonishing rate. Everyone talks about secrecy but no one talks about hypocrisy. They are inseparable. We don't need either one. The people attending Burning Man are highly critical of the present state of this society and they are expressing their dissatisfaction in a very radical way. They are going out and showing the consumer society that they don't need the consumer society.

The present social order has two biproducts, fear and pollution. It's not necessary to have either one. The distribution of wealth in the world today is pathologically stupid.

Buckminster Fuller observed that people were suffering from a “crisis of ignorance.” The technology is available to take care of the world's problems, but there is an army of people desperately working to maintain the status quo whether it works or not.

The establishment is a big dumb thing that's been dead for at least 40 years, but it doesn't want to quit. The tobacco industry is a good example of the tenacity of all these obsolete industries.

The assumption that some stuff out there is going to make you happy is completely erroneous, but that is what the consumer society is based on.

If you have enough stuff you're going to be happy!

It doesn't work.

There are millions of people in this society who have all kinds of stuff and they are miserable. Their only satisfaction is knowing that there are people who are more miserable than they are. They don't have enought to eat. Ha! Ha! Ha!

People who are adept at playing the money will always have enough money.

People who don't know that there is a money game will never have enough food.

This gives the “haves” a special little satisfaction.

Happiness is an inside job. There are $10.00 watches and $10,000.00 watches. Peoples wear $10,000.00 watches to feel good and it doesn't work!

The Burning Man Festival is a working model for the future of humankind. People helping people.

It is possible for everyone to be a success. Everyone has some gift. No one is bereft of all positive qualities.

A healthy society would take the time and energy to help people find fulfillment.

In today's world there an eagerness to see people fail.

Turning prisons into schools is an idea that will be eventually adopted after enough mass murders in high schools take place.

In the late 60's the only change that government innovated was the SWAT team. The message was, If you rock the boat-you will be killed.

Creativity as defined by mainstream society is cleverness, expedience.

Radical self expression simply requires coexistence.

Keeping focus on your own life instead of trying to control and direct other peoples' lives.

A consumer society is dependent upon ignorant people.

We have no mass transportation in this country in order to keep people divided. The level of fear in this country is pathological.

If people could travel from city center to city center at 150 miles an hour for a relatively small sum of money compared to flying or driving which is dirty dangerous and inefficient we would have a country that is coherent,and robust.

This country is also suffering from an absence of cities. New York City is contiguous to the United States. It's an international city. It's not an American City.

Black Rock City may be the future of America. Creativity, coexistence, technology. Burning Man is our template.

Copyright © 1999 R.D. Brown

Robert Delford Brown was born in Portland, Colorado in 1930. In 1952 he received his B.A. from U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, CA. In 1953~54 he studied drawing with Howard Warshaw, in Los Angeles, CA. In 1958 he received his M.A. from U.C.L.A., Los Angeles,CA. In 1959 he moved to New York City. In 1963 he married Harriett (Rhett) Elsa Gurney. He has two step daughters, Peggy and Carol. In 1964 he founded The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc.

In 1967 he began work on The Great Building Crack.Up, a trompe l'oeil architectural improvisation, which was also the International Headquarters of the First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc. In 1997 he moved to Houston, Texas and began work on The Great CyberBuilding Crack-Up on Appaloosa Acres, a Virtual Reality Architectural Improvisation. In 1999 he returned to New York City and have is continuing work on The Great CyberBuilding Crack on Appaloosa Acres, a Virtual Reality Archictectural Improvisation.