With our guests:
Lauren Fox, Copyeditor
and Lotus Psychologist, fourth year at Burning Man, camped with the B-Sides at
8:30 and Saturn.
Helen13, Los Angeles
community reporter, second year at Burning Man, camped at 7:15 and Jupiter
Thomas Kelley, music
writer, first year at Burning Man, camped at Tortoise Camp at 3:00 and Mercury
Tom Beck, photographer
and writer, first year, camped at 5:00 and Uranus.
Casey Rosenbach,
Colorado community reporter, first year, camped at Xara at 7:36 and Mercury.
Ariel Meadow
Stallings, Editor, first year, camped at Camp Suckee Fuckee at 5:30 and Mars.
What supplies did you
get the best use out of?
Lauren: Baby
wipes, lip balm, sunscreen, big straw shade hat, and Liquid Latex body
paint.
And my bike, bikes were
definitely necessary this year.
Tom B.: My zero
degree sleeping bag, and warm clothes
Helen: Smiley Face
scarf, bike, pineapple chunks soaked in rum.
Casey: My large
fanny pack, business cards, canned air (for mixer and equipment), and
glowsticks for barter.
What supplies you
wish you'd brought?
Lauren: Um, I
pretty much brought everything I thought I'd need or want; after four years,
I've got it down to a science.
However,
my duffel bag probably weighed 150 lbs.
Casey: I wish I’d
brought more water, a lantern, a warmer coat, and gloves.
Ariel: I needed
more costumes because the best way to watch art is to be art!
Tom B.: I wish I’d
had a gigantic dome tent with a 40,000 watt speaker system and a bunch of
samplers, keyboards and turntables with a sprinkling of intellibeams to
contribute to Boom Town.
Helen: More
whiskey.
What was the most
confusing thing about Burning Man?
Lauren: Finding
your way home after being out on the playa.
Especially on Sunday as your landmarks started disappearing.
Tom B.: Why it has
to stop.
What was your
favorite Art Installation or Camp?
Lauren: The Human
Carwash...as soon as I hit the playa I peeled off my clothes and ran to
it.
The experience of entering its
multi-textured panels and slowing down to playa-speed within its walls, to
fully enjoy every sensual experience within (plastic grapes, paintbrushes,
mylar strips, tiny beaded metal chains, etc.), and to share the experience with
my 'neighbors' in line really did wash off the inhibitions and hurriedness of
"society" and helped me open my senses to everything on the playa.
Tom B.: Definitely
the feely experience tunnel thing.
Casey: The touchy
feely hallways were the best, along with Behop and Xara
Tom B. B: Yeah
Xara was a great pad for dancing or chilling, it was great to sit on something
besides sand [Xara featured carpets of real live grass!].
Thomas K.: At
night, the intelligent red lights perimeter around the burning man, circling,
slinging and shooting round like race-cars from the future.
The glow-fish hanging over people's bikes,
made out of glow-strings--looked like fish swimming in a dark ocean at
night.
Ariel:
The schools of neon fish swimming across the
desert at night were my favorite!
Did
you see that those same people had a huge blue neon kangaroo on the back of a
bike?
As it hopped across the playa it
made this great bouncing noise…and there was even a little baby kangaroo
hopping behind it!
Thomas K.: I also
loved the tunnel of lights.
And how can
I not mention Dr. Megavolt's Tesla coil madness?
Who was the strangest
or most interesting person you saw?
Lauren: I didn't
see anybody strange.
What are you
talking about?
Everyone I saw there was
absolutely normal!
Casey: I saw naked
woman hanging from multiple hooks in her back and legs next to my camp.
Helen: I saw a guy
wearing 3 hubcaps attached by ball chain.
Nothing else.
Tom B.: It’s hard
to say who the strangest was.
Was it the
super jock with the bud can who never looked so out of place in his life?
Or maybe it was the naughty ape.
I can't decide.
Ariel:
No-No the Naughty Naked Ape was hilarious.
Thomas K.: There
were too many beautiful, weird people to single out one.
Perhaps the guy riding on a scooter with a
helmet mask made out of some animal skull.
Or how about the old woman ranting "Burn the man!
Burn it!
Burn it!
Just burn the hell out
of it!
Burn!
Burn!
Burn!" the day before the burn.
What was the most
interesting thing you overheard?
Helen: “Free,
yummy, free.
Crackers, yummy, free.
Crackers, yummy, good.”
(They were good crackers.)
Casey:
"So...you guys been going all night?" asked by a SPECTATOR on Sunday morning
Tom B.: My
favorite was "Everyone under 39 should be kicked out, this is our event,”
spoken by a lady in her 40s who didn't seem to be having a very good time.
Ariel: Probably
‘cause you were bothering her, you twenty-something!
What was the
strangest thing you were inspired to do?
Tom B.: You will
see next year.
Casey: Angrily
throw sod and pieces of my camp into the fire on Sunday night.
Ariel:
Experiencing public pubic art first hand.
Having your body hair shaved by an artist in front of dozens of people
is definitely not something you get to do daily.
Thomas K.: I said
out loud, "This is just so fucking amazing" at least twenty times a
day.
Lauren: Strangest
thing I did?
Go home, I guess.
Most wonderful?
Get naked with no inhibitions or concerns in
front of people I've known for years, and with hundreds of others, for Spencer
Tunick's photograph on Saturday morning.
The best part was the instant unity created by group nakedness...we all
shouted "Spectators Suck!" for about 5 minutes at the amateur
photographers and looky-loos who meekly stood behind the orange plastic
barrier.
Since everyone was
drinking so much water and having to relieve themselves so frequently, we have
to ask…Where was the best place you peed?
Helen: At the out
houses in the middle of the playa by the Man, while Tsuyoshi Suzuki was trying
to figure out if they were an art installation or not.
Casey: For me, the
best place was spinning circles while walking down Venus
Thomas K.: The
best place was right on the playa
Ariel: Playa
puddles were in full effect.
I almost
got run over by a bicyclist while I was peeing in the back of the crowd waiting
for the burn.
How much dust did you
eat?
Helen: Not as much
as last year.
Lauren: Very
little, thanks to my handy-dandy dust mask.
The playa-boogers were intense all the same.
Ariel: I knew I
was fully acclimated to Burning Man when my friend and I started comparing our
massive playa boogers.
She won.
Tom B.: I am still
sneezing and coughing up playa dust.
How did the Burning
Man or the burning of your camp make you feel?
What kind of emotions did it evoke?
Lauren: We were
farther away from the actual burn this year, behind hordes of people, making it
more of a light-hearted thing than in the past.
The group of neighboring revelers singing "Party...
Funky Party..." over and over and over
again helped to set the mood.
Tom B.: Total awe,
I was just loving the entire experience.
Ariel: I had to
pee really bad while waiting for the burn.
What kinds of
post-burning man re-adjustment problems have you had?
Helen: I miss not
always watching my back.
I miss being
completely accepted.
Ariel: Yeah, it’s
hard to go from being just one of thousands of wonderful people to suddenly
being The Lone Weirdo.
Casey: I had to
take several days and ended up missing one day of work to decompress and
readjust to "normal" society.
Thomas K.: I've
had a general feeling that something is missing from my daily life, a tad bit
of depression, but overall, BM has kinda left me in a great place.
Lauren: I'm
usually exhausted for three days and blue for about three weeks.
Having shared it with friends makes the
transition back to this part of my life a little easier; We can talk about it
and reminisce and plan for next year...that makes Burning Man 2000 seem not so
far away.
Give us your best New
Age metaphor on what Burning Man is “really about.”
Lauren: Nope,
sorry, Burning Man does not stand for sorry-ass New Age metaphors...you've just
got to experience it for yourself...no amount of description or metaphor even
comes close to capturing it.
Tom B.: Any
attempt to describe it is pretty flimsy.
You can take stabs at it but there is no way you can describe it.
You have to go there and experience it.
Lauren: What I
will say however, is that Burning Man fills my “optimism tank” for the next
year.
It reminds me of the inherent
goodness of human beings and recharges my own desire to give back to society
and to the Earth.
And in contrast, it
sadly provides a vivid explanation of why these good qualities do not flourish
in our everyday society.
Casey: It's all
about all of us.
Helen: This year’s
theme was time, in the linear sense, but it seemed the honored tradition of
saying “good-bye” was stronger.
Under
the man, an American flag was folded and nailed in memory of all the fire
fighters that have fallen in the past year.
Names and dates of people were scrawled on the man's legs, ready to join
the flames as their loved ones say one last farewell.
At Burning Man, with the end of the
millennium, we say good-by to our pasts and the ones that took care of us and
thus receive our responsibility that our “time” has begun.
Tom B.: I'd say it
is basically a social response to our ever decreasing social liberty, and the
ever-increasing conformation of identity.
We are all being affected by the "Wal-Mart-ization of the
World" as a handful of global retailers, service providers, and media
moguls control what choices are readily available.
It becomes more and more difficult to create,
find, or do what you really desire without being overly scrutinized or
ostracized from society.
Try walking
down your street naked with body paint, or having a raging party in your
backyard till 8am--no way!
Ariel: Burning Man
is the ultimate celebration of fire, rebirth, and remembering what true
community is about.
Where else can you
approach your neighbors and trade a gallon of water for a blow torch?
Thomas K.: Burning
Man is the anti-Las Vegas, it's the evil twin brother, no, it's the good
twin.
Either way, it's Spock with a
goatee.
Lotus Magazine was a pop cultural blip, a rave publication that catered to a niche of a subculture. Independently published from 1996 – 2002, Lotus served the West Coast's underground rave community. It was a free magazine, half electronica rag, half semi-spiritual/environmentalist youth outreach project. This online archive presents a sliver of the material published in the magazine during its six years of bi-monthly publication. Some of the content is still relevant, and some of it's just silly. All of it's very, very earnest. Enjoy! –