blog 1
blog 2
blog 3
blog 5

~ photo of anne by doug read

Rainbows ~ Day four at Burning Man, via's blog, Sept 25th, 2007

friday was the day my friend dave was showing up, and even tho he wasn't expected til early evening (it's a 6 or 7 hour drive from the valley, if you don't dawdle) i went out a time or 2 by bike to check that the sign the boonters had posted at the end of 9 o'clock and Landfill was still there. it was, and our BRC address was still legible.....and along the way i got to explore the back streets and side shows that populate every corner of Black Rock City.

on an earlier excursion the evening before, i turned the corner and plowed into a major traffic jam a block away from our street. all the BRC security forces were out; ambulance, rangers, caution tape. i walked my bike thru the crowd to find another roadblock on the next street, in the form of a huge dance party underway, spilling out onto the street from a corner pavilion. a study in contrasts: emergency services vs revelry.

found out much after the fact that the emergency response was for a suicide that had occurred in the "comfort and joy" camp. much has been written about this incident, and not surprisingly, the media got it wrong. it's telling how quick they are to spin things and up the lurid detail count, unconcerned with accuracy. the camp itself sent out this release from those who were there:

On the morning of Thursday, August 30th a young man from Colorado chose to end his life in the rafters of a public tent at the Comfort & Joy Burning Man theme camp.

Though he was unknown to us, in the wake of his passing we’re learning from those who knew him that he was creative, kind, unconventional and smart, and that he was regarded with affection by many. His final act, committed in solitude, has one lasting effect as it brings us together to mark his passing. To all who have offered our camp their sympathy and support during this time, thank you. To all who knew him, please accept our sincere condolences.

It is estimated that there was an one hour interval between the last visit to the tent by a camp member, and the discovery of the body by a second camp member. It is believed that the tent was unoccupied during this time, and that there were no witnesses to the suicide. One other individual, not associated in any way with the camp, was in the tent at the time the body was discovered. Emergency personnel were immediately contacted by camp members. Authorities responded within minutes and closed the scene upon arrival.

The Black Rock City Rangers, Sheriffs and other law enforcement officials who assisted us with this incident were very professional, supportive, and helpful to us at a difficult time. We are grateful for their services. We are also thankful for the warm and organized support we have received from the grief counselors from the Black Rock City Mental Health Team. They helped us openly discuss what had happened and come to a shared understanding of the morning’s events.

Much of our camp was quarantined while the coroners did their jobs and we canceled that day’s events (a yoga class, a queer discussion group, glitter body painting and a watercolor painting workshop). As a camp, we decided to make a contribution to David Best’s Temple of Forgiveness, where people can mourn, remember, write messages and leave items to be ceremonially burned on Sunday night. We felt the rope the young man used represented the terrible violence he committed upon himself and the people around him. By sending the rope up in flames, we hoped to allow some of that pain to disperse. None of us believe that this young man wanted to trouble us with his actions.

The members of Comfort & Joy extend their deepest sympathy to all who knew this young man. Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and special people in his life. Although we will never know or understand him the way you did, he indeed touched us as well, made us grow, and hopefully become better individuals. May the rest of his journey be peaceful and lead him to the joy we all seek in our lives.

like any big city, the week-long city in the desert has its highs and lows of human experience....

....but i knew nothing of that at the time; just recognized that one camp was having serious trouble, and another was having serious fun. i finished my errand, satisfied that dave would find his way home.

we had another dust storm that day, a bad one, and the usual chores that go along with it. in particular, our kitchen tent, set up and generously stocked by our campmate linda, took the hit. it was one of those easy-up affairs that are so handy under normal conditions and so very fragile out on the playa. one of its legs bent in half under the fierce wind and the whole thing threatened to blow away.

rainbow and i used rebar to reinforce the leg, and as soon as that was settled another one started buckling! it was kind of hilarious how we just kept adding rebar, first one and then another above that one, until we had big fat legs all ducktaped together wherever needed. of course, after yesterday's storm everybody had done their own reinforcements, so mostly our camp stayed put. we lost a peace flag we'd had flying, and put up a pirate flag someone else had brought. we chased down scarves and re-fastened wall hangings used for shade. the wind settled down and we had a sprinkling of rain. i was hoping fervently we wouldn't get a downpour, cuz playa dust + water = a kind of heavy quicksand. as it was, we had just enough rain to cool the air nicely and make everything look as if it had been splashed with mud.

i ventured off to the potties after the sprinkling, with the clouds all bedarkened and the playa shining bright with slanted sun. the changing faces of the playa are so remarkable; grayed out so completely during a storm you can barely see your neighbors, and then the sky lifting, higher and higher, when the dust settles. it was when i stepped out of the porta-potty again, admiring the strange cast of the sky, that i saw the rainbow forming over the city, and what a rainbow it was! by the time i got back to camp (only a half block away), the whole city was beginning to shout and hoot, for we had not one but 2 rainbows arcing over the entire width of the city, the bottom one brilliant with a full spectrum and a half of color. they hung there for over 20 minutes, i'd say, which was quite stunning to the 48,000 people underneath!

a cool thing with really good rainbows is how the sky is lighter underneath them. it gives you a bubble effect, as if you're under glass.....

~ this marvelous photo by gravitybook

< here's a picture of me and some of my campmates, posing in front of the great arc of rainbows while the city gawks.

unfortunately, our brilliant photographer neglected to get anything more than a sliver of the bottom rainbow in the shot!

....which i thought was especially funny, given the photographer's name....thinking that perhaps everyone calling out "rainbow! rainbow!" had gone to his head!

but then i realized, captain rainbow is IN this shot! so it must have been taken by another campmate (probably wendy using doug's camera.)

under the rainbow ~ photo by that shadow on the lower right

see, everything is a canvas out in BRC - art appears on every possible surface.

a couple hours later, dave arrived with fresh fruit and the 2nd frozen zucchini cake i'd made before leaving for the playa. YAY for fresh food!

dave's arrival gave me a happy excuse to revisit all my favorite places, and then, for good measure, we simply biked the entire esplanade, stopping everywhere we felt like stopping. one memorable stop called dance dance immolation involved competing volunteers who got outfitted in fireproof suits to stand in front of flamethrowers while watching dance steps on a screen they had to match.

match a step? FIRE shooting up into the air, ohh-aah! miss a step? FIRE, you get flamed, right in the face, oh my! possibly this inspires an accelerated learning curve, but i was not inclined to test this hypothesis.

here we see both contestants screwing up rather badly>

~ photo by declan mccullagh

~ photo by loupiote