adam.oliner.net

My New Year’s resolution was to place myself outside my comfort zone whenever safe and practical. I spent last week at Burning Man, living in an impromptu city in the middle of the desert, surrounded by neon and hippies and dust storms and fireballs and drugs and nudity and sweltering heat. A city that operates on a gift economy. Near the end of my time there, I had an epiphany. Perhaps it was not much of an epiphany, as far as they go, but it swept over me with deep and forceful conviction. This is the story of my first Burn.

I spend the two days before leaving for Black Rock City (BRC) at a shipyard in Berkeley, helping to construct the art car and to pack the camp’s supplies. The site is abuzz with the hiss of spray paint, the sizzle and crackle of welding, and the clangs of metal against metal. We work through the night and into the next day before finally mustering the troops and pointing our caravan toward Nevada.

BRC is a glow on the horizon as we pull toward it in the late evening. The city is still under construction; we have arrived early to set up. Fine particles blow up off the playa (ply-uh) and envelop us in a cloud of clay dust. I don my amber-tinted ski goggles, and the world is rendered in sepia tones—as though the memories here are destined to be treasured and extracted years later, weathered by time and wind and dust. A gentleman named Squirrel welcomes us. I step over a line in the sand and ring a bell; under the bright moon, I enter Burning Man.

Midnight on Sunday is the official start of Burning Man. Already, it has been three days since I had a shower. My hands are dry and filthy, layers of dust and bike grease and food coat them in a mottled white glove and outline my nails with black. I help make pancakes for the camp. That evening, I cook fajitas and then pitch my tent. As darkness falls, thumps of light and heat punctuate the flashing, glowing, musical hustle of preparations; they are huge, distant flame-throwers, launching fireballs into the air.

The first full evening of Burning Man is a Monday, and a full lunar eclipse. I begin exploring this surreal world: shots at the Tequila Shack, bad dancing penalized by fire at Dance Dance Immolation, jokes and songs in exchange for a mug of IP-fucking-A at the Carbofuckingnation Camp, building with magnetic blocks beneath a peaceful tent, pounding furiously on bongos as a carousel comes to life and animates a death-dance between a gorilla and a snake… As the eclipse begins, I bike to the Opulent Temple. There, I dance among the thumping techno, glowsticks, lasers, and dual jets of fire that periodically erupt from the DJ booth. One such flash burns an image in my mind: a beautiful woman, topless and bedecked with beaded decorations, arms and hair flailing wildly, her eyes closed. She is smiling. I dance for hours, moving from party to party, high on the energy of the city, as the shadow of the Earth consumes whole the once-brilliant moon.

Just then, when every eye is turned skyward, the Man begins to burn. The ceremonial burning is supposed to happen at the conclusion of the event on Saturday night; this is Monday, this is unplanned. Someone had torched it. Standing next to my bike, just outside the safety perimeter hastily arranged by the BRC Rangers, I watch pieces of the Man break off in flaming chunks and tumble down the sloped tent roof. The wooden effigy is fully engulfed in flames by the time water trucks and fire crews manage to tame the conflagration. The spectacle over, and I head toward home, but my attention is drawn to a cluster of red and blue lights. A shirtless man with face paint is being handcuffed and frisked, while half a dozen other officers supervise the proceedings and a K-9 team keeps the hippies at a distance. It was the arsonist, Paul Addis. I watch his arrest with the smoldering Man behind me and the red, eclipsed moon above.

The spectacles amass throughout the week. I slurp down ramen while watching a gorgeous moonrise, climb the steampunk tree, watch wraith-like kites drift in the sky like enormous white apparitions, visit the Thunderdome as people clamber over its geodesic shell and await the next battle, play with the bouncing glow-trees that left me giggling, and bike out to the fence-line that borders BRC. Pausing to rest at that edge between city and oblivion, I notice a serious-looking dust storm approaching. I cannot make it to my camp, but get as far as the Temple, a huge wooden structure that evokes thoughts of a pagoda. On the structure itself, stretching as high as people can reach, are messages scrawled in pens and markers. It is a temple of forgiveness and of loss. “Goodbye Mom, Dad, & Muriel,” reads one message. Another: “I ask for guidance…” Some are simple messages of joy (”I am alive!”) and others of hope (”Mom, let’s be friends again”). I wander around the Temple, reading these messages through my ski goggles as the storm completely whites-out the world beyond my arms’ reach. I cry. Picking up a black marker and bracing against the fierce winds, I add two inscriptions.

On the way home, a man hands me a plastic, glowing lightsaber. “Sundown at the Man,” he says and bikes away. Thousands of swords are distributed throughout the day. The evening proceeds predictably.

Midway through the week, I am surprised to discover myself sick with loneliness. It happens while I am dancing at the Deep End, watching the crazy costumes and funny people amuse each other. I return to camp and get all introspective and moody. I stand by the side of the road to watch the sunset. Just then, a man on a bike pulls up to me and says, “You need to get changed!” I glance down at my shorts and t-shirt. His wife pulls up next to him.

“This is really all I have,” I confess sheepishly.

The man stares at me for a long moment, brow furrowed. “Come with me.” And I do. He gives me a playa costume, and his wife gives me some jewelry. I return to camp looking ridiculous and absurd and wonderful. With that improbable and perfectly timed gesture, the strangers had changed my attitude. I am not lonely or out of place anymore; the camp and the citizens of BRC embrace me, and I become another comical gem in the dazzling all-night parties.

On my last day, like nearly every other day, I go to the Turkish-style steam baths. Sitting nude in a small, insulated geodesic dome with a dozen strangers, I sweat myself clean. My friend Sara begins to hum a tone, and this evolves until we are all chanting an improvised song. I close my eyes and listen, contributing notes where I can. There is no embarrassment, no self-conscious shame or blushing cheeks in that dark hut of singing naked strangers. No money has exchanged hands among its occupants. There are no debts or loans. We have all given each other gifts, and do so even now by sharing this spiritual moment. Afterward, I volunteer to help the camp prepare cleaned and boiled rags for use in the baths. My friends KB and Stephanie join me.

Suddenly, a man rushes up to the camp’s leader, and, for the first time, I hear a Burner invoke an authority figure. “There was a videographer,” he explains, “filming the camp. Should we notify a Ranger?” This struck me. I had seen the citizens of Black Rock City drive drunk and drink underage, commit public nudity and lewd acts, and violate so many drug laws I couldn’t begin to name them. But the only time anyone expressed genuine concern for the safety of their fellow citizens was when a man with a camera tried to capture them on film.

“It is amazing how important that privacy is to the culture here,” I mused. “We’re comfortable with our nudity and craziness because it’s only being shared with other Burners, who share alike. The camera is stealing that gift.”

Stephanie, a photographer, nods and describes the challenges involved with documenting a party; how do you prevent yourself from changing the events you wish to seize on film? I geek out and talk about Heisenberg and about the observer effect. It is a deep property of the universe that measurement may change the outcome. KB speculates, perhaps idly, that there must be some broader philosophical principle there. Before he is done speaking, I know the answer.

I understand why the gift of the playa costume so drastically altered my mood. Why the loneliness did not strike me until I stopped working on the camp and the art car. Why I felt compelled to share my strongest emotions with the Temple. Why the premature burn was so important and exciting, and why the ceremonial burn felt so artificial and sterile.

I nod and pick up another rag, pleased to have given this gift of my time. And then I share my epiphany, smiling at the simplicity of it.

“You can never just observe.” I squeeze water from the washcloth. “You must participate.”

Sean and Kelly wed in Portland a couple of weeks ago, but I have been silent on the subject, awaiting pictures to be posted which depict not the bride and groom, but me, looking sharp and dapper in my Hugo Boss suit. Skip ahead with me, instead, to last weekend; I backpacked overnight at Ten Lakes in Yosemite, where I sunbathed on a rock, made friends with a deer, and watched the sunset bathe the lakeside cliffs in red.

“What is the weather supposed to be like?” I asked the woman who had just printed my wilderness permit.

“The same as always,” she said in a tone inexplicably laced with lamentation, “It never rains.”

I nodded, suspicious of her claim. My summer in New Mexico had taught me that there is always a storm in the afternoon, often with accompanying pyrotechnics. One of my few California hikes had been to the Lost Coast, where it rained with the constancy of Niagra Falls. Her words proved true, however, and I enjoyed the most mild and pleasant weather of any outdoor experience. No rain gear nor warm nighttime clothes were necessary.

With a full pack, I hiked the 8 miles to the furthest and largest of the ten lakes. I was pleased to learn that the women who were swimming in the lake when I arrived were camping elsewhere. I had the lake to myself. I pitched my tent in a prime spot and ambled cautiously down to the water wearing only my shorts. I waded in the clear, shallow water amongst the large tadpoles, stepping one at a time on the flat rocks which layered the bottom of the lake, less than a foot beneath the surface. The warm sun illuminated the submerged sand and made the water temperature pleasantly cool.

I climbed atop a boulder that decorated the small outcropping of land that I had designated my personal peninsula. I let the afternoon rays dry my legs and reflect off of my pale skin, blinding hawks and chipmunks, alike. Satisfied, I leapt down and returned to my tent to fetch my shoes. The deer was waiting for me.

It was a doe (a deer, a female deer), or a buck cruelly gypped of his male birthright. It froze at the sound of my approach and we stared at each other. She broke the gaze first, dropping her head down to graze. I wondered if the animal would understand human body language, and so I turned away in a feint of disinterest. Convinced I was no threat, the doe returned later that evening, braver this time, coming within a few feet of me. She appraised me and lingered with me for a few minutes on my peninsula as the sun began to disappear behind the pines.

I ate dinner on my boulder: hot chicken noodle soup in a bag. After an exhausting day, it was a delicacy. The eastern edge of the lake was rimmed by towering cliffs. While I hungrily devoured my painstakingly timed meal, I watched the steep face of rocks and shrubs turn bright yellow, then orange, and then a fiery red before the darkness of night finally consumed them.

I awoke in the daylight, unaware of the time, and leisurely fired up my stove for some morning tea. Everything looked different, shining with light of a quality and angle unlike the afternoon before. I watched a chipmunk run down the shore into the lake, only to immediately leap back out again: wet but not soaked. A power shower? I smiled and turned away from the water to find the doe waiting for me.

“Hi,” I said. “Hello.” I felt the heat of the tea conducting through the mug handle and burning my fingers, but I ignored it, acutely aware of the precious fragility of the moment. But the lithe creature was not there for greetings, but to say goodbye. She tilted her head slightly, one ear focused on me while the other swiveled toward some sound beyond my hearing, and meandered down to the peninsula for some breakfast and a drink of water. Then she bounded off into the woods, quickly vanishing among the shadows and branches.

I sighed and perfunctorily packed my gear. Then I, too, swallowed some dried fruit, took a swig from my Nalgene, and trudged off, away from the lake and the cliffs and along the path home.

Before leaving the DC area, I took Erik’s advice and stole away for lunch at Five Guys Burgers. I’m told the chain extends all the way up the east coast, but I’ve never been. I devoured a burger-with-everything and regular fries before venturing back out into the afternoon heat. I sweat grease the whole way back to the hotel, leaving oily fingerprints on the metal metro railings. It was the tastiest burger I’ve ever had at a restaurant, and I feel completely disgusting.

In the thickest Scottish accent I’ve ever heard, as he drives me to my hotel, my cabbie asks what I think of Bush. I answer cautiously that I am not his biggest fan. “Fuckin’ prick, ‘e is, that one!” My cabbie yells over his shoulder. I laugh, and we discuss the exit of Tony Blair and the inauguration of a Scottish Prime Minister.

My paper talk goes well, and I post the manuscript and slides on my Research page. I make a surprise announcement at the end that we are able to release our data; there is much rejoicing.

I decide to skip a portion of the afternoon sessions to be a tourist. I hop into a cab from the Hilton and ask for the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Center. There is a pause. He mumbles something and starts driving. I say again, half-question, half-repetition, “Scotch Whiskey Heritage Center?”

“Scaaatch,” the cabbie retorts, mocking my American pronunciation.

“Scotch whiskey,” I try again in my best Scottish imitation.

“I understood ya’, I joos had ta think about it a wee bit.”

At the booze museum (for what else is it, really?), I meet a Canadian named Dean with whom I have lunch after the tour. We do a flight of scotch drams from the four regions of Scotland: Lowlands, Highlands, Speyside, and the Islands. According to an extremely scientific blind experiment, I can identify two of the four by smell, and all four after tasting. I win a 1 pound bet with him about whether our waitress was Scottish or Irish. Sláinte mhath!

The conference excursion takes us to Stirling Castle, where we have a guided tour followed by champagne in the garden and a banquet in The Great Hall. The meal begins with an Ode to Haggis. A bagpipist, instrument singing, leads in a waiter holding a plate of haggis aloft. The plate is adorned with napkins curled up like the ends of a viking long boat. The musician then recites Burns’s “Address to a Haggis“, in the most exaggerated accent he can muster.

The Edinburgh chapter of my travels is nearly at a close, and I will depart for London shortly after I post this. Pictures forthcoming once I settle in London and move them off my camera. I should really get a flickr account…

This site’s been broken for several months now, but what with me studying for quals and my crack team of personal assistants embroiled in a legal battle over some comments I made at Jerry Falwell’s funeral, there was precious little time to do anything about it. I took, and passed, my quals about a week ago, so this seemed an opportune moment for reviving my precious online presence.

Jared Casper, a fellow second-year, generously volunteered his server for the task. Even though I have moved off of Eddie’s server, aquatica.mit.edu, I want to thank him for hosting this site for almost four years. He tolerated my belligerent requests and foolish questions with the patience of a saint. Thanks, Eddie.

You will also immediately notice that the appearance has dramatically changed. My blog is now driven by WordPress instead of MovableType. The theme is a modification of the Mandigo Theme by tom; the header image is credited to Marc-André Besel.

OK, it’s been four months, let’s do this:

• I went to May’s funeral in San Diego, and spoke at her memorial service at Stanford. I cried at the funeral, but not during my eulogy. Barely.
• I volunteered at Admit Weekend and lured numerous students to Stanford with my disarming charisma and unassuming charm. Also, sometimes, with bribes.
• Googlers from NYC took shifts visiting me in Mountain View. Daniel and I hit on a bunch of cute girls in SF, without noteworthy effect. I suspect they were turned off by my Eau de Geek cologne.
• I had papers accepted at DSN in Edinburgh, UK and ExpCS in San Diego. You can find them on my Research page.
• I attended IPDPS in Long Beach, CA, and was disappointed.
• I spent four months studying for my quals.
• I took my quals.
• I passed my quals.

I’m back, this time for reals.