And while I watched it, I remembered: This is what always happens.
It is now clear that the first Tuesday after Labor Day causes large-scale meteorological disturbances in northern Nevada -- disturbances that result in high winds and the accompanying dust storms across most of the Black Rock desert playa, the site where Burning Man has arguably ended a day or two before. It's happened every year for the last eight years, without hiccup. The old-timers will even tell you that, back in the day, the wind blew twice that hard, in both directions, simultaneously, and the dust was actually more like sharpened volcanic pebbles dislodged and propelled from the surrounding mountains. It went right through car paint and blue tarps, chafing the skin to blood at 103 feet per second.
As those who stay late know, the dust storms are key: Each year they create a desert full of front-row seats for a performance in which people you know and respect snap in curious and revealing ways. The BMan literature makes claims for the transformative nature of the event. But, in reality, the event is only the necessary prelude for the real show: Eight days of no sleep, lethal dehydration, substance abuse, unrequited sexual aggression, camp drama, faux-fire warfare and heroic art catastrophes leaves everyone hanging on a thin sliver, right and ready to deal with the skin-stinging, eye-blinding and breath-preventing reality of a good dust storm. And this is where the real tests begin.
All it takes is about two hours of dust on Tuesday before things start heading south on a screaming pulse jet. Within six hours, I get in my vehicle (if it still runs) and start the camp tour to enjoy the now-real scenes of the apocalypse and the generally accelerating disassembly of humanity. Faint figures in full desert wrap quietly scrounging discard piles for goodies contrast harshly with screams of frustration as large metal objects are heaved into the backs of U-Haul trucks. It quickly becomes clear who has "crossed over" and lives in the desert, and who needs to get the hell out of there and back to work.
The dull truth is that, this year, as with every year, the Burning Man Department of Public Works needed no concerned urban youth to return to that chaos in a shiny Honda Civic, hoping to rescue a DPW desert-hardened warrior, fingers deep in the mechanics of a chopped Dodge Power Wagon. The trajectory of rescue would have quickly been inverted.
The DPW builds the site of Burning Man from dust and will return it to dust before the real rain sets in sometime in November. All traces of our creative excess will be erased, and the stillness of Black Rock will be all that's left to thank them. As the DPW announced several days later in an e-mail: "Curb your e-mails, enjoy being home AND STAY THERE."
--Jim Mason
