{"id":70,"date":"2007-09-11T23:39:14","date_gmt":"2007-09-11T23:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/somewhere-over\/"},"modified":"2007-09-11T23:39:14","modified_gmt":"2007-09-11T23:39:14","slug":"somewhere-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/travel\/somewhere-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Somewhere Over the Playa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Burningmanrainbow\"<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

So, I went to Burning Man this year, my first burn. (In playa<\/a> terms, I am no longer a virgin<\/em> but a burner<\/em>.) It was truly a glorious experience, filled with images like the one above. Yes, that’s an untouched photo [source<\/a>] (click to enlarge.) <\/p>\n

Here’s a photo<\/a> of the Temple in front of one of the four pots of gold:<\/p>\n

\"Temple_rainbow\"<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Geoff, one of my campmates, climbed on his bike to see how close he could come. He returned with this tale (paraphrased): "Out of everyone in the world, 45,000 people come to Burning Man. Of those, 100 chase the rainbow. Of those, three hop the boundary fence to get there. I could not die satisfied without meeting the other two." <\/p>\n

Later, he wrote: <\/p>\n

\n

So I did the (emotionally) logical thing: I hopped on my bike and tried to find the end of the rainbow. I could see it out in deep playa, for Christ’s sake.<\/p>\n

I discovered that the trash fence was in between me and my goal. At the trash fence were a hundred people who had just been forced to the same conclusion.<\/p>\n

Indistinct on the horizon were two people who evidently did not care that someone had put up a piece of orange plastic in between them and the end of the rainbow: a dangerous and radical concept.<\/p>\n

I dropped my bike and jumped the fence. I wonder if I have ever felt so uneasy in a situation that I knew to be entirely safe. Looking back at Black Rock City, and a hundred rainbow-seekers gawking at me, and thinking about my four years on the playa, I felt a tragicomic exuberance in the back of my throat and the pit of my stomach. When I look back on that moment and imagine it, our little city seems so painfully beautiful, and the people in it so proud, fierce, and vulnerable.<\/p>\n

I had a long, surreal conversation with the Boys of the Horizon that I will carry with me as a protective talisman for many years.<\/p>\n

Eventually Perimeter picked us up. They said very little beyond these sage words: "Inside good, outside not so good."<\/p>\n

I am holding in my hands a big black oily rock from the society beyond the fence.<\/p>\n

may the playa provide,
Geoff<\/p>\n

ps. I do not recommend harassing Perimeter. They are really nice people and they are working while we are playing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The double rainbow happened on Friday afternoon, after the second huge dust storm in two days. You cannot fully appreciate its beauty without surviving one of these things. This video<\/a> demonstrates the winds, but not the full white out conditions (which were sometimes an alien yellow or red). During the storm on Thursday, I briefly ventured from our camp’s hookah dome, in which 30 or 40 people  eventually took cover, to check on my battered tent. I barely made it back. The dust burned my chest, visibility was 5-10 feet, and I had to walk slowly with my arms out to avoid collisions. Here I am (second from left) in the dome with some campmates early in the storm:<\/p>\n

\"Joshdome\"<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

(In the foreground is Josh, who programmed and built some of our brilliantly trippy lighting displays. Yes, that’s a red monkey tail.) The dome soon filled up, but really, there’s nothing like a good weather emergency–and some music and beers–to bring people together.<\/p>\n

More tales from the burn to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, I went to Burning Man this year, my first burn. (In playa terms, I am no longer a virgin but a burner.) It was truly a glorious experience, filled with images like the one above. Yes, that’s an untouched photo [source] (click to enlarge.) Here’s a photo of the Temple in front of one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}