Xeni *is* a journalist.

A vague essayist with a travel budget, more like.

ZOZOBRA

Interesting NYT article about Burning Man's legal drama.

Edited by author 09-03-2003 07:54 PM
Craniac:
Since she posted her stories publically in a space that invites criticism and commentary, that's when. If she (or you) doesn't want to deal with peers or proles doing running color commentary with her story, she should write for the NYT or some other dead-trees organ where all but the most predictable commentary is guaranteed to go into a blackhole.

What?-Now that you've got participation, you suddenly decide that participatory journalism isn't as cool and hip as it's been made out to be?

Remember when Ms. Calendar from buffy(tVS) went to burning man ...

"They had drum rituals, mobile sculptures, raves, naked mud dances, you would've just... hated it with a fiery passion!"

I will not sit still until I can block Xeni's posts from the main page, just like I used to do with Jon Katz on /.

Nothing burns my toast like techie chic....ugh..."journalism".

I'll welcome photo's from Xeni. It's her experience, why harsh her mellow?

I still don't know what an art box is, even though there seemed to be quite a few people sitting in them.

That ship, is also called an art ship? Does that mean there is a gallery inside?

I also believe you don't have to be on peyote any drugs to get the full experience. Train yourself to go there naturally, would be any shaman's advice.

When did we all become Xeni's editors?

I'd just like to know why now?
Why this year and not, say, 1995 or 1997 or 2000?
Why, if this is such a hip, happenin' thing to do, wait this long?
And why "Wired" of all places?---The one mag where a Burning Man article is guaranteed to be post-post just-about-everything?(Filthy Lucre is a acceptable answer)

I'm neither condoning nor condemning, merely curious...

Edited by author 09-03-2003 06:37 AM
RE: The Real Experience
   I would say, judging from the tone of Xeni's posts, before and after, she got "The Real Experience." Whatever that is. It's funny with, with the 'net, I can continually see "newbies" with the same fresh-faced enthusiasm for the playa I once held (and the burned, stunned faces afterwords).

Journalist, schmurnalist.

Well, although having a contained recirculating air vehicle can help in a dust or rain flurry, it don't do a damn thing for you if you're out at the house of cards in the middle of the deal. And undoubtably someone leaves a window or vent open and the thing's innnundated with playa anyway, and then you get to spend the whole day (today) trying to get that playa out but you just seem to spread it around and around and you hope the next occupants will appreciate the dust as much as you did. Still Xeni, I think it's good to tent it for the full experience of the playa. Its quite elemental and you don't quite get the full appreciation of that if you're not down in the dirt.

This year, I was pleasantly relieved when I couldn't get my wireless rig working with the Oregon Country Faire. The playa had merrily twarted my attempts to cross over and I was glad.

With regard to capturing and reporting vs. experiencing, I have a number of thoughts...first, I stopped taking a camera with me years ago. I just don't want the change in perspective that I find occurs internally. And, as the keeper of the blue ass from the centerfold of the orignal wired article and coffeetable book, I know that there will be plenty of photos of the event. And while I generally think that less is better WRT media coverage of the event, I'm always oddly humored that my blue ass is in the centerfold of a book on burningman, so who can say.

Oh, and on the topic of the bingo...I had never, NEVER noticed the naughty santa fashion prior to the notice called out on the bingo card...dammit it there twernt a full camp of the dagnabbed things. Almost got crushed by one at mission to mars. watchout for them suckers.

Whaddya saying, Evil, Burning Man is fated to burn himself out?

I have to say, while I don't think we should bag on Xeni for whether-or-not she got the "real" experience by going as a reporter, I like the idea of Burning Man existing without any documentary evidence. No photos or recording devices of any kind. Just.... a rumor in the desert.

Trust me D.Evil,
You will not need drugs, other than aspirin, to see some freaky sh*t there... Last year I was on a boat chasing the white wal across the playa throwing freaking foam harpoons at it (badly might I add) with a naked Girl Ahab Riding on a hookah pipe...

Then again maybe I was on something and didn't know it?

Edited by author 09-03-2003 02:10 AM
I think an integral part of Burn experience is perceiving it under the influence of psychodelic drugs.

Thus, I believe that any attempt to observe or describe what happens there without looking through this prism is equivalent to speculating about say intimate life of Esther Dyson just by knowing her by her articles in Fortune Magazine.

Anyway, when burn will get enough mainstream coverage, it will naturally decline. As an obscure Russian XIX century poet Alexander Fet wrote:

A thought, when spoken
Is a lie

>>I say that hoping you didn't stay shacked up
>>in an RV with the AC running and your
>>powerbook keeping you company all day...

Hah! As if! No, I stayed in a $25 pup tent from KMArt, camped next to an earsplittingly loud D&B disco, ate canned tuna and protein bars, biked around in dust storms looking for someone who had a private, functional satellite 'Net connection so I could file my work on time... and most certainly was not admitted to the event for free. Unless you're camping in an extremely swank trailer, it's hard not to be participate fully.

Not that I think camping in an extremely swank trailer is all that horrible of an idea. If I return next year, that's damn sure looking more appealing than the $25 pup tent. After the dust storms, even with everything zipped up, there was like a solid inch of playa dust on everything inside my tent. Kept all my digital gear inside ziploc baggies in the car, but even then -- tough conditions for cameras and laptops.

--XJ

9-time, Living Vicariously is what WE do through the jounalists,, sheesh..... and Self expression is just that SELF Journalism is the relating of Facts, a trade not an art form..
Opinion or editorials are Self expression and can delve, We see way to much blurring of these now a days, but that is a different argument all- together..

Not sure how I came off as a "playa hater", I been going since 96.. and I saw what impact Bruce Sterling's article had in 97, Fratboi hell for three or so years.. Ugh. That is what I was referring to when I said "we don't need that.." A reaking "girls gone wild video or E's "Wild on" show ....