(published in SB Indie 8/23/06)
Brian Doherty’s This Is Burning Man
People who go to Burning Man are a notoriously possessive bunch, profoundly skeptical of the event getting any kind of mainstream media attention. As a veteran burner, I’m not necessarily any different, so I approached Brian Doherty’s book This Is Burning Man with more than my share of doubt.
Would this be some newbie’s love letter to the party that convinced him to leave his girlfriend and join a men’s group? Would it be some journalist’s watered-down, narrow-minded version of an event he’d never experienced? Would it be a propagandist vehicle for the version of the festival that organizers are always trying to portray?
It must be, I figured, because it couldn’t possibly express the diversity of experiences and interpretations of this strange phenomenon. It couldn’t capture the varying views of the thousands of people who flock to Nevada every year, and their thousands of varying reasons for doing so. It couldn’t explain both the controversy and the deep passion that Burning Man always seems to be surrounded by.
But much to my delight, it could and did. Thanks to mystical powers of dedication, observation, and patience — and thanks to a rare ability to both participate in and objectively consider something at the same time — Doherty has accomplished a nearly impossible feat: A Burning Man book that informs and challenges burners while also giving those who’ve never heard of the festival a clear and complete explanation of what the hell this phenomenon is.
The primary reason this book works so well is that Doherty seemed to leave no stone unturned, tracking down everyone from founder Larry Harvey to Burning Man celebrity (and S.B. local) Dr. Megavolt, from Bureau of Land Management reps to the guy whose 50 stacked pianos started a trend of large-scale absurdist art. There wasn’t a single rumor or story or important moment in Burning Man history that he seemed to miss.
But he also weaved it all together in a remarkably engaging, honest way. He presents his own experience, but never at the expense of the larger story. When accounts are contradictory, he lays out both versions (and often, why the contradictions may exist). As he walks the reader through Burning Man’s chronological history, he also unravels a narrative about what the festival means on personal, political, and spiritual levels.
It’s the most comprehensive account of the festival yet, a must-read for anyone for whom Burning Man means anything. And that’s saying a lot coming from me, a fellow burner who was prepared to hate it.
4•1•1
For more on Brian Doherty’s This Is Burning Man, visit thisisburningman.com
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