My favorite Burning Man 2009 experiences By damien [9 more lists]

My tenth burning man since 1996. Still a fun time, hasn't lost its edge. I posted some of my videos below.

Make a Version Info View Views: 2484 Items: 10

< >

Show: 5 25

Rank Name

1

Flying in a plane with my campmates

Thanks to Zoe and the fame of her creation - the "infamous" Pee Funnel Camp, she was able to get 4 no-lottery passes to ride on an airplane. I don't think too many people get to see the city from above at Burning Man, it is pretty lucky if you do. I've been going to Burning Man for 10 years and I've never been close to riding a plane until this year. It was AWESOME.

+ 0
2

Pee Funnel Camp performs 'Plane Crash Survivors' on Thursday in Center Camp

This was Hillarious. One of the best participation events I've seen at Burning Man in a long time, and I'm going to 'out' Pee Funnel Camp as the perpetrators of this fine act of cacophony.

11 passengers and 1 one pilot crash landed in the middle of the black rock desert during Burning Man. One passenger lost her head. RIP Atlanta's/Rick's/Buzz's/Fondle's wife.

This was a much needed break in the monotony that is center camp at Burning Man.

RIP Dan Kang

+ 0
3

Infected Mushroom at the Opulent Temple on Thursday night

This was the musical event of BM 2009 as far as I'm concerned. I heard people talking about it around town on Friday, confirming my appreciation for the spectacle that occurred the night before. The crowd was so amped up by this show. Was a lot of fun. Donation to the Opulent Temple was made upon my return from Burning Man, had a great time there.

+ 0
4

My Bike Basket Blinky

Not many people spend every night until 4am for 2 weeks soldering before burning man. I typically do, and this year the result was a colorful animated lighted bike basket. I was supposed to cover the entire bike with lights, and I had all the gear to do it, but after Wednesday out on the playa I couldn't really work much more on it. there was a lot more soldering to do and I was supposed to be enjoying a 'vacation'. So only the bike basket was covered. It got a lot of attention riding around anyway, many compliments and photographs. The radio-controlled on-switch came in handy when trying to find my bike within a sea of thousands of bikes parked at every event. One button press and The Freak Selector(tm) switches on remotely and a swirling, blinding mass of LEDs calls out, 'Here I Am!'!

+ 0
5

Riding to the Rocket Launch on the Jellyfish car

Our camp had an invitation from the Jellyfish car to ride out to the so-called "Rocket Launch" on Friday night. Anyone who's been to burning more than 4 or 5 times knows that they NEVER launch anything at burning man, no matter what they print in the guide or hype up around town. This time, as usual, it was about 15,000 people gathered around in a huge miasma of freakitude, just waiting for something to happen - for 3 hours. Nothing happened. I heard that some fireworks went off, and some steam came out the bottom, but other than that it was a waste of time. I left after about an hour of hanging out on the Jellyfish car, wandered off to the temple and to some parties.

+ 0
6

Hanging out at Pee Funnel Camp

Yep. Pee Funnels. That big yellow thing in front by the road is the beloved Pee Funnel Dispenser. 5,000 pee funnels get loaded in, and this year 4,500 got taken out by our visitors. They also work well as a beer-bong, though as Aurora would point out, they are made out of toxic plastics and should not be used as such.

Many examples of the advertising Pee Funnel Camp does can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=pee+funnel&m=text

+ 0
7

Fire dancers before the man burned

The fire dancers were better than the burn for me this year. I especially liked the fire-whip.

+ 0
8

The Burning of The Man

I cut this video down to show the big explosion, and not much else. I've seen better burns, and this probably wasn't the worst yet, but it didn't really go off as they intended. It was total white-out at 9pm, when he was scheduled to burn. I was at the front of the perimeter and at one point the man disappeared. We talked to a ranger who told us the burn was going to happen in 30 minutes. Sure enough, the white out stopped, and a while later they lit him up. I think they scaled down the fireworks because of the wind, and the explosion didn't set the wood on fire as I think they had hoped - rangers were lighting the base of the man by hand with flares at one point. So, the burn this year gets #8, but I still had fun there.

+ 0
9

The Temple Burn

Sometimes 15,000 people like to sit in a big circle around a giant fire in COMPLETE SILENCE. For 30 minutes straight. The silence was was pretty amazing. There were a few cheers when it finally fell to the ground, and a couple of women singing, but the crowd of 15,000 or so was in almost complete silence for what seemed like about half an hour.

Then suddenly, one person yells out, and the one yell turned into two and somehow it found a direction and traveled clockwise around the circle, building yells as it went, and eventually it traveled back around to where I was standing and it was a full on crowd scream. It was like the wave at dodger stadium when everyone raises their arms, except nobody raised their arms, everyone raised their voices. It went around the gigantic circle about 10 times while I was there. Pretty awesome.

+ 0
10

The Cube-a-tron

And #10 goes to the most impressive 3-Dimensional LED experience anywhere. These guys up the ante every year. But beware, I'm not far behind you! muuahahaa

This is not my video. I for some reason never got a clip of the cube-a-tron this year. Shame on me. This clip will give you an idea of what it was, but it doesn't give you much scale - the thing was huge. 40 feet long at least, 50 maybe.

+ 0