I went to the desert and I stood in front of the fire and I came out renewed and refreshed. I lived in a place where nothing lived, in a city of 40,000 souls, momentary and mystical, that sprang up like an oasis in the dusts and will disappear again, and while its motto is leave no trace, it remains on the retina as a palimpsest image overlaid on reality and as a satellite photo of a now non-existent town in digital maps.
During the day, its streets are reminiscent of Woodford Festival, dusty smiling faces sharing food and music. The major difference is that this is utopia: society without money, a gift economy on the whole. People stop us in the street to give us charms and delicious sushi; we climb onto fairground rides and play like children; a stall magically appears – fresh oysters on ice in the middle of the desert! We have limes and gift them to enhance the experience for ourselves and those to come; freshly made lemonade and cool chai sweetens our lips; we are drawn into lavender lounges and the temple of the eternal mystery for massages; and of course there is sex and sensuality, men and women in the heat wearing nothing or wings or gossamer.
During the night, an entirely different space emerges, like some intense cross between Mad Max, Perdido Street Station and the carnival scene from AI, neon and LEDs and glow sticks and el wire wrapped around bicycle tyres and bodies and art cars vying with mechanical monsters and post-punks in their very own Thunder Dome. Off to one side, a roller rink has been set up. Elsewhere, an enormous mechanical sunflower dances with an enormous mechanical venus fly trap. A man rides by, seemingly on fire but it is more art: a perfect figure of a man on a perfect figure of a bike, doused in kero and set alight, pulled along by a black-clad figure on an adjacent bike so you can’t see him in the jet of the night.
And ah! The stars! On a chill desert night, the sky above Black Rock City glints with sharp white lights.
The night of the Man’s burn, I spent with hyperpeople and a friend of his from college, a grand night, a special night. The next night, the temple burned, and uchronia, the most amazing structure ever, blazed, moments of raw and primal intensity.
There is so much to write and I will try to capture more of the art and more of my impressions at some point, but right now I’m going for a swim. Tomorrow, we will go to Harbin Hot Springs for a few days and then who knows?
One thing I have certainly learnt in these past few days is something we saw as graffiti the first day we were there: love is letting go of fear.