Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Burning Man Missed Connections
Craigslist
is the mostly free on-line want-ads and personals site that pretty much put the newspaper industry out of business. You can find anything — or anyone, I suppose — on Craigslist. The “Missed Connections” section is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a place where people who may have almost met, or locked eyes across a crowded subway, can connect. Each “Missed Connection” ad is a romantic mini-drama to the person who placed it. But to the reader, they’re all pretty much mini romantic farces.
Take a moment, if you can, to savor the “Missed Connections” from last week’s Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. Burning Man, for those of you who don’t know, is a days-long encampment in Black Rock, Nevada — about 100 miles north of Reno — where the young and the wish-they-were-still-young gather to run around freely, nakedly, and probably seriously high on more than the desert air. Worse, people often adopt “playa names,” a sort of Burning Man nom de guerre. If you sat down to invent a more irritatingly pretentious and pompously progressive event — up to and including the array of private jets that ferry the extremely rich to the site every year — you’d be hard pressed to come up with a better example than Burning Man.
But, okay, the kids have fun and that’s what’s important, right? Though if the Burning Man Missed Connections are to be believed, the kids need to learn an important lesson: if you’re wasted, you won’t remember her name:
I know this is a total longshot but we hung out Friday night after meeting at a camp “bar” A huge group of guys followed me around the playa calling me Queen until it was late and just the three of us. I named you Twelve. I guess I passed out and woke up confused then ran away. I wish I had stayed and spent the rest of the burn with you. I wish i could remember where you were from. Hopefully that wasn’t the last time I will see you.
And:
Homeless topless spanish blonde. I gave you my scarf, and offered you shelter and never saw you or my scarf back
And:
I met you Tuesday night / early Wednesday morning at the Ashram Galactica (6:15 and Ersatz). I (Zeitgeist) was wearing a long red robe with a golden sash, long billowy silver clothes underneath, and yellow slippers. I should say that I was hardly sober (very much to my determinant in this situation), but I understood your playa name to be Guess. A confusing, but beautiful name if that was correct.
There are more here. But that’s the gist. You know how they always say you’re not supposed to judge? I say: Judge away!
Image Credit: Christopher Michel [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Published in Culture
.jpg){kind=link}
And this is how most college “date rape” inquisitions begin….
Wonder how long it will be before Burning Man requires one of these
Is that a picture of the human toilet brush?
Rob, does this make you long for a place “where everybody knows your name”?
This nightmare really happened to me. I was in the hospital a couple of years ago, undergoing a procedure. The nurses were teasing the physician who was going to do the procedure because he had JUST RETURNED FROM BURNING MAN! There was no way to stop and run away. I miraculously survived.
This description of the person’s (guy’s?) outfit makes my head hurt. It sounds like the clothes one would wear trying to entice passersby into a brothel in the Ottoman empire.
Couldn’t put our finger on what it is, and glad we didn’t. Thanks for informing us.
“Free range chicken missing from planet Earth”, sorta had to see that one coming, right?
That is the weirdest story ever – had no idea – extremely creepy but good post since Halloween’s coming – where’s a giant sinkhole when you need one?!
This is what you get when you allow Harry Reid to get all nostalgic about Woodstock.
This is like the beginning of a horror picture.
Well this is all rather sad. What I heard about Burning man is that the corporate entity that owns it is suing a whole bunch of people for improperly using its venue to advertise without their permission (By which I think they mean without paying them). Nothing like a free spirited party in the desert that costs 390 dollars a ticket, and sells add space. Way to be a unique free spirit.
Of course the commercialization of this is the ultimate irony and poetic justice. Well I guess their burning effigy toppling over and killing people would be the most poetic thing, but I guess it is bad to wish death onto people. Especially since I’m not Iranian, because then it would just be a charming linguistic quirk.
Living in Reno, we endure ‘Burners every year–coming and going. Going, they drive around Reno-Tahoe area in their desert-dust covered vehicles like a Roman gladiator covered in blood of their dead enemies.
This year’s post Burning Man news, no deaths to report, but the local sheriffs department made a large number of drug busts–who knew drugs were illegal at Burning Man. On queue, the usual suspects gripe and complain about ‘the man’ and swear they won’t return next year. But do.
“I (Zeitgeist) was wearing a long red robe with a golden sash, long billowy silver clothes underneath, and yellow slippers. I should say that I was hardly sober…”
Just another night in Santa Monica.
By the way, did you realize that today is World Rhino Day, according to the Daily Caller for today? Just sayin’…………………
They never got the word:
Burning Man is exactly what it sounds like: the STD He gets when They do connect.
Rob,
Isn’t this an old trailer for this Burning Man thing.
Regards,
Jim
I dunno. I’ve always thought of it as merely being a slightly more hip version of Bohemian Grove. One burns an owl, the other burns a man. Both are attended by rich corporate opinion-makers with high-stress jobs looking to blow off some steam in a manner becoming of their lifestyles. Both involve consumption of mind-altering substances of varying legality.
Variations on a theme. Nothing more than variations on a theme.
The main difference between the two venues, as far as I can tell, is that the majority of Bohemian Grove attendees were married.
On the bright side, you’d have had a slam-dunk win in any malpractice suit.
I didn’t think they had any advertisements. I thought that was supposed to be one of the perks.
Rob, when I told you about my Burning Man attire–“long red robe with a golden sash, long billowy silver clothes underneath, and yellow slippers”–I thought that was a private communication.
I live in Gerlach Nevada, have been to Burning Man twenty times, and had a very good time going this year. The artwork was excellent, the mood was good, I saw a lot of old friends, made new ones, and had several fascinating conversations with people from around the world.
Respectfully I suggest most of you have no idea what you’re talking about. The event hasn’t been “commercialized” (whatever that means). There is very little to no commerce within the festival, which costs a great deal to put on each year. Hence the ticket prices… Which aren’t that bad when you consider that the event is almost 10 days long.
Might I also suggest that an event held in a lifeless lake bed 110 miles from the nearest city in which you can’t really buy anything – even water – is probably not a good match for those who don’t have some disposable income, reasonable organizational skills, and a bit of self-sufficiency. Or are these now qualities we despise at Ricochet?
Still, you’ve got to love those mixed connections.
The craig’s list posters obviously think it’s romantic. I think it’s pathetic. Maybe I’m out of step. I’m good with out of step.