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So, I went camping in the woods near Mt. Vernon with my Burning Man camp mates and over nine hundred other people. This was Critical Massive, the regional Burning Man event. This was my first.
What did my camp do to justify its existence? All the ladies dressed up and served tea with silver pots and china cups, and T brought her boozy tea cakes. We were a hit. The bros in our camp set up the keg of hard cider and did rum tastings.
It's not just about the caffeine and the alcohol. There's a whole lot of food being handed out there, too. Yeah, you'll never go hungry at Burning Man, but you'll never stop being full at Critical unless you really want to.
Things I liked: some Canadians had a compressed-air potato gun. They let people fire spuds at some wire mesh that they'd set up above a pot of hot oil. Instant fries! I didn't fire the gun, but the fries were tasty. The gun also works for firing grilled cheese sandwiches about 100m into a waiting crowd.
Art pieces? Well, the giant origami cranes, the spiky plywood balls lit from the interior, and the Space Virgins's holey, Calderesque pieces of white fabric with the lasers playing on them. Honestly, though, the playa sets a very high bar for visual art & performance that Critical can't touch.
Lots and lots of Burner friends there. Did you know![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
butterflake has been producing the whole shebang for a few years? That's a huge, life-eating job, and she's done it quite well.
Within five hours of my arrival, the 1.8l of nice sake that I'd brought was gone and I'd compared Dr. Snip's handiwork to the more usual version belonging to a friend of J & T's. I need to look her up. Great stuff, that sake.
Oh, and that cute and charming girl who took me around drinking on Friday? Only interested in "trannies" who are pre-op. Le sigh.
Rain happened, but surprisingly, it wasn't miserable, even though I didn't pitch my tent until the day after I arrived.
Critical Massive isn't the intense, inspiring experience full of random hilarity that Burning Man is, but there's fun to be had if you know where to look. Looking in the printed guide actually helps, especially because the site is wooded and hilly and the guide isn't full of disinformation as it is at The Event In The Desert.
I can't help but wonder if Burning Man was like this back when it had fewer than a thousand participants. That would have been what, 1991? My sense, though, is that the early Burns were much more chaotic.
What did my camp do to justify its existence? All the ladies dressed up and served tea with silver pots and china cups, and T brought her boozy tea cakes. We were a hit. The bros in our camp set up the keg of hard cider and did rum tastings.
It's not just about the caffeine and the alcohol. There's a whole lot of food being handed out there, too. Yeah, you'll never go hungry at Burning Man, but you'll never stop being full at Critical unless you really want to.
Things I liked: some Canadians had a compressed-air potato gun. They let people fire spuds at some wire mesh that they'd set up above a pot of hot oil. Instant fries! I didn't fire the gun, but the fries were tasty. The gun also works for firing grilled cheese sandwiches about 100m into a waiting crowd.
Art pieces? Well, the giant origami cranes, the spiky plywood balls lit from the interior, and the Space Virgins's holey, Calderesque pieces of white fabric with the lasers playing on them. Honestly, though, the playa sets a very high bar for visual art & performance that Critical can't touch.
Lots and lots of Burner friends there. Did you know
butterflake has been producing the whole shebang for a few years? That's a huge, life-eating job, and she's done it quite well.Within five hours of my arrival, the 1.8l of nice sake that I'd brought was gone and I'd compared Dr. Snip's handiwork to the more usual version belonging to a friend of J & T's. I need to look her up. Great stuff, that sake.
Oh, and that cute and charming girl who took me around drinking on Friday? Only interested in "trannies" who are pre-op. Le sigh.
Rain happened, but surprisingly, it wasn't miserable, even though I didn't pitch my tent until the day after I arrived.
Critical Massive isn't the intense, inspiring experience full of random hilarity that Burning Man is, but there's fun to be had if you know where to look. Looking in the printed guide actually helps, especially because the site is wooded and hilly and the guide isn't full of disinformation as it is at The Event In The Desert.
I can't help but wonder if Burning Man was like this back when it had fewer than a thousand participants. That would have been what, 1991? My sense, though, is that the early Burns were much more chaotic.
