{"id":46467,"date":"2017-09-05T22:45:25","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T02:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/?p=46467"},"modified":"2017-09-06T18:10:22","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T22:10:22","slug":"tuesday-night-why-i-go-to-burning-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2017\/09\/05\/tuesday-night-why-i-go-to-burning-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday night &#8211; Why I go to Burning Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi friends.. writing from over the Atlantic.. somewhere near Iceland. on my way to Munich.. so again.. cant post any of my burning man pics .. I&#8217;ll get to that tomorrow night.<\/p>\n<p>I do want to write a buti about why I go to Burning man. I&#8217;ve heard that question from several of my freinds over the last few days. The burning man &nbsp;festival has gotten some bad press this year.. from the tragic death at the burn&#8230; which I still can&#8217;t believe&#8230; , to the record heat this year (110 for 2 days) , dusty, . There have also been stories this year of over the top opulence by corporate attendees (fresh maine lobster on the desert ? ) and huge crowds&#8230; ..<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m reminded of a sticker I saw on my freind Duane F&#8217;s giant flaming octopus last year<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone \" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/IMG_7330.jpeg?zoom=2&amp;w=1024\" width=\"972\" height=\"728\"><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Yet.. all that said.. I still love it.. Why&#8230; ? Because it&#8217;s the biggest group of people I know that come together spontaneously to have a good time together.. It&#8217;s a test of stamina and ingenuity to survive the place.. or at least to enjoy it.. and that simple fact means that most folks who &nbsp;make it there more than once really, really , really want to be there.. and thats special&#8230; Spending tiem in our camp with some good old friends and some new and having the time to listen and talk to them is such a pleasure&#8230; &nbsp; as is the zillion random interactions you have with strangers you meet everywhere.. This year I ran into so many old freinds on the playa&#8230; from different cirl es of &nbsp;of my life, from vermont , from work, from travrel , from family , from my many hobbies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For me the main draw is being with those people. meeting them, hearing their stories, seeing how they choose to self-express. I also love the art.. some of it is really beautiful and moving , nearly all of it is interesting..\/<\/p>\n<p>much of the art &nbsp;is high tech.. some of it is dangerous (fire, high voltage, smoke).. those are the things i love doing myself.. As a guy with wierd hobbies like that&#8230; There is no place on the planet where i can find so many like minded people . THis year I really advanced my understanding of fire art&#8230; and plan to expand myt collection of things that shoot fire into the sky&#8230; You can&#8217;t pay for that kind of training.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I love the fact that the whole place is offline.. no phones.. at least not verizon phones \ud83d\ude42 .. no wifi.. everyone there is really &#8216;there&#8217;&#8230; the last time I was offline for a whole week was in 2009 &nbsp;I was locked in a warehouse making a TV show . 8 days offline .. just tlakign to reall live people has done me and my mind &nbsp;a world of good..<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>THere&#8217;s also a sacred component of burning man.. the temple there is a monument to folks who have died or who are troubled. THe stories, objects and graffiti in there are the most moving testament to lives lived. that &nbsp;I&#8217;ve ever seen. My own pilgrimage there to remember Sam &nbsp;and others literally brings me to my knees . Crying in that place with so many others is the most cathartic thing i can ever remember doing&#8230;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>finally..of course there&#8217;s this reason .. \ud83d\ude42&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_1177-2.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not saying the place is fro everyone.. but hay.. maybe you&#8217;d like it too \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>nite all, nite sam<\/p>\n<p>-me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi friends.. writing from over the Atlantic.. somewhere near Iceland. on my way to Munich.. so again.. cant post any of my burning man pics .. I&#8217;ll get to that tomorrow night. I do want to write a buti about why I go to Burning man. I&#8217;ve heard that question from several of my freinds &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2017\/09\/05\/tuesday-night-why-i-go-to-burning-man\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tuesday night &#8211; Why I go to Burning Man<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46471,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46467\/revisions\/46471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}