RENO, Nev. — The blank canvas of desert wilderness in northern Nevada seemed the perfect place in 1992 for artistic anarchists to relocate their annual burning of a towering, anonymous effigy. It was goodbye to San Francisco’s Baker Beach, hello to the Nevada playa, the long-ago floor of an inland sea.
The tiny gathering became Burning Man’s surrealistic circus, fueled by acts of kindness and avant-garde theatrics, sometimes with a dose of hallucinogens or nudity. The spectacle flourished as the festival ballooned over the next three decades.
Some say it grew too much, too fast.
Things came to a head in 2011 when tickets sold out for the first time.
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Organizers responded with a short-lived lottery system that left people out of what was supposed to be a radically inclusive event.
As Burning Man matured, luxurious accommodations proliferated, as did the population of billionaires and celebrities.
Katherine Chen, a sociology professor in New York City who wrote a 2009 book about the event’s “creative chaos,” was among those who wondered whether Burning Man “would be a victim of its own success.”
Exponential growth led to increasing questions about whether organizers had veered too far from the core principles of radical inclusion, expression, participation and the pledge to “leave no trace.”
Burning Man participants walk through dust at the annual Burning Man event on the Black Rock Desert of Gerlach, Nev., on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014. AP
That last hurdle was never harder to clear than this year as “Burners” tried to leave over Labor Day weekend after torching the 80-foot (24-meter) wooden sculpture that is “the Man.”
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A rare rainstorm turned the Black Rock Desert into a muddy quagmire 110 miles (175 kilometers) north of Reno, delaying the departure of 80,000 revelers. Once out, organizers had six weeks to clean up under terms of a federal permit.
By the smallest of margins, they passed the test last month, with a few adjustments recommended for the future. The verdict from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management means Burning Man is in line to use federal land again next year.
Debate over the event’s future, however, is sure to continue as divisions grow between the aging hippie types and wealthier, more technologically inclined newcomers. Veteran participants fear the newer set is losing touch with Burning Man’s roots.
Burning Man organizers don’t foresee major changes in 2024 thanks to a hard-won passing grade for cleaning up this year’s festival. AP
The event has made a quantum leap from a gathering of hundreds to one that temporarily becomes Nevada’s third largest city after metropolitan Las Vegas and Reno. The festival drew 4,000 in 1995 and topped 50,000 in 2010.
It’s no wonder seasoned Burners sound a bit like griping cribbage players on a rural town square when they mutter: “It ain’t like it used to be.”
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“Back then, it was much more raw,” said Mike “Festie” Malecki, 63, a retired Chicago mortician turned California sculptor who made his 13th trip this year to the land of colorful theme camps, towering sculptures, drum circles and art cars.
“There are more (people) who come out to party and don’t participate. We call them spectators,” he said.
Senior organizers long have wrestled with whether to become more civilized or remain what co-founder Larry Harvey described as a “repudiation of order and authority.”
Festivalgoers stand outside of their cars as they wait for traffic to move while exiting the Burning Man festival in Black Rock Desert, Nev., Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. AP
Ron Halbert, a 71-year-old from San Francisco, has worked support for Burning Man’s 90-piece orchestra for 20 years and remains optimistic.
“It’s still the gathering of the tribe,” he said.
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The event is permitted tentatively for the same 80,000 attendance cap next year.
Organizers are considering some minor changes, though generally resist making new rules, said Marian Goodell, Burning Man Project’s chief executive officer.
Critics on social media howled at the mayhem left behind this year, posting photos of garbage piles, abandoned vehicles and overflowing portable toilets while ridiculing the “hippies” and their leave-no-trace mantra.
But that mayhem may have actually helped bring Burning Man back to its roots.
Katrina Cook of Toronto said it forced people to be true to the founding principles of participation and radical self-reliance.
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“The rain weeded out the people who didn’t want to be there for the right reason,” Cook said.
Mark Fromson, 54, was staying in an RV, but the rains forced him to find shelter at another camp where fellow burners provided food and cover.
Another principle of Burning Man, he said, centers on unconditional gift giving with no expectation of something in return.
After sunset, Fromson set off barefoot through the muck for a long trek back to his vehicle, slogging through thick clay that clung to his feet and legs. The challenge, he said, was the mark of a “good burn.”
Nevertheless, Jeffery Longoria of San Francisco, who marked his fifth consecutive voyage to Burning Man last summer, said its core principles are going to evolve no matter what as a new generation takes over.
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“The people that created this community, a lot of them are getting older and retiring and there’s a lot of new young people coming in, the kind that have, you know, a couple $100,000 RVs and are kind of just careless about the environment.”
Soren Michael, a Los Angeles technology worker who made his 11th trip this year, said the biggest change has been the ability to communicate with the outside world from the desert.
“It was almost part of the appeal to be disconnected,” he said.
Twenty years ago, the psychedelic celebration like none other already was attracting academic scholars — anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists and communications professors — curious about how the makeshift civilization functioned without real-world rules.
Burning Man references started popping up in TV episodes and talk show punchlines.
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The rich and famous began venturing to Black Rock City, as the festival’s temporary metropolis is called.
A full-blown exhibit about the phenomenon debuted in 2018 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. Even then, veteran Burners complained about the event becoming as much a curiosity to see as to do.
That’s in part the problem veterans have with the advent of glamor camping, or glamping, in which private companies provide packaged trips to concierge camps with luxury RVs and lavish meals under chandeliers. Some believe the camps violate Burning Man principles.
The growing number of billionaires and celebrities who fly in on private jets to Black Rock City’s temporary airstrip “seems to be everyone’s favorite thing to hate,” Goodell said. But wealth shouldn’t be a cause for shame, she said.
“The question is not about glamping,” she said. “Comfort doesn’t assume lack of engagement. It’s whether you have a glamping camp and you’re not really engaging.”
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Burning Man’s purpose remains the same: building a creative, stimulating environment, the essence of which people can take back to their own communities.
“We thought that from the beginning,” Goodell said. “We just didn’t know it would be 80,000 people.”
Once again, another horrific animal abuse case was reported in the news in Las Vegas last week. An English Bulldog named Reba had been placed in a taped-up plastic tote and left behind at a store to suffer and die in the desert heat. It was determined that Reba died from a combination of insufficient oxygen and heat stroke, resulting in cardiac arrest.
I was glad to hear that they have identified the two perpetrators, who are being held in the Clark County Detention Center on $50,000 bail. Although the maximum time for animal cruelty is four years, abusers are eligible for parole in 18 months.
After receiving an enormous number of emails from the public demanding justice, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson suggested that these types of brutal crimes should require stiffer penalties. Mr. Wolfson said that one to 10 years might be a more appropriate penalty. In addition, Nevada Assemblywoman Melissa Hardy has requested a “Reba bill,” which would enhance animal cruelty penalties, for the 2025 legislative session.
Research has backed up the claim that animal abuse is often a precursor to violent crimes against humans. A landmark study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Northeastern University found that animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against humans.
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There has been progress toward the protection of animals. In 2016, the FBI elevated animal cruelty to its own separate offense. And the FBI is now collecting data on animal crimes the same way it does for other serious crimes such as homicide. In addition, a number of police agencies have jumped on board and have officers who are dedicated solely to animal cruelty complaints.
If you see or suspect animal abuse, report it. Animals are helpless, but when it comes to making their lives more bearable, people are not. You cannot force people to love and respect animals, but it is possible to enforce many of the basic rules of decency and humanity.
A fugitive is back in police custody in Clark County today after being in hiding for 17 years in Mexico following a sexual assault conviction.
Robert Sturgiss was found and arrested in Rosarito, Mexico by Mexican Immigration Officials on December 13.
Sturgiss was wanted in Nevada for a parole violation – he was convicted of sexual assault 33 years ago, on November 12, 1991, after he had engaged in illegal sexual contact with a 13-year old.
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At the time, he had received a sentence of five years to life in prison.
In 2005, Sturgiss was approved for parole, and in 2007 he fled from supervision.
An investigation was conducted by a conglomeration of law enforcement entities; including the U.S. Marshals Service, the Nevada Violent Offender Task Force in Reno, Nevada State Police, and others.
Sturgiss, who is a U.S. citizen, was turned over to the U.S. Marshal’s Service in San Diego on December 13, where officers from the Division of Parole and Probation brought him back to Nevada.
Anyone with information on any wanted fugitives is encouraged to contact the nearest U.S. Marshals Office at 1-800-336-0102, or USMS Tips at the U.S. Marshals website.
Driving over the cattle guards that mark the boundaries of the Las Vegas Valley, Southern Nevadans are likely to come across an equine friend or two. Or a herd of them.
Wild horses and burros, considered to be an emblem of the unconquerable American West, have been a permanent fixture of the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert for centuries. They roam Nevada’s sprawling public, federally owned lands, of which the state has the highest percentage in the nation.
Another superlative that belongs to the Silver State is the highest number of wild horses and burros. It’s home to about half of them, with more than 40,000 on federally managed land, according to the most recent estimates from both the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.
Largely thought to be descended from horses that Europeans brought to the West in the 16th century, Nevada’s wild horses are the subject of dual fascination and concern. That’s mostly due to how federal agencies round them up with helicopters and the environmental damage such large numbers of them could cause if populations were left untouched.
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Nevada’s ‘Wild Horse Annie’ spoke for the mustangs
As mandated by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, both federal land management agencies are required by law to protect and defend these animals.
The law was brought to Congress all because of one Nevada woman: “Wild Horse Annie,” also known as Velma Johnston.
Wild horses were once the subject of abuse by so-called mustangers, who would sell off their meat commercially. After an encounter where she saw a trailer full of bleeding horses on their way to a slaughter plant in the 1950s, Johnston riled up sentiment across the West to do something about it.
Johnston expressed her dissatisfaction with the 1959 Wild Horse Annie Act, a preliminary law that outlawed the poisoning of water holes and hunting wild horses from planes. She said it lacked any real enforcement mechanism.
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In response to requirements from federal law, the BLM and Forest Service created their respective wild horse and burro programs to control the number of horses and burros out in the wild in a way that was deemed more humane.
Modern roundups marred by controversy
Because of the roundup and sale of wild horses in Western states, animals sold in federal auctions can be found as far east as Florida.
The BLM divided its land into 83 herd management areas, across which the agency says there should only be 12,811 wild horses and burros. The agency estimated this year that 38,023 of them roam its land. The Forest Service’s program is smaller, with 17 so-called territories, mostly in central Nevada, where only about 2,500 wild horses and burros currently reside, according to the agency’s counts.
Without proper population control, many say these non-native animals disrupt fragile desert ecosystems and food chains.
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That leads the BLM to round up mustangs, place them in holding facilities and sell them for $125 each. About 290,000 wild horses and burros have been placed into private care since 1971, the BLM estimates. Over the years, newspaper investigations and watchdog groups have found that at least some horses are sent to slaughterhouses because of the agency’s limited oversight past the adoption period.
Though some have criticized the conditions of holding pens, the agency maintains that they “provide ample space to horses, along with clean feed and water.”
It uses helicopters to circle and capture the horses — a method some advocacy groups have called inhumane. The BLM maintains that its technique leads to the least amount of injury and deaths possible.
Other groups, such as American Wild Horse Conservation, call for the use of porcine zona pellucida, or PZP vaccines, which are administered through darts and make female horses infertile. It piloted such a method within the Virginia Range near Reno in partnership with the Nevada Department of Agriculture.
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X and @alanhalaly.bsky.social on Bluesky.
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