Friday, August 24, 2007

When Even Artsy Sorts Make Fun of an Event...


You know it has passed from edgy/pseudo-sophisticated to just plain dumb. This column by Violet Blue (which anywhere else you would assume was a nom de plume, but heck, in the open ward that is California her parents might well have given her that name) in the August 23, 2007 San Francisco Chronicle is occasionally a little too explicit for me to quote, but these opening paragraphs really capture the idiocy of artsy pretense associated with the Burning Man festival:

Burning Man and safer sex
Free your mind, but watch out for crabs
While attendees of the yearly arts festival known as Burning Man come from all over the nation and the world, the impact of the costly desert bacchanalia is felt pretty strongly around San Francisco. Many rejoice at the sudden lack of rich hippies and art cars dripping Barbie heads and Legos onto the roads when fog breaks down cheap art-store epoxy, and the ease with which one can get brunch in the Mission. There are virtually no white dudes with dreadlocks for seven square miles. San Francisco smug levels ratchet back to tolerable in the absence of arty hipster trust fund brats and Web 2.0 lets-resurrect-Pets.com-as-a-vlog leeches. Super annoying guys don't hit on me in bars assuming I know what the hell they're talking about when they use terms like "the burn," "the man" and "off the grid."
And at house parties, there are no chicks that become uncontrollably drunk and then attempt to show you how they can "fire dance," accidentally setting fire to the host's potted plant/small dog/infant.
I've long been of the opinion that most of this countercultural stuff that San Francisco is awash in would evaporate overnight if the government confiscated all wealth exceeding one million dollars. It would also starve the Democratic Party of resources.

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