"Tribes of Burning Man" review

[Jexl]

Imagine that Alexis de Tocqueville’s younger brother Fred had also written a book about America. It would have examined the same country, during the same period, with access to all of the same evidence. But Fred de Tocqueville spent most of his time in a Boston whorehouse watching burlesque.

The result is that where Alexis’ Democracy in America laid out a deeply wise understanding of the American character and spirit that we can still learn from today, Fred’s book Hot Dancing Girls of Boston ultimately concluded that you have to see the 10 o’clock show to understand how sexy these ladies are with their garters off.

Burning Man has yet to have its Democracy in America written. But Burning Man has found its Fred de Tocqueville in Steven T. Jones. He promised to write the epic story of Burning Man as it changes America, and ended up providing a list of his favorite DJs.

Tribes of Burning Man is ostensibly a book about Burning Man, its message, and its participants, but it’s not helpful to think of Tribes as a book. Instead, think of it as a really long Facebook status update from your sister's friend Steve who shares too much.

No detail about Steve Jones is too small to leave out of his book about Burning Man. In the very first paragraph of chapter 1, Jones “puts us in the scene” by telling us that he’s sleeping with his girlfriend. By the third paragraph, he’s explained how they cuddle. (They sleep “cuddled up, flipping the spoon back and forth throughout the night.” “Rosie feels warm and good.”)

This is, literally, just the beginning of what Jones has to kiss and tell you:

-- Janessa (“My lovely Janessa”), his girlfriend during 2001's Burning Man, was “given a bare-assed paddling” as the price of admission to a maze. They broke up by the end of the week (pages 8-9)

-- Dona Williams “was just pure sex … (I) only cheated in my imagination (with her) after almost seven years of marriage … Dona and I eventually became friends, and lovers of a few occasions.” (pages 33-34)

-- Syda Day, “a petite, curvy, and strikingly beautiful Indian woman” (page 282) is “my new love” as of the publication date (page 297)

The impression one gets, reading through 298 pages of this, is not so much that Jones has researched Burning Man as that he frequently thinks about fucking it.

Like the Facebook pages of most people who share too much, Tribesis overwrought where it ought to be organized. People don’t believe me when I tell them that Tribes begins with a “Prologue,” followed by an “Introduction,” followed by a “Forward,” all of which were written by Jones. But it’s true: he introduces his own book three times. After that Tribes jumps around in something that can be called “chronological” but can’t be called “order.” He frequently uses terms that he doesn’t explain for a dozen more pages. He inevitably interrupts whatever story he’s telling about Burning Man to tell a different story (usually about DJs), and may or may not pick up the thread again. It’s like trying to understand history by reading a teaching assistant’s tweets.

Repetition is the handmaiden of disorganization, and Tribes often repeats information that was unnecessary the first time. Want to know what Steve Jones’ bicycle looks like? Tribes of Burning Man is the book-shaped object for you: Jones describes his fuzzy red bicycle four times in the first 100 pages. I have a bicycle too, but I’ve never needed to describe it to somebody more than once.

The cumulative effect is exhausting: the only thing worse than having to piece together a badly told story is having to do it twice. By the third time you’re just dead inside.

Tribes could never be read for pleasure, but it would still have redeeming value if Jones’ time bicycling around Burning Man had given him something insightful to say. Alas.

“If Burning Man teaches us anything,” he explains in his conclusion, “it’s that life is a process and not a destination.”

Could he try a little harder? Even for a banal writer that’s banal. Only Fred de Tocqueville would sum up a week at Burning Man with a fortune cookie.

When the pedals hit the road, Fred de Tocqueville would rather talk about his theme camp than leave his comfort zone. For all that this is a book about Burning Man’s culture going national, Jones only visits two regional events: one of which (Fourth of Juplaya) actually takes place at the Burning Man site and is attended mostly by Bay Area insiders. Tribes contains dozens of pages about 2010’s “Temple of Flux” art project, which Jones helped work on, but only one brief reference to “Bliss Dance,” the sculpture whose 2010 Burning Man debut has become iconic in the culture. (And that reference mentions that Bliss Dance was “Near the Temple of Flux.”) According to the index, Jones spends five more pages talking about Opulent Temple (his favorite Bay Area sound camp) than he does Burners Without Borders.

Burners Without Borders (an international organization dedicated to supporting burner charity work) is obviously more relevant to the world and the spread of Burning Man culture. But Steve Jones likes to dance at OT, and that wins out every time.

That kind of ego on fuzzy red wheels is what makes him Fred de Tocqueville. It shows in the way he can’t imagine that reasonable people might disagree with him. He’ll call someone who thinks differently a “spoiler,” a “power broker,” or an “asshole,” but never address the substance their argument. He touts burners like Chicken John and Alix Rosenthal running for public office as examples of burner culture going mainstream, but never asks what it means that they all lost by significant margins. Despite Burning Man’s strong libertarian component, he denies that anyone without a progressive political agenda can be a real representative of burner culture. One learns nothing meaningful reading Tribes because Jones learned nothing meaningful writing it.

Fred de Tocqueville simply doesn’t have it in him to write the book that Tribes of Burning Man needed to be. What’s sad is that if Jones had lowered his sights to write about what’s obviously in his heart, and made it a book instead of a Facebook page, the resulting history of Burning Man sound camps and the Bay Area rave scene could have made a small but real contribution to art history.

Instead, Steve Jones has written the book his worst critics always knew he would. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to use the first person.

[theCryptofishist]

Well, 16 minutes is too long for cut and paste, so I'm guessing Jexi had a solid idea of what she/he wanted to say, but composed it after getting an account.

[JDCookMS]

Well, 16 minutes is too long for cut and paste, so I'm guessing Jexi had a solid idea of what she/he wanted to say, but composed it after getting an account.

....tl;dr

[trilobyte]

Bumping the book review over to Open Discussion. The burning question, though, is whether the OP is taking their first step into the community, or just depositing their lengthy unsolicited review and moving on?

[Ugly Dougly]

Or pimping his warez.

[MyDearFriend]

We had a discussion about this book last year; I hated it and sent it on to, I think it was mdmf007? Can't remember. Never heard if he read it, liked it or what.

But who would open an account just to dish dirt about some random book, with unknown people?

I don't get it.

WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

I agree with you anyway.

[theCryptofishist]

MDF--you might want to double check your email accounts. Maybe one of your alters opened an eplaya identity to trash that book.

[junglesmacks]

Obvious shill post.

Next.

[MyDearFriend]

MDF--you might want to double check your email accounts. Maybe one of your alters opened an eplaya identity to trash that book.

Bwahahahahahahahaha, I can barely keep this account going...

[BlackRockCityPimp]

Obvious shill post.

Next.

Obvious troll post meant to increase post count.. next

[MyDearFriend]

Obvious shill post.

Next.

Obvious troll post meant to increase post count.. next

Okay I'm in a mood here, sorry, so I am going to take this (possibly facetious) post seriously.

BRCPimp, post counts mean nothing here; once you have properly introduced yourself, you are expected to participate as your authentic self. Some folks speak up more frequently than others, or at greater length; this has nothing to do with credibility or value as a member of this forum.

Don't forget that we meet At Home on a regular schedule, under harsh conditions, with our hair down so to speak and no pretense about us. Don't bother creating an image or persona here; it's worse than useless.

Speaking of which, I really wonder about your username. I can't imagine what a pimp would find to do in BRC, or why he would want to go there, since, that lifestyle is quite the opposite of self-reliance.

I know, I know, don't feel the trolls... And Junglesmacks needs no white-knighting from the likes of me...

[Bob]

Says the anonymous person posting under a fake name. Really...

Meanwhile, The People of Burning Man is a *fabulous* book lacking any sort of pretensions of the tribal sort, plus Julian lives a block down the street and he's that rare sort of gifted photographer who can make a shitpile like Burning Man appear attractively sexy, even though he's avoided shooting me all these years.

I SPIT ON YOUR TRIBES!!!

[MyDearFriend]

Says the anonymous person posting under a fake name. Really...

Not me I trust?

Meanwhile, The People of Burning Man is a *fabulous* book lacking any sort of pretensions of the tribal sort, plus Julian lives a block down the street and he's that rare sort of gifted photographer who can make a shitpile like Burning Man appear attractively sexy, even though he's avoided shooting me all these years.

I SPIT ON YOUR TRIBES!!!

+++1000 on this! well not the actual spitting, yikes