Shawn Conner

Burning Man 2009 Index

– by Shawn Conner

For those of you who have been following our Burning Man series, Breakdown in Black Rock, thanks. It was tough to write and probably tougher to read, but now we can all relax with a couple of fun little items. First up is our Burning Man Index, which is followed by links to some of the best of BM we found while researching the article.

Burning Man 2009 Index

Number of Hello Kitty sippy cups purchased: 2
Number of Clif Bars purchased: 2 dozen
Number of Clif Bars given away as a gift: 1
Number of Clif Bars returned by giftee after one bite: 1
Number of songs in my ‘Burning Man‘ iPod playlist: 168
Number of songs from the Burning Man playlist that I could still listen to by the end of the trip: 12
Number of those songs with the words ‘sand’ in the title: 3
Number of times I heard people having sex: 2
Number of times I thought I heard people having sex: 200

Number of people at this year’s Burning Man as of noon Thursday, Sept. 3, according to camp statistics: 47, 318
Number of those with dreadlocks: 19, 309
Number of fire dancers: 25,746
Number of times I heard how ‘diverse’ Burning Man is: 25
Number of packs of Star Trek (original series) cards I brought to give out: 2

Number of pics I was able to take with the used Polaroid I bought the day before leaving for Burning Man: 5
Number of copies of Farrah Fawcett issue of Vanity Fair brought to the playa: at least one (by me)
Number of times it came in handy: 2 (once because of the article on the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, which became a topic of conversation with the Italian lady parked in an RV near our camp; a second time when I was invited to take a shower at another RV and was asked to bring the Vanity Fair)
Number of times I accidentally ran into someone I knew: 1
Number of times I found someone I set out to find: 1
Number of times I was able to find drugs: 0
Number of times I was told I look like a narc: 1