Aamused in Austin, TX

They burned the Man last night.

Back in "my day" the Man Burned on Sunday night, but that also meant we had a hell of a clean up chore on Monday before any of us could leave. I was there in '93 and '94 and I had a nice time. Now, it's far too large for me. I have no desire to go. I read in the paper yesterday that my friend Patrice is there again along with his daughter Sofia, who is now 12. She was just a tiny tot when I met him in '94 and now she's at the Man with her dad. I think that's cool

Still that is a terribly harsh physical environment to bring small children to. And I notice in pictures this year lots of parents are doing it.

this article in the Chronicle this morning amused me no end.

Cute Fuzzy Little Children, On Fire

Of course there are children at Burning Man. There are a handful of children and there are even a few little little kids and they seem super cute and charming and more than a little out of place, with their adorable dust-choked hair and questioning looks and wide eyes and check-it-out-I-brought-my-kid parents and their utterly lovely and enviable ability to effortlessly assimilate it all, take it all in, all this sun-blasted flesh and bizarre artistic machinery and the open-heartedness among the mutated grinning increasingly exhausted brain-addled participants, the brutal climate and surreal landscape and the appalling display of female nipples (the horror! Who will save the children? And etc).

And I suppose you could very well think, by bringing your kid here early on, you might earn yourself a super-cool teenager, one of those precious and rare, alternative-minded artistic supergenius teens who doesn't think her dad is, by definition, a total dork, ultimately resulting in a radiant spiritually luminous carefully tattooed anarchist poet/astronomer adult who will cherish and admire you, her superhip clairvoyant Burning Man parent, forevermore and send you loving postcards and thoughtful gifts and oh yes help save the human race in the process. And you very well might.

Of course, you always run the risk that she will rebel, will reject all parental teachings no matter how raw and naked and funky, will recoil from all supposed hipness and all this, you know, hot glittery ridiculousness, and do the typical teenager thing and race in the exact opposite direction from the sillywonderful Burning Man ethos and instead decide to become, say, a virgin Mormon Republican taxidermist. But hey. Risk you run.