A burner poses by the Car-B-Que, spiritual center of Gigsville. Black Rock City 2010. Photo by Arlette.
Village, –noun, A village is what happens when theme camps work together — it’s essentially a super-camp made up of many smaller theme camps. Villages include a cluster of camps — often featuring a diverse variety of camp types — along with places to gather, communal shade structures, and often artwork.
The first villages arose spontaneously as camp members made friends with each other. Nowadays, Burning Man camps are officially placed and designated through a similar process by which theme camps are registered. At Burning Man 2010, there were over a dozen officially registered villages. These included Anonymous Village (made up of members of 12 step programs who support each other’s sobriety) and Sacred Spaces Village which included visionary art, a dome for healing rituals, and its own stage.
One of the oldest continuously operating villages is Gigsville. Formed as ‘Whirligig Village’ in 1998, Gigsville is home to the notorious Car-B-Que, a car set up in the center of the encampment and set ablaze so that it smolders for the duration of the week-long Burning Man event. Another important and longstanding village is the Alternative Energy Zone; devoted to alternatives to common fossil fuels, the village bans gas and diesel generators.
In 2004 I camped near Infinite Oasis village, then home to the HeeBeeGeeBee Healers (now part of Nectar Village). Not only did I receive an amazing professional massage, but it was under their custom shade structure that I drank some of the best iced chai I’ve ever had, freshly mixed by a bicycle-powered blender.
Thanks to Nobodobodon and Gwen for input on this entry.
Other entries in A Burner Lexicon can be found at http://kitoconnell.com/lexicon/
Comments (2)
There are several other CAR-B-QUEs in the Burnerverse. One of them is an art car in Houston that is a VW bug converted into a griddle/oven. I don’t believe it runs, but we had some delicious breakfast tacos made from it during Art Car Weekend one year.
Among the North Texas burners, CAR-B-QUE refers to an unfortunate incident that occurred during a work weekend many years ago. Three burners chose to sleep in their car, and had left the A/C running all night. By morning, the car, which was parked in tall grass, had ignited. Thankfully, everyone escaped unharmed and the fire was put out, but the car quite literally was toast. Today we use the legend of CAR-B-QUE to remind car campers to park only in designated (mowed) areas!
@Geo: Thanks for your comments today, definitely interesting to know about these alternate Car-B-Ques.