Burning Man 1997 | Who's Who

January 1, 1998 Trip Brown

Who's Who?

Harley K. Bierman

Harley--"like the motorcycle," as she helpfully tells those who meet her--is responsible for personnel at Burning Man. Her remark seems especially apt, for Harley seems to many, who are Life's pedestrians, to be motor driven. She is a physical trainer, a cyclist, kyacker, trekker, and a demon dancer. Harely's reserves of energy, to say the least, are legendary. Her talents as a manager of people--as a combination mother, herder, school mistress, chaperone, and instigator of other people's energies and enthusiasm--are also legendary. Harley joined the project in 1994, and since that time has channeled its enormous flow of human resources: locating theme camps, answering inquiries, scheduling meetings, organizing talent and coordinating staff communication. She is also a painter, an accomplished hostess, and distinguished by her civilizing taste.

Harley is an activist who stands out among activists. "Alrighty now!" her frequent exclamation, is a signal, brisk and bright as her person, that there is definitely something to do. These promptings to action combine in Harley, as with many activists, with an equally passionate concern for those around her. The sum of these two urges yields her character.

Will Roger

Will Roger serves as the comptroller of the Burning Man Project. He comes to us from Rochester, New York, where he taught photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As a teacher he was known to be patient, saturnine, and subversive. He naturally attracted a group of devoted students. The title of his course, "In Search Of the Mystical Image," expresses the character of his work. Vapor trails of motion in these portrait studies seem to blend body and spirit, and this, in turn, suggests Will's person.

Before assuming his position as the Project's budget officer, Will labored as a work beast, a one man work crew, patiently sledging stakes in the noon- day sun. His prepossessing presence--he is a massive figure-- combines with a serenity of character. Will has a way of seeing the large picture, of grasping the greater scope of things around him, while, all the while, remaining planted in the present moment. He is an excellent cook, a disarming host, and a knowing connoisseur of life's varied pleasures. He is also mischievous. While patrolling the perimeter of our camp's circle in 1995, he'd speak to motorists who threatened to invade our central plaza. Mostly they were locals, he recalls, in pickups sporting gun racks. "You may not want to go in here," he would tell them, as if imparting an intimate confidence, "there's is a girl who's pretty wild and she's on a motor bike." "Her father," he would add, "is an attorney." Without a further question, he informs us, they would turn around drive away.

Crimson Rose

"Fire is the greatest draw on Earth," as Larry Harvey likes to say. He calls it a "primal attractant." The naked human body would undoubtedly be second in its power to hypnotically assemble human beings. Crimson Rose, Burning Man's Performance Coordinator, has combined these two mesmerizing experiences throughout her career as a fire dancer. Crimson has ignited Burning Man since 1992. With her partner, Will Roger, she has performed at many Burning Man events: breathing fire, bearing it aloft, dancing around it, sheathing her body in this combustible medium. Indeed, she is likely to materialize in the presence of any fire. Reporters seeking Crimson in the desert are advised to go directly to the largest burning object. She'll be near the flames.

In addition to coordinating performance at our event, Crimson organizes and directs our annual show in San Francisco. With Larry Harvey, she designs and produces the Burning Man Pageant on Sunday evening in the desert. Crimson is enormously respected by her collaborators and co-workers. She is efficient, determined, impassioned and focused. Like fire itself, we should add, she will not suffer fools--yet, also like fire, she's endlessly playful. Who else would have invented fire badminton (a game played with rackets, net, and flaming tampons)?

Joegh Bullock

Joegh is a quintessential showman. Whether managing a stage or toasting friends, the phrase, "Ladies and Gentlemen!..." delivered in resonate rounded tones, seems not far from his lips. He is Artistic Director of the San Francisco's Climate Theater and in that capacity produces both Solo Mio, a festival of solo performance, and Festival Fantocio, which features contemporary puppetry, robotics and computer animation. He is known as co-owner and creator of the Icon, worlds first digital restaurant and bar, and presides over the Anon Salon, a monthly soiree for artists and digeratii in San Francisco's Soma District. Joegh also spearheaded Glas Haus, a legendary series of avant garde Art parties in the 1980's.

Joegh is most typically encountered as he bustles through a crowd. His roving eye and bacchic leer are evidence of one central fact: Joegh loves a party. Upon attending Burning Man in 1995 he thought, "Were I to give a party and invite ten thousand people, this would definitely be It!" He is a natural born promoter, an adventurous companion and a thoughtful host. Most saliently, Joegh Bullock understands what makes a good party great. Since 1996 he has helped to coordinate performance for the Project and has served as a business negotiator, site planner and event organizer. Together with his business partner and companion, Marcia Crosby, he's also been the Project's part-time publicist.

Marian Goodell

Marian talks to strangers. She stares at them too. Sometimes, she stares at the backs of their heads just to see if they sense her. A web site developer by profession, Marian came to Burning Man along the pathways of the Internet. Her most notable trait is a passion for human connection. Known to thousands as Maid Marian, mistress of the Burning Man announcement list, she has a sort of genius for discerning the authentic human voice residing in the disembodied presences of cyberspace. Since joining Burning Man in 1996, Marian has overseen the renovation of our web site.

In addition to cajoling the designer, artists and programmers of the new web site, she also is involved in the distribution of the newsletter, management of the press kit and creation of the Black Rock Gazette for 4 days during the event.

Danger Ranger

Danger Ranger is the legendary protector of our desert society. Some say he's the seventh son born of the scion of a seventh son. Others claim he possesses near borderline supernatural powers, including the ability to bi-locate and appear at two places simultaneously. This seems plausible, given his penchant for pervading the playa. In reality, he is known to his friends and co-workers as Michael. Michael joined the Project in 1990 and in that year founded the Black Rock Rangers. The institution that he leads is patterned on the Texas Rangers and their historic role as guardians of dispersed frontier society. He is responsible for the safety and security of everyone at Burning Man. In addition, Michael functions as the guiding light of the San Francisco's famous Cacophony Society--"a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in pursuit of experience beyond the mainstream."

Michael is also a visionary. After our event in 1995, he informs us, he discovered a fertility amulet, a rounded female form, lodged within a fissure of the playa surface. He scooped up a handful of dust, depositing it and the small figurine in a container. "It could have laid there for eons," he says. Michael wore this talisman around his neck at the event in 1996. He felt that it protected him amid the "cathartic fires of Hell" generated by our art pageant--"one of the most difficult and transformative periods of my life." After the event, he traveled on a pilgrimage alone to Fly Geyser. Here, he immersed himself in a pool, when suddenly the metal token slithered from its string beneath the muddy water and was gone. "I immediately felt a kind of panic," he recalls, but this was soon succeeded by a sense of vast and encompassing calm. "I felt as if it was supposed to be there. As if, by passing from me, it had seeded the waters. The amulet had guided me, so some way guided everyone, to our new home."

Flash

Flash is a native of Rhode Island--that most independent and free- thinking of America's original colonies. He descends to us from a long line of tavern keepers. His ancestor, Steven Hopkins, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. This elder Hopkins is the only founding father known to have signed the Declaration while drunk. His signature, an indecipherable scrawl, may be found near the bottom of the document. It veers off the page.

Flash has led a motley life. His checkered career includes employment as a teacher, carnival roustabout, barker, bartender and butler (for those who know him, this unlikely grouping of vocations aptly condenses his character). During his early career Flash was known throughout the townships (and to the constables) of New England as a purveyor of turkey legs at regional fairs. Flash is best known to participants in Burning Man as Papa Satan--genial proprietor of McSatan's Beastro. He is also the long time friend and confidant of Larry Harvey, founder of Burning Man. In 1988, when Burning Man failed to fully ignite on Baker Beach in San Francisco, Flash and Larry scrambled up the figure's still-burning legs, as if ascending flaming ladders. Together, they ignited the Man's groin.

Flash's role within the Burning Man Project may be described as a combination of things. He is the civilizer of the hitherto uncivilizable, a jester, a confessor, and a prophet of those down-to earth realities which many of us, in our self-absorption, are too likely to forget. He is a loyal and loving friend to many, the formidable enemy of a few. This year, it should be noted, Flash will resign his two-year tenure as Papa Satan. In accord with this year's theme of fertility, he will emerge transmogrified as Daddy Love.