ZOE: 

I think Burning Man changes the world in the way that good fiction changes the world. It shows us that another world is possible, but it does it in a truly experiential way. Like instead of reading about that other world, you get rocketed into it and you are there and you see yourself living it, and then hopefully you take it back with you.

STUART: 

Hello to all my invisible friends out there in listenerlandia. This is Burning Man Live, and I’m Stuart Mangrum. And yes, this episode is about going to Burning Man without going to Burning Man. Yeah, I know. And to further complicate this seeming conundrum, we actually recorded some of these interviews at Burning Man in Black Rock City earlier this year. I know, right? It doesn’t make sense. And at the same time, maybe it just kind of does!

kbot and I talked to the organizers of three Burning Man, some camps whose communities extend way, way, way, way, way off the playa that are branched out into the world in some very interesting ways. 

First, there’s New York Dangerous — I just love saying that, New York Dangerous — whose organizers have formed a nonprofit called the House of Good Deeds, bringing their on playa spirit of gifting to communities in need by operating a resource rescue operation that collects and regulates tons of good stuff every month in places like New York’s Alphabet City.

Then there’s the crew of Jaguara, a mutant vehicle that’s a lot more than a rolling dance party. It’s also a traveling education platform for environmental justice and rainforest preservation.

And filling out our triptych of camps with a generous spirit that cannot be bounded by the Black Rock Desert, kbot spoke with Zoe of camp Starbarf, who took the year off from Black Rock City this year to focus on political activism and forming a punk rock band with an even better name than Starbarf…

We’re going to kick it off with Leon and Patricia of New York Dangerous.

Yes it is Burning Man Live. This is actually live-live from Black Rock City in Nevada. I’m Stuart Mangrum, and I am talking to a couple of the principals from a pretty interesting — I don’t know what to call it when it’s a camp on playa and it’s a community off playa — but it has a very cool name: New York Dangerous.

I’m talking to Leon and Patrizia. Introduce yourself guys.

LEON: 

Hey, my name is Leon. On playa I’m White Whale.

PATRIZIA: 

And, hi, my name is Patrizia and on playa I am Interesting.

STUART:   

That is – Does everybody say this? – but, that’s an interesting name.

PATRIZIA: 

Oh, yes.

STUART:   

Okay, so that’s not original.

PATRIZIA: 

All the time.

STUART:   

Maybe “Original” would be a good one. 

All right. So, let’s start with what happens in New York City when you’re not here. I’m trying to imagine myself in New York going to one of your events there. What’s it like out there?

LEON: 

New York Dangerous has been around since 2013. My first Burn was 2012. I had an amazing time, but I couldn’t bring all my friends with me to this camp I was with. So, we started our own, and we’ve been on playa every year since 2013 except for 2024. This year we are taking the time off to actually enjoy the Burn instead of work for everyone else for a change.

In New York we have social events all the time. We also started a charity called The House of Good Deeds which has, as of January 2024, become New York City’s largest volunteer-run resource rescue organization. We rescue and distribute for free, over two tons of clothing, shoes, housewares, and food every month.

STUART:  

So how does that work? Do you have like a free store where you put all this stuff out for people like Diggers used to do, or?

LEON: 

Yeah, pretty much. We have a monthly, Good Deeds giveaway that Patrizia, for the most part, organizes, and we also do community events ranging from community cleanups to blood drives. We, you know, help people with little random tasks. We do pretty much anything that a Burner would do for another Burner, except we’re doing it in the default world.

PATRIZIA: 

Yeah. And usually before going to Burning Man that we don’t organize our giveaway, because we have so many things to do, but we uncertain to come, and just two days before flying, we had our massive Good Deeds give away, 14 hours working nonstop. We did at least 300 attendees. It was beautiful. So it was it was amazing. At the end of the day it’s always worth it.

STUART:   

Now, I know New York has a pretty active year round Burner community. I’m imagining that a lot of those people came and cherry picked through the clothes at your event. Is that a fair assumption?

PATRIZIA: 

Some they do, but, we serve the community, like in Alphabet City, in New York, and which we are very proud right now to be that like, our, new headquarters. So, there are a lot of people in need over there. So I’m happy to have them, you know, and anyone.

LEON: 

One of the things that we focus on is encourage people to volunteer. It’s not a traditional charity where things trickle down from those who have to those who don’t. The idea is that everyone’s involved. Everyone’s part of the system. Everyone has something to offer. Everyone is something they can take. If Bill Gates comes to one of our events and likes a belt buckle, he should take it and not worry that there are other people more deserving or more needy. He should just find a way to pay it forward somewhere else. And that’s what we encourage everyone to do.

STUART:   

Have you had Bill Gates show up?

LEON: 

Not yet. But, if he’s listening: Bill, come on by.

STUART:   

We’ve got a belt buckle for you.

So that idea sounds pretty Burning Man. Tell me about how this was influenced by or is influencing of, your Burning Man experience.

LEON: 

Oh, man. So this is this is where we get to the origin story. 

In 2012, I was a member of Couchsurfing. I stayed in Shanghai for one night with a girl who put me up. Her name was Yuan. And I thought she was awesome. But, you know, she lives in China, and I don’t. So, when she came to visit the States, few months later, she stayed with me. I put her up.

Then, as I was getting ready to go to Pplaya in 2015, she told me she was going to explore the West Coast. I said, “Well, why don’t you fly into Reno, and I’ll bring you to this Burning Man thing I’m always talking about?” And she did. 

And from that point on, we were pretty much inseparable. She moved to New York. She Burned with us, with New York Dangerous, in 2015. She Burned with us in 2016. At the end of the summer in 2016, I proposed. She said yes. 

And, um, the next day, she went into the hospital. On the fourth or fifth day, they did a PET scan. They found out she had 70 tumors, and they said “There’s nothing we can do. And I’m sorry.” 

Um. So we were really overwhelmed. I made one post on social media, saying, “Hey, I know that you just, you know, congratulated us, but guess what just happened?”

That one post went viral and people came from all over the world. People raised tens of thousands of dollars for her medical care because, you know, as a Chinese national, she didn’t have any insurance. Somebody knew somebody who was the head of admissions at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and they got her into their cancer treatment program. Somebody saw our story and offered to throw us a wedding. They arranged a wedding in less than seven days, and hundreds of people showed up with hundreds more watching online. 

All these amazing things happened because people came together in community and just offered what they could because they cared. So Yuan and I, at our wedding, we exchanged vows that we wrote each other, and we vowed to our guests that we would find a way to pay it forward. And the next month, we founded The House of Good Deeds together. And the whole mission is to teach people how easy and important it is to make a difference.

STUART:   

Wow. 

PATRIZIA: 

I met Yuan actually in 2016, and, ah, I got myself really embracing everything. And I was close to close to her, close to Leon. And when the unfortunately that that things happened, I was in the first role to take care of the charity. And I’m extremely grateful to be taking care of The House of Good Deeds since day one.

STUART: 

Patrizia, how did you find your way into this interesting world?

PATRIZIA: 

I’m from Italy as you can understand from accent, and since when I was a young girl I always wanted to volunteer for charity, and give all the help possible. But I didn’t trust charities. I’m just so happy that I’m part of an amazing organization that we are building day by day. 

We just started to, our community give away every four months. And then now, we’re doing like a massive giveaway every month because we get donated anything; housewares, shoes, accessories, clothing, any good thing. So, it’s wonderful.

STUART:   

It sounds like a very complicated interplay between the year-round New York work and the Burning Man work. I don’t know, is there a chicken and an egg? Are you a New York community that manifests Burning Man, or do you think of yourself more as a Burning Man community that manifests back home?

LEON: 

Because Burning Man was very important to us we decided to model The House of Good Deeds on the Ten Principles of Burning Man. The concept of The House of Good Deeds is altruism. And in some way, the concept of altruism is what ties all the principles together. You know, obviously the 11th principle is consent. Or, you know, a lot of people have an idea of what it is, or what it means, what it should be.

STUART:   

Sense of humor.

LEON: 

Exactly. Well, yeah, most people, but of course, that’s subjective. But the idea of altruism really ties it together, basically wanting to make the world better and working together to make that happen.

STUART:   

And you see that all in the Ten Principles?

LEON: 

Yeah. I mean, Burning Man, obviously anyone who’s been to a Burn knows how different it is from, the obvious is Coachella, but like any other festival. Thats why Burners don’t like to call it a festival because it has underpinnings of responsibility. Whether it’s, you know, Gifting, Decommodification, things that you don’t find at traditional festivals. A lot of the same people go to both, but when you’re at a Burn, whether Regional or big Burn, you know it. You’re really living the principles and what Yuan and I tried to do was bring that magic, bring that sense of responsibility, not just enjoyment, but like being part of a community, home to New York.

And since we already had our camp, it was easy to kind of require… For example, in order to camp with New York Dangerous now, you need to attend three events before you can find a camp member to sponsor you. And one of those events must be a volunteer event with The House of Good Deeds.

So we want to see not just how much people want to go to Burning Man with us. We want to see how well people can work together as part of a team, and how much people actually care about community rather than just themselves.

STUART:   

That’s interesting. I know a lot of camps, particularly over the long run, struggle with the acculturation issue, right? And how you bring in new people, and make room for them, and still maintain the integrity of the camp. And that sounds like a good way to go about it. It doesn’t always work, though, right? You still have to deal with camp drama occasionally?

PATRIZIA: 

Challenging. I heard one time a mature man say that he never had problems, he had puzzles. I love that. I just had to find the right puzzle in there, and put people together, and make sure that everybody get to know everybody, and the possibility to do that, And it’s my gift to, you know, family that we create. Our camp is very diverse. The community gathering, that’s big part of what we do. We also build families. 

STUART:   

So what’s, what’s ahead for y’all?

LEON: 

Well, The House of Good Deeds just signed a five-year lease in Alphabet City, as Patrizia mentioned. we’re going to be growing even bigger. Unfortunately, a lot of funding has dried up. A lot of community fridges are closing down. And it’s an amazing community, but it’s getting harder for organizations that don’t sell things. And, we are committed to decommodification, so we’re the only organization in New York that does what we do with our own vehicles. We don’t charge anything for the people who donate things. We don’t charge anything for people to come take things. We’re committed to getting as much support from the community as we can, just as volunteers. If you have time, give time. If you have money, give money. If you have energy, give energy. If you have skills, give skills.

We want to grow The House of Good Deeds globally. We have people in 19 different cities around the world that have expressed interest in starting The House of Good Deeds. We just need to make sure it’s workable and solid before we expand. But we’re getting really, really close to that. So, I’m kind of excited. 

Also, as I mentioned, New York Dangerous is taking this year off, but we’ll be back in 2025 with a lot of new ideas and a lot of new enthusiasm, and hopefully we’ll be fully recharged, and be ready to rock it in 2025.

STUART:   

Yeah. This is the year for a lot of people to be taking a breather, and maybe coming back stronger next time, right? 

LEON: 

One of the things New York Dangerous is kind of well known for in New York, is sort of like being an entry to Burning Man camp. We do a lot of acculturation. We do a lot of community events. Like I said, we kind of focus on family. 

So, we want people to get to know each other and understand that it’s not just a place, it’s a whole immersive experience, and a lot of people aren’t really prepared for the mental strain and the lack of comfortable touchstones. Like they can’t just close their door, go to their favorite local bar. They can’t, like, enjoy the air conditioning inside of a door. They can’t call up their friend. It’s a different experience, and people don’t necessarily know what to expect. So we try to acculturate people all the time. 

So the reason I keep coming back? I really love melting people’s brains the way that my brains were melted. I think it’s really kind of exciting just to bring people in and give them the same awe at seeing Esplanade at sundown the way I did.

It’s so hard to describe Burning Man. Until you get thrown in the water with a life jacket on, you won’t really know how a life jacket works. Getting thrown into the playa was, like, such a mind altering experience. And it wasn’t… It had nothing to do with drugs. It had nothing to do with substances. It’s just for me, like, that’s not a part of my life. Just being on playa and experiencing it made me want to come home and tell everyone. So I did. 

This is such an incredible series of experiences between the people that you meet and the mindset. This is like a blank slate. This is a place where people can go and it’s like a sandbox for life. You can try anything, you can do anything. No judgment. Obviously there’s hiccups in every journey, but for the most part, this was a place unlike any I’d ever seen before. That’s why I keep coming back.

STUART:   

Any last thoughts for your friends who aren’t lucky enough to be in Black Rock City, who are trapped back in New York City?

PATRIZIA: 

Start to learn about Ten Principles, and be part of the community. 

LEON: 

Yeah. And if you are interested in volunteering with or learning more about The House of Good Deeds, we have a website, houseofgooddeeds.org. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook at The House of Good Deeds. If you have any ideas, if you want to volunteer, if you have stuff to donate, if you just want to learn more about the community, we’d love to hear from you. We’re, ah… We’re amazing and so are you.

STUART:   

And if you want to get some of your local Burner friends and start a chapter of House of Good Deeds in your city, it sounds like franchise opportunities are available.

LEON: 

Get it now. One low, low price of zero.

STUART:   

I’m gonna make my 11th principle today gratitude, and thank you both very much for stopping by and having a conversation. It’s great to meet you.

LEON: 

It’s lovely to be here.

PATRIZIA: 

Yeah. Thanks so much.

STUART:   

All right. Thanks, Motorbike Matt. Thanks, Larry.

KBOT: 

Hi. 

LEO: 

Hi, Stuart. 

CATARINA: 

Hi Stuart. Hi kbot.

STUART: 

Hello, my friends.

KBOT:  

Hello.

STUART: 

We’re here talking with Leo Vilar and Catalina Pulido behind the infamous Jaguara. 

Is it Jaguara or Jaguara?

LEO: 

Both. In Spanish it’s Jaguara.

STUART:  

Okay, you guys introduce yourselves. I’m sure you’ll do it better than I did.

LEO: 

So this is Leo and Cata. We are partners in life, in Jaguara, and also a company called Sonic Design. We do experiences for live events and motion graphic type of installations, And I’m happy to be here, and Catalina. 

CATALINA: 

I’m Catalina. We are creating experiences since Jaguara was born. We received this call, this mission, to create environmental empathy through art, through the means and the languages that we use for live events. And Jaguara is of course the main project, which has given us a purpose and a call.

STUART: 

Maybe you can describe Jaguara to our listeners. I know a lot of them have been to Burning Man and have probably seen this rather epic art car, vehicle out there, but what’s the Jaguara experience like?

LEO: 

Jaguara is a stage. It was an art car at Burning Man. It’s a sculpture as well. 

CATALINA: 

Jaguara’s head is full of symbology. The whole head is full of sacred geometry symbols. It even has an LH for Larry Harvey, as an homage, with the Galaxia Temple right under the chin because the Jaguara is the connector of the two worlds, this world and the ultra world. Every single detail has a very deep symbology for us related to this ancestral intelligence we are talking about from the Amazon jungle and all of these ancestral technologies that embody the plant medicine and the shamanic thought that embodies the jaguar, right? 

STUART:  

I’m glad we got a little bit more explanation of some of the symbology. That was beautiful. 

LEO: 

We visited Burning Man in 2017, helping a Colombian artist and architect with his project Aluna, which was also based on the cosmology of the indigenous tribes of the northern region of Colombia. One night we went out to the playa, and we had the chance to enjoy the Mayan Warrior experience, and we had a very special night because we said “Oh, this would be really nice if we could one day do something like this.”

The next year we had a special ceremony in a Colombian maloca with some of our friends who visited Burning Man 2017 with us. We had been invited to come back to Burning Man and do an art car, and we had a vision this day that this art cars should be a jaguar, and maybe this project should become like a messenger from the rainforest, to go around the world, and bring some attention to the urgent needs of doing something different and becoming part of the protection of the rainforest as an ecosystem that’s so important for the future of life of humankind in planet Earth. 

This brought Jaguara to life as a stage, as a sculpture, as a movement, as an art car. Then from there lots of great artists, painters, musicians – many people from different areas have joined the idea and have helped us make this dream come true, and evolve into many different experiences and moments after the playa.

KBOT: 

So you had Jaguara on playa one year, and the plan was always to take her off of the playa and out into the world. How did that come together? 

CATALINA: 

Well, it wasn’t like a purposed plan, let’s say. 

The jaguar has a very deep symbolism, not only on the ecological side. It’s the apex predator of the Amazon jungle. So it is the animal in charge of all the biological, ecological balance of the jungle. But it has a very deep symbology in terms of shamanism. The jaguar entity is considered a very powerful spirits. It is the chancellor of shamanic thought for many of the indigenous tribes that live in the Amazon. It is the chancellor of different types of medicines, particularly in Colombia, it’s called yajé, which is a very sacred and powerful medicine that has… since many years, these pictograms of yajé medicine guiding the tribes, and guiding the spirit of the people have been found on rock art in very sacred places in the middle of the Amazon for more than 20,000 years old rock art paintings with this symbolism of the jaguar. And this energy inspired this whole art car movement in 2018. 

Right after that we were just so caught up on the idea of having made it, and all the enthusiasm, and all the incredible stories that happened around it that we just followed the energy and the call of where we needed to go to pursue with this message. And, right after Burning Man, some people from a very incredible institution called the Biennial of the Americas, from Denver, Colorado, reached us. They came to our studio in Bogota. They learned about project and they invited us to become the cultural centerpiece of their festival in Denver, Colorado, right after Burning Man. 

This festival, the Biennial of the Americas, was very symbolic for us because it united the whole of the Americas, north and south, all of the countries. It brought together, political institutions, private enterprise, cultural entities, all of the different aspects of society came together from all of these countries. And for 10 days, all of these people were coming together to speak about sustainability, uniting, putting forces together to create a sustainable America for all of our children. And Jaguara was to be there as a cultural centerpiece, taking this message in these new languages. So, it wasn’t even a choice of saying we should be doing this or that. It was just a call of where we needed to spread the message. Denver, Colorado was also important for us because this is where most of the legislation regarding plant medicine and the rights of nature have evolved in the first place. And this is part of the core message and core reason why we are taking Jaguara to many places to talk to many, many different audiences. Somehow the energy and the project itself has taken other, other paths that we have had to follow.

STUART: 

I’m curious about that educational mission, and particularly since news has gotten so bad lately, I know that there’s a lot of fatigue, there’s a lot of what people are calling eco-grief. How do you move people back into a position of actually, of caring and thinking that they can do something about the problems of the world?

CATARINA: 

Well, I wish we could say that we are absolutely changing other people’s minds. We are doing a whole lot trying to do so, but we have found that Jaguara, through art, music, through a beautiful light spectacle with lots of technology, has in a way opened a new way, a new narrative, a new language, and has changed the narrative in some way, we hope, in how conservation and all of these actions are traditionally presented, at least from our experience, right? 

So, many times environmentalists and conservation and nature eco-friendliness is shown on the one side, and then perhaps tech, fashion, music, and all of these cool movements are not necessarily on the side of this, right? So what has happened with Jaguara is that we think that through these experiences we are talking to a very large audience that not necessarily has been introduced or has been interested in this environmental conservation narrative. So this has allowed us to reach different people. Kids as well, you know? 

LEO:

It’s a very good question. Many people ask, what are you actually doing for the rainforest? One really nice example, after we came to Denver, and were there with all the people driving the Biennial of the Americas from Colorado, Warren Buffett came to Columbia to do one of the biggest donations for the conservation of Chiribiquete, the area that we are talking about all the time where all this rock art from the Amazon comes from. And, uh, I don’t know, we have a hope that maybe he learned about Chiribiquete through our visit to Denver and our conversation there. 

But it’s fascinating that for some particular reason, Jaguara creates like a really special vibe anywhere she goes. And it’s very special for us to see how lots of people working around indigenous cultures, and biodiversity, and ancestral consciousness, they found it fascinating to be able to come on top of this big jaguar and give a speech, share some words, and see how people react. It’s like a very special platform to grab lots of people’s attention.

Yeah, and I myself, I didn’t know I was born in this land of jaguars and shamans until later in my life where I learned all this big symbology of this cat, and how meaningful it is for like a very wide spectrum. So I don’t know, it’s fun. We try to teach lots of Colombian kids also that they come from this land of the jaguar.

KBOT: 

So how did Jaguara voyage back to Colombia? What was that like?

CATALINA: 

After Denver we were in the middle of very interesting conversations with different people around the world. At the time, I remember we were exploring possibilities for the Tokyo Olympics, and for Glastonbury Green Festival, they wanted to open this whole new, really sustainable area. They were thinking of Jaguara. 

LEO: 

And Argentina for the Patagonia Festival. We were in talks with…

CATALINA: 

Typhaine, from the Burning Man organization. There were so many things we were actually exploring at the time, and then pandemics came. 

We managed to have Jaguara come back to Colombia because we were actually hoping to have Jaguara for some time home, to actually improve many of the structural aspects of it, so that it could become more tour friendly. It had been quite a miracle and so hard to have her work on playa. 

And then suddenly pandemics came and Jaguara was stuck here in Colombia with us. We were all stuck, of course. And then something really beautiful happened.

We are living outside Bogota, right next to a very unique amusement park in Colombia. Let’s say this is our very local and traditionally Colombian Disney version, called Parque Jaime Duque, and it was created by a very crazy pilot 40 years ago. At that time, not many people from Colombia could travel the world, so he decided to create this park so that all Colombians could see the marvels of the world and discover the country. And so he created this whole beautiful amusement park which has migrated towards ecological park with many natural reserves, a specialized zoo, but only for animals rescued from traffic. And they are the ones conserving the condor in Colombia. I mean, they have a really really beautiful project.

They were shut down because of pandemics. We were shut down too because there was no events whatsoever, so we just asked them to let us work, so we were working for several months with doors closed, just trying to see what we could do with this park. And I actually remember we had Jaguara there and I was telling Leo, this is the closest I’ve ever seen to Burning Man, because it was like, know, no, it was just this type of Burning Man feeling, you know, very in a way. 

So we just created this whole experience actually. And it’s opened up on the November 28th, 2020. This is the International Day of the Jaguar that we have been celebrating ever since. This has been declared by UNESCO, so to give importance to the ecological role of this species.

We called upon all of our friends because we were really really at the end of our, um,

LEO:

Everything. 

CATALINA: 

…everything, energy deposits, earnings, savings, everything. 

And so we opened this experience with Jaguara there. We took everything in the park that was not being used since 40 years, basically. All the old merry-go-round, things that were thrown everywhere, and we created this outdoor theater out of recycled stuff. This was the first place that was allowed to operate because it was open air, and it was a park. We opened with the Day of the Jaguar, all of our friends helping. Nobody had money. No artists had had work for many, many months. So everybody just came out to help very much in the spirit.

We started operating this experience every weekends for almost two years. And Jaguara was the main piece, basically, Jaguara was the main stage of this whole new area we created in this park. 85 shows with all local artists, and of course it was almost free, you know, the park paid us just very symbolic. 

LEO: 

Yeah, it was beautiful. 

CATALINA: 

It was beautiful.

LEO:

whole families. 

CATALINA: 

Kids from Colombia coming to experience the whole message, music, art. 

LEO: 

That was special. That was the grandfather and little kid, five years old dancing together to some electronic Latin music on top of the jaguar. That was the playground during COVID times for us.

STUART: 

That’s lovely. Hey, what’s the installation you’re working on right now?

LEO: 

For the COP16 conference that will come to Cali. We have the Jaguara stage to host some great performances and talks about biodiversity and conservation. Then we have a 25 meter dome. We’re building a very beautiful story going through all the Colombian biodiversity landscapes, visiting very special sacred areas starting in the Amazon and going up north to the Sierra Nevada.

After this visit through all this beauty and landscapes in good conditions, we’re going to go to all the challenges and problems that are happening right now, all the fires in the forest and the rivers, all the problems that we’re looking at right now. 

Then at the end we look at some positive actions worldwide for people cleaning oceans, rivers, helping reforest areas, and many different inspirational projects from around the world. Then we have the Jaguara for the concerts and performances and conferences. And we will be presenting some movies also national parks in columbia we’re doing an installation showing the dreams of Cali as a more sustainable city. 

And then Jaguara just arrived today from Mexico because she was at the EDC music festival where we were invited. Yeah, it’s gonna be very exciting. 

LEO: 

All these things have been inspired by Burning Man forever because when people say, “Wow, this is very challenging here,” it’s like, “No, this is very easy. We’ve done it. We’ve done worse.”

CATALINA: 

Everything seems easier when you’re not in the middle of the desert.

KBOT: 

Are there things you learned at Burning Man that you brought into your current projects?

CATALINA: 

So many things, really. We have been totally transformed, inspired and touched profoundly by Burning Man. With those two experiences, those beautiful projects and everybody we knew, that happened to us, all the magic of making these projects happen. It has totally transformed our… our life really. Our work has gained a deeper purpose.

LEO: 

Yeah, I would say in very practical terms, it’s just like the spectrum, the dynamic range of what’s possible and what’s not, has been extremely… 

CATALINA: 

widened!

LEO: 

…taken to another level, of course, yeah.

KBOT: 

What about logistical skills? So you talk about how when you’re in Columbia, people say, this is so hard, and you say it’s nothing compared to Burning Man. What kinds of hard skills did you learn in the desert that you brought back?

LEO:

Every day we were setting up lights, lasers, sound, video projectors, domes. Being able to set up Jaguar, which was only like a crew of 15 people. Three of us had no bikes, including myself, no lights to go to the bathroom or anything, like very very… 

CATARINA: 

Basic

LEO:
Basic. We just don’t know how we were able to pull it out in 2018 and make it move, and got all the tools, and it worked, and looked beautiful too because, it worked! It’s very magic. 

But then, more than these logistical skills and like release of any fear, it’s just incredible that an art car changed our daily life. There is not one day in our house that we’re not talking or discussing about this, or talking to a friend –alll the crew around is being so positively affected by this experience at the playa. It’s just on so many levels that I would not even say we learned things, we just learned like new ways of life or… many levels.

STUART: 

Do you think there’s a chance you might bring it back in years to come?

CATARINA: 

We definitely wish. We would love to. Burning Man is like…

We hope we will make it. I don’t know when exactly. We are always telling… We have two kids, nine and eleven, and of course they live this whole situation with us all the time because they are traveling with us, helping us work. You know, they’re totally part of our team. 

LEO: 

Circus. 

CATALINA: 

Circus. And so of course they dream of coming with us to Burning Man to bring Jaguara again, and we wish we will make it.

LEO: 

We had the fortune these last months to get in touch with some people from Burning Man and the community, and…

CATARINA: 

Chris and Martin from Burners Without Borders. 

LEO:

Chris and Martin.

CATARINA: 

This whole energy is becoming very present again. 

LEO: 

We’re happy to tell the story on what’s been going on with us.

KBOT:  

The amusement park story I find particularly fascinating. It’s really exciting that you’re doing what you’re doing now, but for me personally, I was like, “What? You took over an amusement park during COVID? That’s so hardcore.

LEO: 

Thank you so much.

CATALINA: 

Thank you so much for this space. We are honored.

KBOT: 

Yeah, thank you too.

STUART: 

Best of luck with wherever else the road takes you and Jaguara. Thank you, Leo. Thank you, Catalina.

LEO: 

Bye.

KBOT: 

So this is part of our interview series on camps that took the year off in 2024 and did other amazing, fun, weird, and clever things because, you know, when you don’t go to Burning Man, you know, life doesn’t stop. 

So we’re here with Zoe, and your playa name is Jeff. Is that correct?

ZOE: 

Yes. J E F F. None of that G E O bullshit.

KBOT: 

And tell me about your camp.

ZOE: 

We are called Starbarf. We are all Starbarf. Uh. We’ve done all kinds of things. We’re basically just a collection of friends who love, making weird art, doing weird things. In 2023, we went as the Playa Pool Party. We had made a pool filled with “water” that you could go and hang out in. And our theme was noodles. So the pool is filled with pool noodles, but we also had noodles that we would make. We did ramen at 2 a.m. So it was Hot Noods and Pool Noods. That’s it…

KBOT: 

Amazing. 

And then 2024 came along and many camps were given the option to just take a little break for a year without losing their standing. 200 and something camps did that; big ones, little ones, old ones, new ones, and Starbarf took the year off. Why?

ZOE: 

We kind of burnt ourselves out. In addition to doing Hot Noods, we were also an art support camp. We were helping out with our dear friends Kendrick and Diana’s art piece called The Lovers. It was beautiful. It was a 12 foot tall tarot card, the Lovers card, but it was T for T, so trans for trans. And the figures in the lovers card were both trans. And they were based on classic works of art: Venus on the Half Shell and the David holding little rocks. But the card itself was multiple panels that when looked at straight on looked like a flat plane, but sideways was a lot, sort of going back and back and back. And that was, that was the serious building. And in a lot of our camp members, not only did the Hot Noods, but worked on the art support. 

And so I think we were kind of like, “Okay, this is probably the year. This is the year that we rest.” But none of us rested. Some of us went.

KBOT: 

Was that a hard decision for you to rest?

ZOE: 

I think it was. You know, I am not a lead of our camp. I’m just an extremely enthusiastic weirdo. And, so I think it was tough for a lot of people not to go. And those of us that did go kind of found each other on playa. So that was really cool. We called it our study abroad, all the camps we ended up in. So we love our host families. 

Even, so I’m a Ranger and some other of us are Rangers, and they camped at Berlin. So that was interesting. Oh, no, sorry. They were at Tokyo. It was cool to see how the Rangers do it. I’ve always camped with friends and not the Rangers, so that was an interesting thing to see. Other people were Walk In camping; it just forced us to have a wider view of the playa just by virtue of trying to find each other.

KBOT: 

And then you took on new and exciting projects during your year off as well, because even though you were in Black Rock City, there’s all the hours and hours of planning and prep that you suddenly don’t have to do when you’re not in a camp. What did y’all get up to?

ZOE: 

We got up to a lot. We have a political organizing arm of Starbarf initially called Starbarf Unites, which then became Thirty Friends Organizing. In 2020, we did a lot of GOTV work. 

KBOT: 

What is GOTV?

ZOE: 

Get Out the Vote!

KBOT: 

Oh. Perfect. Okay. I’m Canadian, so I’m sure Americans know that, but I had no idea. Okay. 

ZOE: 

I work in my default job, I’m the head of creative content for a large environmental organization. So I’m able to do essentially what I do for work on my off hours for, um, democracy. And that was really nice. A lot of us are creatives of various types. Um, so we did that in 2020 to get a lot of people to the polls. And now we’re doing it again. 

So having some of that planning off our shoulders opened up space to be making cool memes that help people registered to vote. Also, we’re doing a lot of campaigning on the ground, things like that. 

And additionally, me and a couple other Starbarfers started a band.

KBOT: 

Just like that.

ZOE: 

Yeah. And just like that, we’re in a band.

KBOT: 

So what kind of band is it?

ZOE: 

Yeah. We are a queer punk band called The Furious Tits, and our logo is like boobs with angry eyebrows. We do really snarky political punk, including our our hit single, Be Gay Do Crimes and All Jobs Are Bad. Our new big one that everybody’s into is called Costco Dom, about a dom who takes her client to Costco, and if he misbehaves no samples.

KBOT: 

So you’re playing shows already?

ZOE: 

Yeah. We’ve been playing shows for a while. It’s a hoot. It’s… We’re based in the Bay Area. So the San Francisco Oakland punk scene is, it’s great. It’s so welcoming, and fun, and we’ve already made friends with so many other bands that we play shows with.

So that when you’re not, you know, figuring out your camp and deciding how you’re going to sustain yourself for a week, you can do a lot!

KBOT: 

That’s wild. So from political advocacy, I suppose it is, to punk rock shows. Do they intersect somewhere?

ZOE: 

Oh, they absolutely do. And our song Be Gay Do Crimes, one of my favorite lines is, when we’re listing the crimes that you can do, one of them is “Give bottled water to Georgia voters!” — things like that.

KBOT: 

Why is it important to put your creative skillset to work for, not for profit causes?

ZOE:

It’s very much an extension of kind of the Ten Principles and how to integrate them into our lives. Art, for art’s sake, is real. But there are some other sakes in there too. And I know I connect best through creative work with other people, like when I’m talking about making something or we’re making something together. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. So the more I can kind of collaborate with the people I love, the more real, and the more effective I feel like my work becomes. And this is what I want to do. I get, I think, some of the most pleasure in my life from making, writing, music, creating something that can in some way make the world a better place.

KBOT:

So you’re going back in 2025 with your camp? Everything’s back on board?

ZOE:

Yeah. We’re stoked. We can’t wait!

KBOT:

How are you preparing?

ZOE:

We have a Signal channel that we just call “Friendship Chaos.” Ideas are getting thrown around there. Like fun things that we’re thinking about doing or yeah, just like dreaming big. We will. And who knows what’s going to happen. We’re deciding if the pool’s coming back out or not? Or is it going to be noodles? I think the like, thing that ties our camp together is we love each other, and a lot of us are queer. That’s kind of it. So it leaves a lot of space for all the kinds of things that you can do.

KBOT:

Yeah. It’s not like we have to do this one thing every year because that’s what we’re known for. You can sort of change it up.

ZOE:

Definitely.

KBOT:

You have renewed energy, I assume. Are there opportunities to sort of like change it up in a big way? Or are you just happy to be back together again?

ZOE: 

Hm. Interesting. Yeah, I don’t know. Knowing us our happiness to be back together again, which is so true, will translate into “We’re going to do something wild!” What that thing is, we will find out!

But we’re part of an amazing hub. So we often camp with Cloudy AF, The Love Plumbers (formerly known as Sexy AF), and The Shire. So we’re usually a city block, um, and I know our hub is up to some really fun things already. So my guess is we’re going to cook something up as four camps together. But we’ll see.

KBOT: 

Crazy. 

Okay, one last question, actually, two last questions. First, last question is: What have you learned from your year off doing advocacy and starting a band? How did that all come together for you?

ZOE: 

I have learned that you will always be disappointed in the amount that you can accomplish in a single day, but shocked by the amount that you can accomplish in a year. That’s my big takeaway.

I just have never been more grateful for my friends and more proud of them and what and the skills that they bring and the things that they can do. Like with the political advocacy and with the political advocacy. I can just send out a text to four designers and one of them is working on a GOTV ad within 20 minutes. And these are some of the closest people in my life. 

A lot of us have had kids. So, seeing how things have moved with the friends who now have kids and their kids are part of the friend group and what that looks like. And instead of going to a long rave over a weekend, we’re doing family camp. That’s been really amazing. And I think creating the space for the kids and seeing how easily we can adapt, helped me see how easily we could adapt our skills for something else, like the band, for the political organizing. And we can; we actually can.

KBOT: 

Amazing. Is there anything we haven’t said that you really want to say and share with the Burning Man universe?

ZOE: 

Yeah, actually there is! So our band, The Furious Tits, we take orders for songs. So if you think to yourself, “Man, I really need a punk song about X,” you can contact us and we will write it. Some of our best songs are actually orders filled, so, our hope was to get some ideas by reaching out to the Burning Man community to see what people wanted a punk song about.

KBOT: 

Oh my God, I love that. So how does someone submit their punk rock song idea to you?

ZOE: 

You can find us on the social medias. We also have a website, furioustits.com. Yeah, we’re we’re entering a whole new songwriting phase and we’re looking for ideas.

KBOT: 

Can you make one about a teenager that makes too many peanut butter sandwiches and then just blows up the kitchen in such a way that it is almost uncleanable?

ZOE: 

Yes we can.

KBOT: 

Okay. Thank you!

ZOE:

You got it, kbot!

KBOT: 

And finally, what is the purpose of Burning Man in the world? Why do we do this Burning Man thing, and how does it change the world?

ZOE: 

I think Burning Man changes the world in the way that good fiction changes the world. It shows us that another world is possible, but it does it in a truly experiential way. Like instead of reading about that other world, you get rocketed into it and you are there and you see yourself living it, and then hopefully you take it back with you.

KBOT: 

Amazing. 

Okay. I think we’re good! 

ZOE:

Oh, kbot. It was lovely talking with you!

KBOT:

Likewise!

 

STUART: 

Okay, that’s all we’ve got for this episode. 

Thanks for listening. 

Burning Man Live is, as always, a nonprofit production of the nonprofit Burning Man Project, made possible in part by your generous donations at donate.burningman.org. 

Thanks to everyone who made this one possible: Leon and Patricia, Leo and Catarina, and Zoe.

Thanks to Motorbike Matt and the Burning Man webcast team for sharing their recording container out in the dust. 

And big appreciations to the Burning Man Live production team. Vav-Michael-Vav, kbot, Actiongirl, Allie, and DJ Toil. 

And as always, thanks, Larry.

 

 

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