Patrick Coolican: Previous Posts

Patrick Coolican is a staff writer at the Sun. E-mail Patrick.

Story: Burning Man sees green

For a few years, many of the festival’s more than 40,000 annual participants, called Burners, have become increasingly uncomfortable with Burning Man’s environmental portfolio. The thousands of cars driving in from all over the country, as well Burners flying in from around the world; the gas-powered generators that hum through the nearly five square miles of campsites and art installations; the from-the-dust city that rises where nature intended none. This year, Burning Man organizers said, enough. For the first time, they decided on an overtly political theme. They would make Burning Man a green event and encourage the community to adopt the same standard.

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Diary: Seen during a brief sojourn

My brief sojourn at Burning Man is finished, and I’m back in Reno, having passed a half dozen Burners pulled over on Nevada highways by state patrol. Is displaying “Destination: Burning Man” probable cause to search? It shouldn’t be; I actually saw far less illicit/unhealthy behavior than any concert or festival I’ve been to. So, what did I see?

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Diary: Eccentricities abound as Burners go green

Sun photographer Tiffany Brown just showed me a photo of a guy with a green outfit covered in green stuffed animals — bears, turtles, frogs, aliens, octopus — that he spent nine months un-stuffing before sewing them to his green fuzzy outfit. Eccentric, yes, but also a manifestation of the lengths people will go to […]

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Diary: On the surreality of the early burn

When we arrive at Burning Man early Tuesday morning, the moon is full and bright, the lunar eclipse having just passed. The subtlest blue is rising on the eastern horizon, a bare hint of sunrise. Sun photographer Tiffany Brown and I are cycling on what’s known at this massive art festival and experiment in alternative living as The Playa. It’s miles long and wide, the dry bed of Lake Lahontan. The hard and flat surface make for easy cycling. We pedal about a half mile to the pavilion where the wooden sculpture, the Man, stands 40-feet in the air.

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Las Vegas Sun journalists Tiffany Brown, J. Patrick Coolican, Kristen Peterson and Zach Wise report from the 22nd annual festival. Burning Man has grown from a small event on a San Francisco beach into an eight-day celebration of life on The Playa, an ancient dry lake bed in northern Nevada. About 40,000 people are take the nomadic journey to the site in the Black Rock Desert, including some 50 to 250 "burners" from Las Vegas.

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