In the Place of Cool

Personally, I have never been a prime spokesperson for the feelings or thoughts for "my generation". There is just something about me that thinks that some things are just way cooler than others see it (I believe this is the rise of nerd cool that has risen in our generation in the last decade). There are many places and times throughout history, and hopefully will continue to be, that are considered cool.

When many people with a common interest to express themselves and to create art get together in a common place, an air of cool clouds over that settlement like the spread of a wild fire. The city springs up almost over night, that is with months of planing, the time is every year for a week at the end of August. Tens of thousands of people arrive, themed camps spring up, mobile sculptures move around freely, freedom of expression is enforced and a must. This city exists for just this week in the middle of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The coolest of desert cities is known as Black Rock City, and even though it is only inhabited for a few weeks at a time it is the coolest of cool. The city is an explosion of the cultural love for art and expression brought about by the Burning Man Project. That is right, the city is the site for the annual Burning Man Festival.

This city might not be seen by most as cool, but it is. Groups of people together because they do something cool, like make a flock of mobile cupcakes, or have huge art exhibits for the rest of the people to enjoy. The freedom and lively hood of the city over that short week lets me think that it is cooler than all the other cities that are around all year and into history. These people join together for a sole purpose to share there love for art, and this is cool.