On July 14, 2018, Rosalie Barnes and I hosted “The Man With the Hat: A Celebration of Larry Harvey’s Life and Legacy,” at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre.
It was initially slated to be a storytelling event in honor of Larry’s love of language, talking and storytelling, but it soon morphed (as any good Burning Man project will) into a full-blown multimedia event with live music, video, dance, performance, processions and, naturally, a raucous marching band. With a packed house of Burning Man community members old and new, it was a truly beautiful evening of celebration, tribute, and inspiration.
We wanted to share this experience with those who weren’t able to attend in person. But most importantly, we wanted to share the stories — because after all, Burning Man was built on storytelling. How else would a gathering of 80-some-odd freaks in the vast nowhere of the Black Rock Desert grow into a thriving annual metropolis of 75,000+ souls? Because people went home and told their friends about it.
The wonderful stories told at The Castro shine a light on Larry in quite possibly the best way: through the perspective of those who knew and loved him, and were mentored or inspired by his philosophical leadership. Thank you to everybody who participated, but especially our storytellers including Harley K. DuBois, Kate Raudenbush, Jerry James, Andrew Johnstone, Stewart Harvey, Bryan Harvey, Tristan Harvey, Flash Hopkins, Jennifer Raiser, Stephen Raspa, Brian Doherty, Tony “Coyote” Perez-Banuet, P Segal, and Marian Goodell.
All proceeds from the event were donated to The Larry Harvey Art & Philosophy Fund — if you’re inspired, please make a donation in Larry’s honor. We hope you enjoy these stories, and more importantly, we hope you share them. Here’s the full playlist, and here they are, in order:
Somehow the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah,” the one Caveat sang so effortlessly with great passion and power, was stuck in my head for a week before hearing his rendition of it on BMIR twice. Both times it dragged a dusty tear out of me and was exactly what I needed to hear.
I was having a tough time on a few nights this past burn. The morning of the man burn I found out an old friend had a mass in her brain and was in ICU.
I couldn’t do anything about the circumstances and I had little information other than the mass possibly being brain cancer or something involving a gnarly stroke. I didn’t know how long she would live or what would happen. I think I could have made some arrangement to leave Black Rock City, but it would have been chaotic and expensive, and it wouldn’t have helped. I did my best to focus on other things while quietly humming the song to myself.
A few years earlier, my wife’s mother died in Texas on man burn night, so that was on my mind as I was trying not to think of my friend.
So, Caveat made me cry and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I was happy to finally share the recording with my wife and play it on something better quality than a small Sony transistor radio.
(My friend is doing much better, given the circumstances)
Report comment
We need more memorials for Larry Harvey. More people talking endlessly about him. He was a Saint. Many people have said that he came back to life on the 3rd day. I’ve also heard that his body levitated 3 feet off of the ground. More needs to be explored about this spiritual man.
Report comment
Comments are closed.