Last night at Trans Am I ran into a fellow Comfort and Joy campmate who told me he had been contacted by another campmate on the Playa who told him that the suicide at Burning Man had been committed at Comfort and Joy. This morning I got confirmation though the SFGate Burning Blog that this indeed was the case and that the suicide, who was not a member of C&J, had hung himself from a beam in the tent that housed a small public gym. According to our campmate on the playa, the suicide hung himself in the early morning, and people passing by had thought that it was a mannequin or dummy. According to the SFGate, people had been using the gym while the body hung there, also not realizing that it was real. Though many many wonder how you could have a dead body hanging above you and not realize that it was real, I can only say that, among the many surreal things you might expect to see at Burning Man, a suicide by hanging is not one of them, and I'm sure people were much more ready to believe that it was a fake rather than real.
PLEASE SEE THE UPDATE POST
Why, with the hundreds of camps and structures at Burning Man, did this had to happen in one belonging to Comfort and Joy? My first thought was that perhaps the vicitim was drawn there by the name itself, and that his choice of camps was intended as a statement. Once the victim is identified I hope that some of this will be figured out. Meanwhile, I can only wonder what my campmates are going through right now, and I hope that that they are finding ways to deal with this experience.
2 comments:
I'm not at all surprised that no-one knew he was a real dead person. I've sometimes wondered as I walk by guys passed out in our 'hood whether some of them might be dead. They could be, you know, and we wouldn't know it.
When I first heard this happened at Comfort & Joy, my heart sank even further.
I hope that everyone in that camp is okay and getting whatever help they might need to deall with this.
Much love to all of them.
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