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Burning Man

Burning Man

Date: Sep 05 2006

Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Every summer, thousands of people gather for a week in the Nevada desert for the Burning Man Festival. The focus of the festival: Community, art, and self-reliance. Last year, over 35,000 people attended.

Participants are required to bring everything they will need to survive the week: food, water and shelter. If you want to play music on a stage, you’ll have to build it. Folks build useful structures and make all kinds of art and sculptures. There’s music and plenty of partying too.

Listen to Emily and Logan decide if they should go this year.

Dialog

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Emily

Emily

Logan

Logan

Emily:  We gotta get our tickets for Burning Man.

Logan:  Oh, yeah, I’m still debating that. That’s, uh, one of those free-for-all drug-induced, kind of, events, that go on in the middle of the desert, right?

Emily:  Uh, yeah, it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, definitely. Um, it’s, it’s very, like, creative and fun, and…

Logan:  It’s an art, kind of an art thing, right?

Emily:  Uh, yeah, it’s like a big community, a big camping community that gets put together once a year, and it’s just a lot of partying and fun, and I think you have to barter for everything when you’re there.

Logan:  That’s what I heard, like, yeah, if you want, if you want to get…

Emily:  Food, or like, service, or beer, or anything.

Logan:  Yeah, you have to give up something or whatever. And I heard at the end of the entire, the whole scene, they just burn everything, hence the name Burning Man. They burn all the art, they just burn it all to the ground, these huge sculptures, they just burn to the ground. Everything just burns.

Emily:  That’s crazy. Um, yeah, it seems like a really fun camping extravaganza out in the middle of the desert.

Logan:  I also heard about that… that if… this is one of my friends that went to it. He said that if you dress up like an animal and you run around, they have this, this cargo van that goes around and catches you and brings you into the jail and makes you drink, and then once you’re, you’re all drunk, they let you go.

Emily:  Wow. So, some crazy boozing games, basically?

Logan:  I guess, dressing up as an animal, getting caught like, you know, you’re a wild animal, and making you drink, I guess that’s, you know…

Emily:  Sounds like a good time. we should definitely, uh, consider going. I’ll bet there’s thousands and thousands of people that go.

Logan:  I’ll be an animal. I don’t care. I’ll do it.

 

Quizzes

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Discussion

This is a typical conversation for people who have never been to Burning Man. Folks usually tell stories they have heard from friends and they have questions too.

Logan is right about the big burn. On the last night of the festival, they burn a giant sculpture of a man that has been built during the week. A lot of the other temporary structures and art are burned too, as a way to clean up the mess.

Emily is also correct. There is no money exchanged at the festival. It sounds like she wants to go.

What do you think of that drinking game? Have you ever been to a festival like Burning Man?


Burning Man

 

Comments

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ola3

ola3Super Member!

Ukraine

I’d say it’s an alcoholic festival. Dressed like an animal:)))

01:15 PM Apr 19 2016 |

peppermint_91

Germany

Gosh,that sounds so crazy.

08:23 PM Sep 05 2006 |

KOMOO

KOMOO

Taiwan

It’s so carzy.

07:43 AM Sep 05 2006 |

yorzi

yorzi

China

crazy party and an exciting festival.

03:46 AM Sep 05 2006 |

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