Burning Man as a small world phenomena

One of the interesting difficulties I have had with this research is re-contacting several interviewees and other people who helped with my research, so that I could gift them with my book and catch up on changes in their lives. While a social networking website has made this search process much easier, particularly when one person is linked with a cluster of other people, a few people are not so easy to find, particularly if their names have changed (or if they go by Burner names) or if they have lost contact with others.

During the past few months, I was stumped by how to reach three persons (Sasha Malchik, Ami Katz, and Marat Garagutdinov) who had done the 2005 Trainspotting art project, as their art project webpage had expired, and I could find no mention of their names online. About two weekends ago, I was at a birthday party attended mostly by Soviet ex-pats in Queens, NYC. When we veered onto the topic of Burning Man, one person mentioned that their friends had worked on art project involving a train station. So that’s how I found the Trainspotting artists! So, who knows what information you can find in the backyard of Queens? 🙂