A Hot Time
BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — Picture this: Twenty-five thousand people communing in an empty stretch of desert. A place where an unrelenting sun scorches the skin of the barely clothed, and random, blinding dust storms bring visibility to zero. And this is something that people pay money to be a part of. This is Burning Man.
What started as an act of art on a San Francisco beach in the mid-1980s has evolved into a desert festival of radical self-expression that attracts people from all over the world. They come once a year for a week to make art, to play music and to be free from the norms put in place by traditional society. And free to dress in creative costumes. The spirit is one of community and giving. It is a place where no one expects anything in return for their individual acts of kindness.
And then there is the Man, 70 feet high. His demise is what everyone came to see. At the culmination last Saturday of a week of living in a harsh environment, surviving on little sleep and no real shower, anticipation grows as night falls over the terrain. Thousands surround the structure and in a hail of pyrotechnics shooting skyward, the man flames bright, stands long, but ultimately falls.
