The Man burned on Monday
BLACK ROCK CITY, Nevada--The Man burned Monday night. Seriously.
For years at Burning Man, the joke has been, "We should burn the Man on Wednesday."
The Man, of course, is the tall wooden figure at the center of the annual countercultural arts festival.
Well, late Monday night--OK, early Tuesday morning--the mantra came true.
As groups of people were gathered around, watching the eclipse of the moon, just as the moon went into full eclipse, word--which I listened to--started to filter across "Com," the official Burning Man organizational radio communications system, that someone had set the Man ablaze.
In the first moments, it sounded like a joke. But within a minute, the reports were that one of the Man's legs was on fire.
People in earshot of the radio--carried by many volunteers and staff members--rushed to places where they could see if the reports were true. They almost completely forgot that the eclipse was happening.
And within the shortest period of time--maybe five minutes, the wooden figure was completely engulfed.
On Com, most of the officials discussing what to do were remarkably calm. I was impressed, though, of course, that this has to have been a contingency that has been rehearsed again and again.
Still, it took several minutes before fire crews were able to get water onto the Man, and it is likely that, though it did not fall, it is irretrievably damaged.
As a reporter, I apologize for not being able to provide a photograph, but the burning took place so quickly, there wasn't time to grab my camera.
In any case, perhaps the most poignant moment of all, however, was when Crimson Rose, one of the six people on the Burning Man board that runs the event and the person in charge of the Man, said, on Com, "I want that asshole arrested....And I want the first shot."
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel.
countercultural event (yeah, right) it into a perfectly planned,
organized, and controlled meeting of hippie wannabes. The voices
told him to burn the man... too bad for those who weren't there to
enjoy the show. Anyway, greetings from the Bay Area and its
beautiful weather!
"was when Crimson Rose, ..., said, on Com, "I want that *******
arrested....And I want the first shot.""
Is this "counterculture" or just "George W. Bush's culture"?
Here we live in a country that does not have Universal health care, Universal Education, and many other social services of European countries, as a result of which we are getting poorer and poorer as evident by the ever falling Dollar vs Euro and the weakling housing market in US vs strengthening housing market in Europe. Here we are a country that is in its 5th year of occupying
a small defenses country of Iraq and having brought it unimaginable death, misery & Genocide and these pathetic losers rather than demonstrating about these injustices by having demonstrations in DC or elsewhere they go to the desert in Nevada, act like they are enlighten silicon valley digiteriats and set a wooden statue on fire!
Viv La France indeed. For if there was all that is wrong in US in France, the French people would be demonstrating in the streets of Paris and elsewhere, burning down those SOBs who were responsible for these injustices. And not going to the desert to burn down a wooden man.
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/08/28/burning-the-man-with-hunter-s-thompson/
WHO CARES?