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  4. The fiery climax of it all

  The demonstration associated with the banning of the 'Jiffy lube' sign from public view took place Saturday noon as a crowd accompanied the anal sex artwork billboard to Center Camp, where speeches advocating freedom of expression were made. While the sign was being moved Rangers fanned out, especially to a camp devoted to child care, and effectively enforced a quarantine on children being within line of sight imposed by the police. Law enforcement officials threatened to file federal charges against various people if children were allowed to see the sign. 'Community standards' were apparently invoked even though the community was in fact Black Rock City and not the tiny nearby town of Gerlach. Another potentially offensive billboard I saw could have caused complaints, being to say the least rather blasphemous, but nothing came of it.
I spent Saturday largely spent hanging around my camp, being lazy for a change, knowing I would be on my feet a lot that night. I decided to get a front row seat for this burn as I did last year, so before sunset we had to be in position to claim a space. Even when the sun was low in the western sky the walk to the Man was still only one of many directions of travel, so there was no particular crowd yet by the time we arrived.

  The last 'magic hour' of daylight was coloring the surroundings, yellow-orange and dark turquoise blue stripes and dabs vividly rubbing against each other. I tried to keep from drying out yet take my water in modest sips beginning three hours from being out there to avoid later discomfort. We stood at our chosen spot along the circle of lights, apparently the first ones to do so. Once our location was settled, the waiting began. The Sun had just set, still glowing behind the mountains, and the lighting was still bright and soft. The rising moon presented itself on the opposite end of the sky as a luminous orange dome seemingly emerging from a distant mountain range. A startling amount of detail was evident on the lunar disk, the brighter zones around some major craters clearly distinguishable from each other. Steadily the day ended around me and I wandered about and enjoyed the last interval of time before the area within a 200 foot radius of the Man, marked by the lights, would be cleared. The base itself was roped off, and intensive preparations could be glimpsed within it's well guarded interior. For just a moment, I marvel at the wooden neon effigy one more time and then take a last photo from this close.

  A group of nude people appeared, each dyed head to toe in a different fluorescent color, including their hair. They were unbelievably vivid against the light gray surroundings, the chroma of everything for me turned up a notch in pulsing glowing waves. They danced among themselves and their afterimages played against each other like ghosts slightly out of time with reality. Drums and flutes came and went, and more people drifted in to spend their final time with the Man.
  The weather was clearing, with broad cirrus clouds catching the last pink rays of the sun. A constant gray dust fog hugged the horizon. It was going to be a beautiful night for a burn. I began to make my way to the area my friends had staked out as the clearing of the immediate area began. Looking about after rejoining my friends, the number of people converging on the area was obviously growing. Here and there others were positioned along the circle of lights, most with camera gear. A few photographers trying to enter the inner zone were politely turned away, but one persistent individual claiming special privileges moved to another group of Rangers and disappeared into the background. More people began arriving in groups which grew until less of the outside playa was visible.

  The Mans arms were up, something happening after dark in earlier years. Across the tent city the exodus was on. Soon the entire circle was tightly filled with people. The Rangers were deployed in intervals in the cleared area to keep everyone behind the lights. Many more people gathered beyond the inner circle, and yet more until we were at the inner border of a crowd of thousands. Soon the first dozen layers of people were directed to sit down to allow those behind to see. A Ranger nearby addressed the people very much like last year, but rather relaxed and quite candid. He told us at one point if we saw a blue fire engine heading into the circle it would be time to run like hell the other way! The risk is detectable but reasonable for an unimpeded view, but actually anywhere in the line of sight is good once the terminal fireworks begin. About the only thing I feared was a fire cannon tipping on its side in my direction. As darkness gradually came dust clouds occasionally passed across the crowd, but overall it was clear and beautiful with a cooling breeze. The remaining blue of daytime retreated westwards into a twilight glow, punctuated by red flares and other fireworks. The moonlight was a steadily increasing contributor to the lighting.
  The neon now outlined the Man in streaks of light which always seemed on the verge of spilling out beyond their paths, and the nearby darkness was stirred by many animated flames carried by performers filtering into the cleared zone. Dozens of fire dancers, people on stilts, and a few in elaborate costumes swung, whirled, and juggled fire. One person dressed as the comic book hero Spider Man glided over the Playa in wide strides with flame supports extending from his fingertips. There was at one time a loosely woven carpet of whirling centers of fire defined by the many dancers who seemed intent on writing with light in looping complex patterns around them.

 The event is apparently going well, the fire dancers are getting a chance to perform after premature detonations the last two years cut their show short. Here and there problems crop up requiring action. A marching band thinks it has the right to try to cleave a path through a mass of sitting people, and a group of Rangers deal with the local disruption. At this time someone nearby bolts from the sitting crowd and runs toward the Man, to be tackled with the efficient directness security might give to someone rushing at a performer on stage. He is taken somewhere madly struggling, in between whirling bits of fire carried by dancers closing the gap. A murmur in the crowd behind me radiates cries for a doctor along its edges. Rangers yell as they make their way to the scene, thirty feet behind me but hidden from direct view by the packed crowds. A motorized crane for a film crew insists on moving into a place people waited for a chance to be, and while driving the crane inside a dense crowd they ran over and broke someones foot.

  The show goes on ahead of me as the fire dancers set the mood. Just in front of me some of the performers are juxtaposed over each other and the Man, for an instant making me think of a Shiva sculpture. Fires begin to feed lurid plumes of smoke along the horizon, and fireworks burst close enough to doubt the sanity of those discharging them. One or two skyrockets arch close enough to the Man to make me wonder how likely an accidental detonation might be.
  Suddenly a brilliant geyser of flame roars up from this side of the Man, flaring like a valve into hell, then shuts off abruptly accompanied by a roar from the crowd! For the next few minutes a fire fountain is periodically set off here and there, flooding its area with a brief blast of radiant heat. Finally five adjacent fountains are set off, curling fine hairs on hundreds of people. It is a rolling wall of heat, something Saddam Hussain's troops would have left in their retreat from a Kuwaiti oil field. Just as the screaming starts to carry an edge of panic the fiery blast ends, and the coolness washes over us. The crowd reaction is loud and sustained. Drums and horns fill the night and the chanting of "Burn! burn! burn!'' emerges here and there. One man drones on and on about burning, stretching out the words into extended continuous sounds which at times appear to strain his voice. His intonations become part of the madness of the night.
 

 A flickering light from within the pedestal emerges and brightens, the big event has begun! The crowd roars louder than before, and the clouds rising from the structure are brilliantly lit from within. Colored fireworks proceed to erupt layer after layer from the brilliant billows, each with a distinctive effect. Two streams of rockets are sent up at tilted angles, each leaving a trail of smoke quickly joined by a new neighbor as the older trails drift on. One after another two angled tiers of rockets weave a kind of smoke fabric pattern, the searing stream of rising rockets brightly lighting up the lines of smoke which widen and merge as they are carried downwind. Greater bursts of skyrockets pour into the sky, overlapping each other, branching, and spilling up and out to form a sparkling canopy. Millions of brilliant silver and gold cells of a vast life form with a life span of moments multiply, spread, and fade as they are flung to the winds overhead.

  The display is hundreds of feet high and would surely be visible from space if anyone was looking down from orbit at that time. The smoke, still brilliantly lit from within, subsides and drifts away to reveal the Man fiercely burning from head to foot. This is the king of all the fires, a flaming colossus which is the focus of the week of community and the months of preparation. An arm is already missing and the paper in the head is in tatters as it vanishes in the flames. The pedestal sends twisting living cloaks of fire roaring upwards, wrapping about the wooden form and flowing through the structure. A film crew decides to position themselves in front of my area, nearly blocking my view and prompting outraged cries from those actually being deprived. Naturally there was someone with a huge camera and a sound man with his equipment. Thankfully they soon depart after a barrage of catcalls and are hopefully less intrusive elsewhere. After one of the fire cannons are used flames cover the device, renewed alarmingly from within. Dripping fire , it looks like it could blow up at any moment, but things continued as they should. The drumming intensifies, and energized cries ring out above the roar of the fire from all around me.

  Great billowing clouds roll up from the inferno, and thousands of hovering sparks and embers drift in their own slower pace below the smoke. From the brilliant mass of fire around the man a whirling extension seems to drift away, then turns into a whirlwind of glowing sparks and smoke.   Another, then another whirlwind appears, dancing about as they drift downwind, then slowly dissipate. At one time four of these 'fire tornadoes' are seen at once, writhing in a parade of their own. The largest ones are translucent multi-layered tubes of glowing gases and sparks which often show a fiery stringy texture winding around them. Some start out nearly straight and later assume widely looping paths. This is like nothing I have ever seen before. From across the Playa the green laser plays across the top of the smoke plume, and a dissipating dense cloud of sparks rolls downwind. The Moon lights up the outer regions of the smoke as well as the occasional dust clouds passing along. People stare transfixed, and the cranes provide high vantage points to a few photographers. Beyond one glimpses people perched on vehicles and any other available surface, with silhouettes of yet more layers of people glimpsed against glowing yellow bonfires far beyond.
  The Man totters and finally falls into a fiery mass to wild cheers. I grab my camera bag and get up quickly as the people begin the traditional surge forward. I deliberately hold back from being at the head of a big crowd headed toward a fire and watch the craziness at the peak of another Labor Day weekend on the Playa. Away from the immediate vicinity of the great bonfire are many open spaces one can drift through, with art cars and various attractions constantly meandering along. Groups carry wooden objects to cast into the giant central fire, one contingent bearing a sizable dome over their heads passes it over each other as they feed it to the flames. People gather together and sing, some are embracing in small circles. Other groups head like schools of fish here and there. Isolated couples hold each other quietly as though they are the only ones within miles.
Someone walks slowly over the glowing coals of a spent bonfire with his girlfriend, who is embracing him with her feet planted atop his. Again and again he states "I have a fire protective suit" although has nothing of the kind. As he wanders deeper into the coals than she feels comfortable she steps off and he continues on. I leave before I worry too much about his pants catching fire.
  A kind of gridded pattern of brilliant green bars of laser light hangs several inches above the playa, like a luminous version of a 'hopscotch' game chalked into a sidewalk manifested with a multiwatt laser and some front surface mirrors. People tiptoe their way across this path, attempting to not interrupt the beam. When the green light touches a light pants leg it is too bright to look at and casts shadows to a great distance. A stunt man in a flaming suit rides a bicycle in the darkness, somehow appearing insanely funny as he leaves a trail of licking flames behind him. Several bonfires, all rather small, appear here and there and masses of fireworks sparkle in the night. Drumming is everywhere, and amplified sounds mingle with music and the shouts of crowds letting go. There is a bit less sense of danger than previous years. I wander about until very late, then finally checking out our camp for a bit before again heading out into the madness.

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