Let's disregard our evolutionary imperatives!

Pictured: Evolutionary winners
wisely fleeing from fire.

Nope, I'm not dead, I just went to Burning Man again. If you've never been and only know about it from stories on the internet you probably think it's nothing more than a giant drug-fueled orgy in the sands of the Nevada Desert, but this is completely untrue. It happens in a dry lake bed, so there is no sand. Here're some links to my previous attempts (2010, 2011, and 2012) to share with you why I and 50-70 thousand like-minded individuals swear off internet connections and toilets with running water for an entire week in order to get dangerously close to fire in stark defiance of whatever evolutionary imperative keeps other animals running safely away from it. It's quite a thing.

Here's this year's Man, standing atop a giant flying saucer.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't end well for him.

What? It's like research...

Ever year the event has a theme and this year's was Cargo Cult. What the shit does that mean? Well, a cargo cult, according to my exhaustive and scholarly wikipedia-based research, is an anthropological term for the effect contact with a technologically advanced culture has on a less advanced one. It happened on Star Trek like, every third episode and usually ended with Captain Kirk phasering the Bejezus out of some primitive society's god and leaving them to pick up the pieces of their shattered belief system.

"Prime Directive, schmime smirective, you're worshiping an ancient computer and everything you
believe in is a lie. Now, step aside so I can murder your god and get back to boning alien chicks."

- Captain James 'Space Douche' Kirk

What does any of this have to do with tens of thousands of Burners dressing up like extras from Mad Max and setting art on fire? That's a complicated question, and instead of answering it I'm just going to show you some photos I took.

El-wire, watered down cocktails and fire. Do we really need a reason?

Here we are stopped dead in traffic
26 miles from the gate. 26 miles.
Also pictured: my thumb.

This year seemed super-crowded compared to last and according to the rumors fluttering on the hot dessert breeze, it actually was. Last year's attendance was something like 56,000 which was way lower than the cap of 60,900. This was probably because people were put off by the complicated ticket lottery system. This year had a far simpler ticket distribution system and was supposed to be capped at 68,000, but a random gate person I spoke to said the actual count was closer to 71,000 which could mean that there were counterfeit tickets or stowaways or that 3000 people just snuck in.

Perhaps something like: 'Abraso-Ruff'
or 'Bloodletter' would be more apt. 

Whatever the case, the porta potties are usually a good indicator of attendance and this year they where...what's the word? Heinous. Despite the best efforts of the guys with the vaccu-trucks whose job it is to maintain them, they were heinous, suggesting a volume of usage (i.e. poo) the planners were unprepared for. Speaking of the facilities, I would like to have a word with the good people who do the advertising for Morex™ brand toilet tissue. I'm not sure that it's appropriate to describe 1-ply anything with the phrase 'silky soft.' Ever.

Anyway, I'm not complaining, it was a great burn. I camped with some awesome people who brought, get this: a zipline and a Stargate. Yes, a goddamned Stargate, complete with lights, smoke and sound effects. Yup, I was camping with my people: nerds.

Neeeerrrddds!

Above: Implausible!

There was also some fantastic art this year. The Church Trap (see below) was one of my favorite. Here's its website. When we went to see it there was a line of people waiting to get married in it. It was rad. It was also where I ran in to two friends from my first Burn back in 2010, which in a crowd of 70 thousand people is as statistically unlikely as it sounds. In fact, if you go out with friends at night and get separated you just sort of have to write off ever seeing them again. Maybe forever.

Pictured: A grown-ass man dressed-up like the
monkey from Aladdin pointing at a subtle metaphor.

Behold some more pictures:

Here's a flaming pachinko machine which instead
of fabulous prizes pays out in third-degree burns.

Bo-ring.

Or don't. Whatever.

It's a metal octopus that drives around shooting flames.
Suck on that, every other thing ever. 

If Burning Man had an official sport it would be hooping. Even better than hooping: LED hooping at night.

Rad, huh? Now check out the one on the left.

Yeah, that's a LED hood with programmable patterns.
I don't understand why people even need drugs at this place.

It's not just the Man that burns at Burning Man, most of the art pieces are burnt as well attracting huge crowds who wait for them to burn to the ground so they can leap through the embers.

Oh look, a hot, suffocating conflagration. Can't wait to get closer.

Like, for real. What is wrong with us?

Look at this: the grim specter of fiery death actually appeared to tell us to stay
away from the goddamned fire. Did we listen? No. Of course we fucking didn't.

Of course the reason for the season, The Man, is best part of the whole thing. Tens of thousands gather around the fire perimeter to watch and hope to hell the prevailing winds don't smother us with molten nails and flaming wreckage.

These blurry people are some of my friends waving
laser guns as we set out for the Man on burn night.

Before the Man burns, hundreds of fire performers put on an amazing
show seen here behind that guy's hat. Incidentally, what kind of
fancy dick wears a tall, view-obstructing hat to the fire show?

Fortunately for those of us in the shadow of the hat,
the fire show wraps all the way around the Man.

This performer is either twirling a flaming hula-hoop,
or opening a flaming portal to hell. Either way, it was mint.

The burn starts off with fireworks the likes of which would make
 Gandalf himself drown his mighty beard with tears of inadequacy.

Then comes the 'splosions.

Yeah. It's a thing.

It's right about at this point that we were all hit with the crushing realization that it would be another 365 days until the next burn...well, that and a wave of eyebrow-searing heat.