Time lapse videos are always fun. Here is the entire 2007 Burning Man event compressed into approximately ten minutes.
What’s fun about this video is not just seeing the blinky lights and blinding sandstorms, but also the fact that you get to see the Man burn not once but twice. When there are just under seven minutes left in the video, you see a brief fire followed by a quick hose down, after which the night time scene is illuminated by floodlights. The show must go on, so they quickly rebuild the Man in order to burn him by the end of the event.
This episode brings into sharp focus the paradox of stage-managing anarchists and choreographing chaos. What sort of a church did Dionysus really preside over?
Shortly after the Civil War began in 1861, the legislators of the Confederate States of America were charged with writing a constitution for their new country. They faced a crucial question: should the right to secede, which they had so proudly exercised the month before, be guaranteed by their new constitution? Answer: no. Secession is a fine thing, but only in moderation, please. We splitters must hang together.
We all crave a little madness, but only after the curtain goes up and before it goes down. In the battle between directors and destructors, order wins every time. The force that builds the Man is stronger than the force that burns him down. That’s exactly what’s being celebrated.
[Spotted at O’Reilly Radar]
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 
“Judean People’s Front….Splitters!”
By the way, the guy who tried to get the party started a little too early has been arrested in San Francisco for attempting to torch Grace Cathedral:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/30/BAGJT2QQB.DTL&hw=grace+cathedral&sn=001&sc=1000
Wonder if he shouted “Sic semper tyrannis” as he lit the Man on fire…seems just a little off balance.
“Dude, somebody burned my Burning Man! Who burned my Burning Man?!”
In case anyone else is looking for it, the first “arson” burn is at 3:55 and only lasts for about 5 seconds.
I went to Burning Man in 2007. The time-lapse does a great job reminding me of the intensity of both the weather and the activity.
The “rules” debate is a long and loud one. For example, someone runs over a pedestrian while driving around at night, so they make a rule against driving around at night. Predictably, a set of attendees start complaining that the event has gone too tame and corporate to be cool anymore. As far as I can tell, this bitching is a tradition as old as the festival itself.
Burning Man has gone all corporate, man!
Oh, and also, Usenet is going to collapse any day now.
You heard it here first!