The
boat carried us out of Black Rock City and moved across the playa always
avoiding the people, bicycles, and mutant vehicles that converged on the fixed
point of the statue. In a perfect
state of inebriation, I had ridden a horse with no name to a strange but
friendly planet of flat alkali desert surrounded by dark mountains. The desert
dwellers came to this place and formed an immense circle around the god of
fire, who had assumed the mythic shape of a blue neon man, glowing over the
desert. Dancers twirling hypnotic flames spun around the statue while ships and
dragons and animals belched propane-fueled fire. Weird and wonderful shapes descended from the sky, lit by a
yellow moon that crept above the mountains. The fire dancers swirled like dervishes, and drums throbbed
in the eerie light where glow sticks burned like neon candles. I was eerily conscious of each detail
of this carnival night with its colors, sounds, tastes, smells and the absolute
anticipation. The dancers
spun in their circles of fire, and the drums pounded to a crescendo. Alone, the
neon man loomed over the desert, canopied by thousands of twinkling stars.
The
ritual began with a massive barrage of shooting rockets and fireworks
illuminating the man, then a blaze of fire and a magic conflagration roared to
life in a frenzy of heat and flames. The inferno raced up one of the man’s legs
and consumed him bit by bit even as his triumphant arms remained raised, as in
defiance. Everyone was yelling and
shouting and the air pulsed with music.
In an eruption of galactic grandeur, the Man was burning bright. The Man was burning.
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