Burning Man is a difficult to explain event which occurs each year in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for one week. This year it is being held August 27 (today) through September 3. Basically a wide variety of people build a city in the desert. There is art, music, drinking, and much more. There are basically few rules (except for safety). People build things and destroy things. They play, they party, and they even work. When the event is over, the entire city is dismantled leaving just the desert behind again. According to the web site, you really can’t explain it except by going there. But, you can read their “What is Burning Man?” article for more details.
During last year’s event, someone took aerial photos of Burning Man 
and Google has included them in Google Earth. You can see the huge “city”, buildings, structures, and thousands of people in the desert. This year, there is a Burning Man KML file that will show you in Google Earth the layout of the city, and a 3D model of the central area where they planned to install a huge burning man statue above a giant tent. Here is the web site with more details on Burning Man for GE.
I am expecting to get some reports from Burning Man this week including some aerial photos. Watch this blog for more. By the way, on the last night of the event, the big statue of a man is set to fire.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
I have a number of friends going [again], and I’m sure they’ll have stories to tell in the coming weeks.
Burning Man isn’t really something I’d do, though it looks interesting — and the event itself has had a really interesting history in how it was started, how it propogated into popularity, and how it’s one of those ‘things’ in modern culture that will probably continue as a fixture for years to come.
When you consider all the metaphors of modern society and especially pop-culture — and look back hundreds and even thousands of years of the anthropological record — you come to the realization that although this event may seem unique, it comes off as more of a strange ‘necessity’ in our understanding the world. It has this mystical draw, perhaps, because it could be something engrained within our DNA.
It has a similar effect in us, as the ritual of the trashed guitar — destroying that which we create or use to create. In turn, forcing the consciousness of a dichotomy, which, dictates to us — we may burn everything down, to experience hope that we can begin again. Yet, we also suffer the circumstances of wondering what was destroyed may have manifested into something even more brilliant if only it had remained.
Society lamenting the loss of Jimi Hendrix is an example of one cultural icon that I can think of — where you can’t help but wonder what he could have become and represented to us all, if only he hadn’t destroyed himself. I can think of so many others, some even personal friends, that this same basic struggle in our thinking exists.
Anyway… I’m babbling on, but only because I’m forever fascinated. 😉