A Blaze of Glory / Burning Man torched to climax eccentric six-day art festival in the Nevada desert

Sam Whiting, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am PDT, Tuesday, September 2, 1997

Gerlach, Nev. -- Nevada's sixth-largest city was torched Sunday night as the Burning Man spit sparks and fell over backward onto the desert floor.

About 12,000 residents of Black Rock City, the six-day encampment created for the annual Burning Man Festival, stood and cheered as fireworks lit the sky. Then they burned a huge wooden duck, a Trojan Horse and anything else that would burn. Elaborate, expensive art installations that had taken all summer to build were heaped onto a bonfire.

"All good art must be burnt, torn down or thrown away," explained Eric Wilhelm of Lake Tahoe, while watching a theme camp called the Enchanted Forest be turned to kindling.

ALL-NIGHT RITUAL

The ritual lasted all night and well into Labor Day before the hedonists packed it in for another year away from their utopia. Measured in terms of artistic and sexual freedom, there is no place else like Black Rock City, which rises out of the desert each Labor Day weekend to become the home of the Burning Man festival. The level of decadence achieved is judged illegal and immoral in most places, including Washoe County, Nev., where it is held on the dry lakebed of Hualapai Playa, midway between Gerlach and Leadville.

"It fulfilled an image I had of crazy California," said Georg Pfeiffer, a Berlin student who flew to San Jose, then bought a 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood to drive up in style. "All in all, it's been very inspirational and inventive," he said after napping on the car's roof. "In the States you can't drink beer outside or walk around naked, and here it's the opposite."

DESERTPALOOZA

Burning Man '97 started last Wednesday, and by Saturday afternoon it was a giant dusty Desertpalooza around Center Camp. A water truck came through to wet the grounds, and as it drove along spraying, people ran out of their camps and fell in behind it, ripping off their clothes as they followed the shower.

A lot of campers avoided clothes altogether. People walked around naked with their bodies painted, or without their bodies painted. That was convenient for the shaving booth, where a razor-wielding woman was glad to remove any unwanted hair, or the Temple of Atonement, where those feeling guilty could volunteer to be strapped to a cross and whipped in the sun.

When the sun finally set, the surrounding mountains turned purple and red, and the campers cheered in a wave that echoed up and down the four-mile encampment. At night, the desert twinkled with neon lights up and down Grand Boulevard. At midnight there was Grand Opera on the main stage, with hundreds performing and thousands in the audience. After the last curtain call the set was torched. By way of ovation audience -- members took off their clothes and danced around the bonfire.

"It was incredible, dazzling, awe- inspiring," said Bill Cagle of San Francisco. A roller skating rink was open until 3 a.m., and the music died down just as San Francisco artist Jim Mason started construction on his huge ice sculpture.

"I was trying to get some sleep at 4:30 in the morning, and the chain saw woke me up," explained Burning Man founder Larry Harvey. "I wouldn't exchange that for the world."

BAZAAR AND BIZARRE

The techno music finally stopped around 6 a.m. Sunday, but by afternoon Central Camp was roaring like a Middle Eastern bazaar. The only cash concessions were the coffee house and ice being sold to benefit Gerlach High School. Everything else was free. There were nude Twister and nude limbo and nude croquet. A motorized cart offered tours, with the disclaimer that "all rides one way and may end at any time."

There were several battery-powered recliner couches whipping across the playa. They were made by Fastest Furniture of Palo Alto, which also demonstrated a motorized coffee table. Operated by remote control, it would bump into someone, then the phone would ring. Someone would answer and there would be a voice on the other end, engaging in conversation. Then the table would start moving again. "It's interesting human nature, watching people follow the phone," explained operator Richard Cossel.

SLIGHTLY CARRIED AWAY

There was a bed rigged with sails, and a traveling living room the size of a Rose Bowl float. Women stood on it, dressed in fishnets and slinky gowns, waving to the crowd. One float queen got carried away, apparently dancing on top of the couch, and fell off, suffering a concussion. She was strapped onto a board and taken away by ambulance.

That was the most serious injury of the weekend. By order of the Washoe County commissioners, 60 firefighters from three departments and 18 sheriff's deputies were on duty full time. There were 10 fire trucks, which responded to about 30 calls, mostly minor.

"These people have been extremely cooperative," said Fire Marshal Paul Mijanovich.

There were also a force from the Washoe County Sheriff's Department, backed by a helicopter, but there were only a few arrests, on minor charges, according to Sergeant Marshall Emerson.

Permit and security costs ran to $321,000, and to meet it, prices were doubled this year to $75 for a weekend ticket at the gate, and $30 for a day pass for those walking in.

Eddie and Kathryn Egyed drove four hours from Lake Almanor, but they weren't about to pay $30 each. They'd attended the year before, when Burning Man was free to anyone who didn't mind a little sneaking.

"This event was all about having a good time. It isn't going to be nothing like it was," said Eddie. "I can see paying $5," said Kathryn. "But they're not supposed to be making money on it."

They won't be. Paid attendance was estimated to be 10,000 to 14,000, which is much more than Burning Man has ever had but several thousand fewer than needed to break even. The operating deficit is estimated at $200,000, and the camp radio stations put out a call for emergency donations yesterday.

Harvey said the county would get its money, "but they've stripped us of all capital." Organizers expected 20,000 people.

"We didn't get 20 (thousand) because we raised the ticket price, but that eliminated the survivalimpaired," said Harvey, who vowed that the festival would continue. "We succeeded brilliantly," he said. "This is the most creative Burning Man we've ever done. It was the greatest good-neighbor feeling most of these people have ever had."

EVENING WEAR FOR COCKTAILS

This was most evident at the Society Cocktail Party on Sunday night at Cafe Temps Perdu in Central Camp.

People who had been in rags, if that, managed to produce full formal wear -- evening gowns with white gloves for the women, white dinner jackets or tails for the men. Champagne and martini glasses were clinking. People murmured, "Talk, talk, mingle, mingle."

"Darling, you look fabulous," one man complimented a woman. "Are you going to be wearing that to the Symphony opening?"

"You can just start talking to anybody about anything. It's very surreal," said Saron Dae Wolf, who had come down from Seattle with the Bavarian Illuminati Motorcycle Club. Her friend H.G. Wells, a descendant of the writer, topped all the other guests with a full officer's uniform, with pins and medals, from the East German army.

After the cocktail party, the entire encampment was drawn toward the 50-foot wooden man, his bones in purple neon and his ribs in blinking green. Drums pounded, the motorized coffee table crashed into people. A man named Highway Hal stood naked on a motorized cross.

At 9:45, Burning Man's hands started sending out flares, then his feet ignited, and the fire moved up, in brilliant orange and red. The people got what they came for.

"That's a good burn," said one woman, before turning and walking back to Bianca's Smut Shack for one last night of depravity.