by Brad Wieners

HAND-WRITTEN SIGN TAPED to a Honey Bucket just out of Center Camp, on Saturday: "Washoe County Courthouse. Events Permits Dept. Meeting in progress."

Yeah, the campground carnival of Burning Man has, as a whole, lost its potluck intimacy (you can still find it in theme camps, if you try), and the cops, though nice, were everywhere, including the sky. (The helicopters were black and white, though, not all black).

And, yes, this year the encampment was way too close to the road and lacked some of the otherworldliness and menace it had on the Black Rock, a post-industrial oasis in the mirage-shimmering void.

Nevertheless, wandering about at this year's Burning Man proved that it remains a wonderfully zany insurrection against complacency with commercial culture, a place where ordinary folk can play visionary and, simply, play.

Now come the rumors that the festival is dead (the directors are most certainly exhausted and broke), and debates about whether the festival is spiritually bankrupt as well.

"It's become the Exotic Erotic [Ball] with Winnebagoes," quips a friend.

Several of the people who first got me to the desert have abandoned the festival, and with good reason. But for at least as long as the playa dust sticks to the cars parked in my neighborhood, I'll be reminded of a place where "Dr. Seuss Saves," where people encourage and delight in each other's kookiest ideas, and then burn them down before anyone can buy into them.

Burning Man '97: Letters from the Desert