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The climax of the annual Burning Man bacchanalia in a Nevada desert was scheduled for Saturday, when the 40,000-plus attendees were to gather around the 40-foot-high man-statue and watch him burn.
Instead, the effigy went up in flames four days prematurely early Tuesday, and a San Francisco resident faces felony arson and destruction-of-property charges in connection with the crime of burning Burning Man too early.
According to Jamie Thompson, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the land on which the annual event is held, the fire broke out at 2:58 a.m. Tuesday. Eyewitnesses said flames began about 10 feet up the wooden man's left leg. Thompson said the huge platform beneath the statue was undamaged. No injuries were reported.
Paul David Addis, 35, posted $25,632 bail and was released Tuesday afternoon from the Pershing County Jail in Lovelock, Nev., where he was booked on felony charges of arson and destruction of property and misdemeanor possession of fireworks and resisting a public officer. Read more here [sfgate.com]
Check out his photo: [sfgate.com...]
Classic!
So what are they going to do about a burning man for the actual festival?
We have a similar tradition here in New Mexico called Zozobra (takes place in Santa Fe about the same time of the year). Never been to Burning Man, but the Zozobra festival is several hundred years old and contains an odd mix of Hispanic catholic tradition and native american paganism. Its eerie yet fascinating.
