Black Rock City, population 30,000, forms 240 degrees of a circle. The Man is at the center of the circle. The street forming the inner edge of the city was the Esplanade, where our camp was located. In keeping with this year's theme "Beyond Belief", other circumferential streets were philosophical concepts like Authority, Creed, Dogma, Faith and Vision. The radial streets were modifiers like Profane, Ridiculous, Certain, and Dubious, but were often referred to by their place on the circle ranging from 2:00 to 10:00. One might be staying at a corner like Absurd Faith...

Inside the circle, and north of the city, was open playa containing many art installations, large and small. People moved around the streets and the open playa 24 hours a day on foot, on bikes, and in art cars. One guy even had a Segway.

A view from the middle of the playa -- you can see the line of city in the background.

The "prevailing community standard" regarding nudity in Black Rock City is that it's OK. But from a fashion point of view, some columnists in the Black Rock Gazette were critical of men who wore shirts but not pants.

Body paint was a commonly used form of sunscreen.

Here's the cash register at Camp Arctica, where ice was sold to benefit Gerlach High School.

Whenever the wind came up, there were dust storms. Fortunately, they usually subsided after a minute or so.

Burning Man goes on 24 hours a day. Many people stay up all night, and might rest during the hot part of the day.

My coworker Kris stayed at Kamp Krotus which had a fabulous LED display that could be seen on the other side of the playa.

Kamp Krotus also had two "persistence of vision" displays that were just a single column of LEDs. If your eye happened to scan from left to right across this column, an image would form. Here Ray moved the camera as he took the picture, getting somewhat of an image of the Man.

A nearby theme camp was the Barbie Death Camp.

Here Barbies are marching towards the microwaves where they will face their final solution.

The playa was also a good place for various wind sports.

An ultralight aircraft. There were also lots of skydivers.

There were countless works of art at the theme camps. We noticed many references to the Last Supper.

Here Jesus, carrying his cross, was talking to God in the booth provided for that purpose.

This theme camp let you write a prayer on a CD, and toss it through one of the holes -- each hole was labeled with the god who would answer your prayer.

This toilet offered you Burning Man information.

On to Art on the Playa