BB pal Scott Beale has been following this week's shocker of a tale from Burning Man — here's Mark's earlier post. Short version, some wacked out dude burned down The Man on his own, and everyone flipped out. I'm hearing that many disheartened Burners were so distraught, they've left the playa. Scott's main post with all the updates is here, and he tells BoingBoing today:
The damage to the man was too extensive so they are re-building the sculpture and will have a new one in place, complete with neon by tonight.
The person arrested for the early burn was Paul Addis of San Francisco who has been attending Burning Man for at least a decade. He is now out on bail and his supporters have set up a legal fund for him.
His now infamous mug shot can be found near the bottom of my post.
Here's my LOLburn image from the mug shot.
Recently, Paul portrayed Hunter S. Thompson in his one-man show Gonzo.
In 1997 Paul hung a pair of giant silver testicles from Burning Man's groin.
The Burning Man community seems to be quite divided on this issue. Some are angry and annoyed about it and others are calling Paul a hero, saying he pulled off the ultimate Burning Man prank. For years the running joke on the playa was to burn the man early.
Oh and another thing that might be of interest to BB readers is my guide of remote access to Burning Man 2007.
I used quite a bit of this for my coverage of the early burn.
Finally, since this woke up a bunch of the old-timers, my friend Kevin Evans, one of the original crew who helped bring Burning Man to the Black Rock Desert, posted some of his photos from Burning Man 1990-1995.
Image above: thumbnails of some of those old tyme Burning Man shots, on Flickr.
UPDATE: The new Man is now up — here's a screencap from the Burning Man webcam, via Jim Graham. And Scott has updated his post with a statement from Addis. "The best part is his reference to Black Rock Intelligence," says Scott.
