Flames, Freak Flags Fly at Burning Man

: Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com BLACK ROCK CITY, Nevada -- It's hot in the desert, but not too hot to set something on fire. Amid other activities, Burning Man attendees spit flames and gaze at fiery art installations as the annual festival's iconic Man awaits his inevitable fate. Left: In the biggest harshed mellow at Burning Man so far this year, the sun decides to come up again. Early risers and those who have not slept wallow confusedly in the solar judgment. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com The streets of Black Rock City hustle and bustle with activity as a swarthy unknown by the name of Swearengen arrives seeking wealth and power by any means necessary. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com The Cheshire Cat makes its way across the desert and sheds a tear for the old, more wholesome, wonderland. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com Burners walk far out on the playa to experience a light and music show created by a team of 20 with weather balloons, off-the-shelf Christmas tree hardware and software, and various insulation and irrigation pipes. This year's decorations are sooo going to one-up the more perfect and WASP-y anarchist festival across the street, Flaming Dude. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com A huge ship sails burners across the night desert until the 8-year-old who drew it thinks it looks crappy and throws it away. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com Mutopia -- a tech piece of interactive, flame-throwing art depicting a mutant alien life form going through its stages of development -- delights burners. The piece was created by a San Francisco Bay Area group known as the Flaming Lotus Girls. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com A costumed burner stops to watch Mutopia. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com Natalie Spence works the controls of Mutopia. : Photo: Kat Wade/Wired.com Flames shoot from the mouth of a literal burner who just shotgunned a can of lamp oil. This has to be the coolest thing someone can be able to do and still be poor somehow. See also:

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