Afterburn

Whether it is hailed as a staircase to heaven or condemned as a mall of the weird, the Burning Man Festival has been a source of discussion and debate since its inception in 1986. Set as an anti-commercialism alternative temporary community, the festival has attracted up to 30,000 seekers of cultural, artistic and spiritual enlightenment, and these nine critical reviews offer up some of the reasons they faithfully attend. The essays describe the cults that have formed around the Burning Man Festival, the factors of ritual, pilgrimage and transformation that attract them, the festival as an ethnographic experience of the self, the business end of a cultural experience, volunteerism, art cars, utopias and social sculpture, the surreal, and community memory. Of course there are photographs of the festival and its participants, along with visuals of the alternate realities offered. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)