Justice
The Endless Rules of Burning Man
If you love bureaucracy, Black Rock City is the alternative desert utopia for you.
Last year, I appeared at the gates of Burning Man aboard a 24-foot-truck loaded with enough gear to keep a dozen people alive in the desert for a week. My campmates and I were greeted by a lissome young woman wearing pasties and leather booty shorts, who commanded us to open our truck for inspection. This would turn out to be the first of a great many interactions with one of the famed counterculture event’s lesser-known signature features: its relentless bureaucracy.