BLACK ROCK CITY — Whipping like playa dust through the temporary streets of this temporary city in the high Nevada desert is that The Man, the wooden statue at the center of this "countercultural" yuppiefest arts and self-expression event, badly damaged by an arson attempt Tuesday night, will be re-erected sometime this evening. The Man's resurrection comes thanks to to the diligent, if somewhat cultish, dedication of the Black Rock City Department Of Public Works, a volunteer organization which builds all of Burning Man's public structures. But what of the corporate-sponsored displays of "green" technology at the man's base?

Paul Addis, the man accused of setting fire to The Man, the totemic woodenstatue at the center of Burning Man, has a history of pulling pranks in the Nevada arts festival. Insiders believe that Addis was responsible for a 1997 prank in which giant silver balls were hung — rather well, we might add — from the groin of The Man. (Photo by LadyBee)

BLACK ROCK CITY — Here at Media Mecca, the press center for Black Rock City, site of the loosely countercultural event Burning Man, the usual travails and torture of being in the middle of harsh desert conditions — spotty Internet, no beer left in the cooler, subpar fare in the commissary, failing air conditioning — are beginning to wear on the whine-prone members of the Burning Man press corps. Answer us this: What correspondent for a well-known tech magazine was freaking out the other day over a compilation of playa frustrations? The Internet connection was going down, he had to be three different places "right now," and he was sitting in the corner, muttering threateningly to himself, "bad choices," "you're fucking kidding me," and "god fucking dammit"?. The desert takes its toll, friends. Guess the identity of the hissyfitting hack in the comments.

BLACK ROCK CITY — Here we are at Burning Man, deep in the Nevada desert. It's billed as an arts festival, held every year in the name of counterculture, mind expansion, loving your neighbor, and paying a lot of money for coffee at an event that purports to have a noncommercial, barter-based economy. Black Rock City, the festival's temporary locale, is laid out in a rough half-circle, with streets labeled from 2 to 10, in the style of a clock face. The vast, open expanse of lung-clogging, sunbaked wasteland in the center is reserved for a very special type of self expression: large projects that cause their makers massive frustration, huge amounts of debt, and the destruction of every sort of personal relationship in the space of a few dust-filled, windswept days. Yes, folks, we're talking about art.

Laughing Squid blogger Scott Beale has exploited the LOLcats meme to mock Paul Addis, the would-be arsonist who tried to burn down The Man, the wooden statue at the center of the Burning Man arts festival in Nevada. Inevitable. Brilliant. Wish I'd thought of it first. (Image by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

BLACK ROCK CITY — Still no real live power-geek sighting yet campers, but you'll be pleased to note that through the miracle of modern technology, you too can be on the playa without actually being on the playa! Scott Beale of Laughing Squid, a Burning Man attendee from way back, shows us how it's done with his recent fab roundup of the Paul Addis debacle — Addis being the man who attempted to torch the Burning Man statue four days early. Also not here is sex and tech writer Violet Blue, who nonetheless wrote a handy dandy Burning Man Sex Tip Guide for all of us looking to get laid with alkali dust for lube. Hot Perl programmerKirrily "Skud" Robert, who was here, enjoyed herself immensely, but had to hightail it back to civilization early. Maybe the harsh conditions of the desert and the daily struggle for survival couldn't compare to an old-fashioned startup power struggle.

BLACK ROCK CITY — Burning Man, the annual arts and "counterculture" festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, is also known for the harsh conditions associated with being in the fucking desert, people. Here's the casualty list for the moment: Yours truly found herself a little bit faint on the open playa, and lacking Internet access to Twitter for help, merely doused herself in water and hitched a ride on a passing art car. We have decided to become largely nocturnal, like all higher-functioning desert creatures. Lane Hartwell, photo correspondent for Wired.com, has been taking gorgeous pictures as usual, but succumbed to a touch of the old heatstroke and electrolyte imbalance this afternoon. She is just dandy now with the application of Gatorade and a little lie-down. Those who breathed a sigh of relief that they would not end up on the Wired blog are now SOL. Rumor has it that Stefan Magdalinski, CTO of Moo, the popular printer of business cards decorated with Flickr photos, is en route, but is mysteriously not returning phone calls, email or Twitter. His arrival was apparently imminent this morning, and will continue to be imminent until we can figure out if he's taken off for Mexico instead of Black Rock City. More as more geeks show up, keel over, or go missing.

BLACK ROCK CITY — Around the charred yet still standing remains of The Man, the giant wooden statue literally at the center of the annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, workers from the organizer's Department of Public Works are cordoning off the platform and pavilion on which The Man rests, preparing to salvage what they can. The plan is to rebuild the statue in time for Saturday's planned demolition. Soft weeping can be heard in the vicinity, as well as mumbled vows for vengeance. Since the whole point of the festival is the buildup to the official burn, last night's arson attempt is more than a disappointment to most. A few are cursing for a different reason, mostly because they have fostered intricate plans to burn The Man early for years now, but just never got around to pulling it off. Reportedly, the dastardly villain who torched the man was one Paul Addis, a well-known denizen of the San Francisco art scene, longtime Burner, and one heck of a loose cannon.

"To try to sabotage him is completely wrong. We wait all year long. This is an adult's Christmas party." — Burning Man attendee Erica, on the attempted arson of the statue of The Man, the totem burnt in the Nevada desert at the end of the festival. [SFGate]

BLACK ROCK CITY — The entire point of Burning Man is, I'll remind the uninitiated, is to gather together in the desert to torch a giant wooden statue called, yes, The Man. But that's supposed to happen this weekend. It's 3 in the morning on Tuesday, and The Man is ON FIRE!! HOLY FUCKING MOTHER OF FUCK! More as it happens!

BLACK ROCK CITY — Rumors that the bigwigs of geekery are headed here en masse are rife in the fanciful world of Internet rumor — but proof is spotty on the playa-dust ground. The strongest contender for Big Geek on Campus so far is Brad Fitzpatrick, formerly of Six Apart fame, and now at Google. This tidbit actually transcends rumor, as Fitzpatrick, the founder of LiveJournal, has posted his future playa address on his own LiveJournal blog. If he's a very clever boy, he will discover the Wi-Fi-fu that makes updating his LJ from the desert possible, but in the meantime, we are having daydreams of drunkenly invading his camp when he gets here and demanding that he friend us. (Photo by Brad Fitzpatrick)

BLACK ROCK CITY — No power-geek sightings to report, unless you count yours truly, blogging faithfully from Center Camp in Black Rock City, where the Burning Man sense of community has extended far enough to enable a pretty kickin' Wi-Fi signal. We're all checked in and assimilated into our home base. The tent has been staked deep into the fragile playa surface with rebar, and blown away. The tent has been staked down again, this time with longer rebar, and blown away. The tent has been tied to the van, staked down with longer rebar and filled with gallons of water. So far it has not yet made another bid for freedom. The weather is a balmy 82 degrees with cooling gusts of wind and intermittent lung-choking dust clouds. I am presently sitting in Media Mecca, where happy hour is in full swing. This is how Burning Man's overseers control their image, by plying reporters with Internet connectivity and alcohol. Most of the time, at least. We just had our first Internet outage of the week, kids. There was swearing. Mark your scorecards accordingly. More as it makes itself apparent.

BLACK ROCK CITY — Ladies and gentlemen, Valleywag is live and on the scene at Burning Man 2007. Through the miracle of modern technology your intrepid girl reporter is blogging this from the middle of the desert, approximately 77 miles from everywhere, risking life, limb, and laptop to bring you the freshest in technohippie gossip from the alkali-dust floor of the prehistoric Lake Lahontan. It promises to be an event of thrills, chills and special magnificence, campers, so hang on to your hats, grab your dust masks, and get your hipster-hippie baiting sneers ready, because we have a whole week of this and we are dragging you all down with us into the playa-dust mud.

We at Valleywag have made clear our feelings towards Burners, the attendees of Burning Man, a weeklong arts festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert that's getting underway now: We think they're dirty, environment-hating hypocrites who are marginally employable at best. The main business implication of the event? That you're never, ever, ever going to get any software project finished in Silicon Valley during the last week of August. So why would we send a reporter to the event?

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: The only green Burner is a dead Burner. This year's Burning Man arts festival in the Nevada desert has an environmental theme. But an environmental analysis has shown that more than 90 percent of the carbon dioxide spewed by Burning Man participants comes merely in getting to and from Black Rock City, the festival's temporary site. So by all means, pack up your RVs, buy that planet-destroying bottled water, and run your stereos and air conditioning all week off of diesel generators as you celebrate the greening of Burning Man. Go ahead, claim that you're raising "awareness" — at the same time that you're raising the planet's temperature. You're not fooling anyone — least of all Mother Nature.

Ladies and gentlemen, rev up your RVs, pack your SUVs full, gas up your private jets, and start making your way to Black Rock City, the site in Nevada for Burning Man, the annual art festival and orgy of self-indulgence. The most hardcore of "burners," as attendees call themselves, will start making their way there a week from now. And while you're on the road, guzzling gasoline, make sure to feel really, really guilty about all the carbon you're spewing into the atmosphere. By organizers' own estimates, Burning Man puts 27,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the air. This year, of course, they hope to minimize the impact with a "Green Man." Nonsense.