Burning Man is being invaded by something more grotesque than techie billionaires. According to the Voices of Burning Man blog, the playa is crawling with voracious bugs.
[jump] “We don’t know where they came from, but there are two main theories: One is that all the spring and summer rain has hatched critters that lie dormant, or usually come to life at a different time of year. Or maybe they hitchhiked in on a load of wood from somewhere,” blogger John Curley writes.
It’s a been a warm, dry season for the Burning Man build — ideal conditions for bugs to spawn. Insects are reportedly blowing up “inches deep” against the commissary tent. They’re embedding in carpets like spilled rice. And judging by a picture on the blog, they're bloodthirsty.
Life in Black Rock City has turned into a David Cronenberg movie:
Marcia said that one had flown into her mouth gotten lodged between her teeth. She reports that they are quite bitter to the taste…Twin Peaks, who’s leading the construction of the Center Café, was talking about how bad they are when she jumped a little and pulled her t-shirt away from her body. A good-sized green bug fell to the ground. It had crawled into her bra…Metal Shop Heather wears a welding mask most of the day. Bugs have crawled up inside her visor and nestled around her eyes.
A self-described entomologist on the blog identified the creatures as winged ants and stink bugs. Another commenter, alias Dan Fox, wrote that he was “eaten alive the first few days of the Trojan Horse build in 2011” but the plague then “faded away to nothing.”
Another commenter read the whirlwind of bugs as a bit of poetic justice:
“Perfect! This is mother natures answer to all the rich [fucks] who have brought the default world to BM and have changed it from an alternative to mainstream. They’ll need to hire extra sherpas to follow them with a fly swatter.”
Or, as Champagne Lounge wrote on its Burning Man community page on Facebook, you could always pack bats alongside your bug spray.
