I am not the original author of this piece (I got it as a forward in 8/2002 from the Midwest Burn list)

Can't make it to the desert this year? Here's how to enjoy the Burning Man Experience from the Comfort of your Own Home:

Read "Dhalgren" by Samuel R. Delany. Read "The City Not Long After" by Pat Murphy. Cut off the bindings, throw all the pages up in the air, and shuffle them back together. Reread "The City After Dhalgren" by Samuel Murphy. Burn it. Read the ashes.

Pay an escort of your affectional preference subset to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance close naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.

Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When everyone leaves, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.

Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.

Stack all your fans in one corner of your living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.

Pitch your tent next to the wall of speakers in a crowded, noisy club. Go to sleep.

Lean back in a chair until that point where you're just about to fall over, but you catch yourself at the lastmoment. Hold that position for 9 hours.

Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 4 days. Hide all the toilet paper.

Visit a restaurant and pay them to let you alternate lying in the walk-in freezer and sitting in the oven.

Don't sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend.

Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don't go to a doctor.

Buy a new pair of favorite shoes. Throw one shoe away.

Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.

Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think you are going to scream. Scream. Realize you'll love the music for the rest of your life.

Bust your ass for a "community." See all the attention get focused on the drama queen crybaby.

Get so drunk you can't recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.

Sprinkle dirty sand in all your food.

Mail $200 to the Reno casino of your choice.

Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali's more disturbing but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.

Spend thousands of dollars on a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Blow it up.

Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum'n'bass until the embers are cold.

Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile, and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you're hallucinating. Lust after Bugs Bunny.