"Time editors spend a lot of time going to political conventions and to G-7 summits," he says. "I figured that we should also go to Burning Man because the world has many variations of exciting gatherings."

The founders of Burning Man might be surprised that the festival is becoming a critical stop for representatives of the most powerful corporate conglomerates in the world. Sure the annual arts festival has exploded with people and media attention since its initial pyrotechnics event 15 years ago, but it's still a bit incongruous to go from the Aspen Institute to the lunatic playa.

At its core, the festival is anti-commercial, and prides itself on giving the middle finger to the antics of global business. As an extended principle, it's anti-corporate, even though the event is a favorite with Silicon Valley types and San Francisco dot-communists. Campers cover the logos on their rental trucks with posters or parody logos like "Big Penis" or "Q-Baul." And this year, in a week of extended theater, a camp calling itself Costco offered soul mates at a bulk rate, then promised to take over all the other theme camps through mergers and acquisitions. Instead, on Thursday, Kamp Kanda "invaded" Costco and repatriated the camp in a hostile takeover.

So you might think that Isaacson, who -- though he might protest that he's just "a journalist" -- is a key executive at a major media conglomerate, would feel a bit out of place. But Isaacson says he found his visit "unbelievably cool." "It's a whole lot of great art and fun performances that I've always wanted to see."

The editor has been trying to attend ever since Time ran a story about the festival in 1997. He never made it. This year, however, Isaacson's wife was going to be in California and he had a cover package on the Olympics in the can at Time. At the spur of the moment, he joined Time humor columnist Joel Stein and two other editors, arriving in the temporary city two hours north of Reno on Tuesday. He left on Friday, as scheduled, long before the ritual Saturday night burning of the 52-foot wooden man.

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