Isaacson says he spent most of his time walking the grounds with a water bottle in hand, talking to the locals. "Obviously it's different from most things you ever do, but so is the Democratic Convention," he says. "They're just weird in different ways. There are thousands of people there; some are totally fascinating and interesting and some are fascinating and weird and some ... are ... are different."

Isaacson might have been thinking about the sex slave kid, chained and clad in cutaway leather, who spent a lot of time hanging out on four stilts in the cafe in Center Camp. Or the guy who was walking around with a giant stuffed ostrich between his legs. Or perhaps not. "Everywhere you turn there are people doing fascinating things," he says. "I guess the thing that struck me was that people really liked to talk and explain what they were doing."

What was the strangest thing he witnessed? "Dawn nude tai chi."

"I don't know if you've ever seen tai chi," he says, "so you're going to have to figure that one out."

As Isaacson saw, Burning Man works because of two tenets. One, everyone is supposed to participate: Campers make art and install it on the open desert floor, don elaborate costumes that light up at night, drive vehicles modified to look like dragons or pirate ships, or build theme camps with names like Jiffy Lube or Space Cowboys.

Two, after buying a ticket that pays for land use, insurance, infrastructure and grants to artists, campers find extremely limited commerce in the city. The only things that money can buy -- legally -- are ice and coffee. All other supplies, including water, must be brought from home.

"I fear that we were not the most interesting participants," says Isaacson.

No worry, says Marian Goodell, Burning Man's mistress of communications, who met Isaacson on Wednesday and introduced him to Burning Man honcho Larry Harvey. (The two spent two hours talking on Thursday.) "Anonymity is a way you can enjoy yourself at Burning Man. Cafe kids and circus performers can hang out with media moguls," she says. "Out here, [sculptor] Dan Das Mann is a bigger celebrity than Walter Isaacson."

Isaacson and his fellow Time staffers did, however, consider a theme camp of sorts. As a joke, they figured they could get maximum yuks from a couple of suits and an AOL Time Warner sign. Isaacson says he talked about the idea with his fellow campers first and then eventually David Carr of Inside.com. He ruled it out before he left. But Stein, as a surprise, presented his boss with a special banner at the event. In a two-minute session, they attached it to their Winnebago, took a couple of photos and then promptly pulled it down. "It was done to be funny and ironic, not clueless and stupid," says Isaacson. "I beseech you to make it clear that we understood the joke and the irony of it and then took it right down."

Isaacson stressed that he appreciates the festival's anti-commercial ethos. "The anti-commercialism makes sense," he says. "We were certainly not there to be commercial; we were there to be low-key. Just because I work for a commercial enterprise does not mean that I can't go."

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