When we last saw our intrepid adventurers, they had just found an incarnation of balance and harmony, then had that jarringly ripped away from them by an encounter with a MOOP sculpture:

So, a word about moop or MOOP. ‘MOOP’ is the abbreviation for ‘Matter Out Of Place’, the anti-thesis of ‘leave no trace’. It’s been an abbreviation for long enough that it’s become a word ‘moop’. Apparently, this had been a growing issue at Burning Man, finally coming to a head for 2006, when they decided to publicly measure the amount of moop left over after the event and start to name and shame:

Already you can see the difference one year later, in 2007, after just measuring and enforcement:

2009 is better yet again:

As is 2013, our first year at the Burn, this was the ‘norm’ we first saw, and wanted to help improve upon:

2014:

The placement map for 2015 (I have no idea what the spoon was for):

If you look closely, you can see The Hive, at 8:00 and Esplanade!:

And the results from the 2015 after-event cleanup! You can see the continually disturbing red and yellow rings around Esplanade which only a very few groups were able to sweep to green status:

Next time, our plucky adventurers meet the golden rhino, and make the tiniest of fist-bumps. Stay tuned!

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Dark_Tea-Time_of_the_Soul I’ve always enjoyed this particular phrase, but it feels problematic for a number of reasons in the context of the book.