One Night Of Fire

I've finally finished Harry Potter, so I'm back on the blogging scene. I won't say anything more about the book so I don't spoil it for anyone who's not done yet. But once you are done reading, please give me a call to discuss. :)


July 14th 2007


Another party put on by the group The Danger. This time it was called One Night of Fire, the return of the Renegade Parade. Everyone was going to get together and parade somewhere in the city. Because this was not a licensed parade group they didn't release the starting location until just before it started. We got a text message that told us to meet in the center of the Brooklyn Bridge. So we drove into the city and managed to find a parking spot. I looked up and saw that we had parked right next to Gold Street. This was appropriate since I happened to be wearing a dress that a friend, Lauren Resnick, had given me for my 21st birthday. Well, more like she let me borrow it and I never gave it back and finally she said I could just keep it. But I still love it and think of Lauren R. every time I wear it. I may not wear it often, but when I do I know it's going to be a good night. I decided for some reason that I wanted to wear wings. I think in the initial e-mail they told everyone to wear white and be angels. So I didn't really want to be just like all the other odd people, I wanted to be my own brand off odd. I decided gold was angelic enough and that I'd make myself some wings. I found a place online that told me how to buy 16 gauge wire and shape the wings, then put panty hose over the top. I made a pair using this method, then decided that it didn't really go with my metallic motif. Instead I decided to create some curlicue wings that complimented my outfit better :) I think Scott felt a little left out since I was so dressed up and he just had a white t-shirt on, so he decided to wear my discarded wings. Those wings were pretty small, but I found a way to attach them to his back and off we went. Sunset on the Brooklyn Bridge was beautiful. The city skyline makes a nice backdrop to the geometric lines of the bridge. It is a very pretty bridge, and the walkway was incredibly crowded with all kinds of people. I felt bad for people who were out on an evening stroll only to be confronted with a huge mass of boisterous and crazy looking people that they could barely squeeze past. Of course everyone had their camera out, including me, and it was funny to see the camera etiquette or social interplay going on. Some people would try to discreetly snap a picture of you, then smile shyly when they'd get caught at it. I usually just smiled and struck a pose. When you're in costume it's easy to get carried away with the energy of a crowd and act a little more bold than your usual reserved self. Enough with the third person-ness there. Haha at one point I saw two people standing taking pictures over each other's heads at the crowds, then a third person took a picture of them doing this, and I decided that I'd continue the trend and take a picture of all of them. I showed them the picture I'd taken and Mike, the third person, took my e-mail address, so now I have all four pictures that were taken at that moment. Our friends Kevin and Eric met up with us in that seething mass of people somehow. Kevin said he'd seen an acrobat climbing around on the cables of the bridge, as cars zoomed below. I think there were probably close to a thousand people there all waiting for something to happen. Finally we got a text that said "The cavalry leads the charge" which apparently meant that we were supposed to follow a person who came running by with a horse mask on. So we followed the "cavalry" into Manhattan. I decided I'd better find a restroom since I had no idea where we were going and if I'd ever find another one. So I spotted some people walking into a building and asked to borrow theirs. In downtown New York at that time of night there was no way I was going to find an open shop and there are no public restrooms. Unless I wanted to drive home to Jersey I would have been out of luck entirely. These people were very nice and they were setting up an art gallery for a show the next weekend. They asked me what the heck was going on outside and I explained it all to them. They were very amused. Once we rejoined the crowd, we saw that we'd missed our chance to play in the fountain, since the the cops had put a stop to it before we got there. That's OK, I had fun in a fountain on my wedding night. Here we are parading through the city, hundreds of dressed up people all going to the same unknown destination. It is fun to be a part of since there is a spirit of camaraderie, everyone is complementing each other on their costumes or just talking and meeting new people. It turned out that we were supposed to head into the subway, but Eric had to pick up his bike from another train station around the corner, so we left the crowd to go our own way. We saw two other stragglers who were taking the same train as us, and they got service in the subway, so they got the text that said to head to Coney Island. The train we wanted to take wasn't running, big surprise, the weekend subway service is always hit or miss. So we took the "Special J" train, and certainly got a few funny looks before we made it to a station where a crowd of fellow revelers were waiting. We'd managed to beat most of the people to the train station where we needed to transfer by taking the other route. People had drums, or noisemakers, or just yelled or even sang songs. They all cheered as our train pulled into the station. I felt sorry for the people who were already on the train as we boarded. They didn't know what hit them. A night train home suddenly turned into a raucous subway party, complete with a band who played their way to Coney Island. At one point it became a sing along car with people starting up songs and everyone joining in. At each stop people would run to the next car and we'd start over with a new group of people. We stayed put, since Eric had his bike and it was tough to move through the crowds. This was fine though, since everyone else kept changing cars. I think people in some cars started crowd surfing, if you go onto flickr and search one night of fire you can see even more photos from that night.




When we finally got to Coney Island we got off and saw the NYPD Bus. That made me laugh, since I had no idea how they'd expect to cart a busload of carousers off to jail. Overall the NYPD was very nice. They had a strong presence to make certain that nothing got out of hand, but didn't stop anything unless it did. Coney Island was an appropriate choice since that was one of the last weekends that it would be open before turning into condominiums, and well frankly we all seemed to fit in with the sideshow freaks :) I took off my sandals as we stepped out onto the beach since I didn't want to have to lift a ton of sand with every step. There were performers twirling fire, and I stopped to take a picture of the Scott, Eric and Kevin and the big Ferris wheel. After a while we decided to start the long trek home and I realized that I only had one shoe in my hand. We looked around, but we'd wandered from the spot where I took a picture, and I'm guessing dropped the sandal. It was also very dark, and the sandal was the color of the sand. Since it was just a cheap little flip flop that I'd bought for $5 two years ago I decided to head home without it. Eric gallantly offered me a sock so that I'd at least have something on my foot, then gave me a piggy back ride to the station. I'm sure Scott would have done the same, but he was wearing sandals too, so he had no socks to give me. We finally made our way back to our car and drove home. Minus one shoe, but we still had a great time.




Here are photo's from that night. Enjoy!