Last night I tried to explain one of my favorite childhood books, Where the Red Fern Grows (with spoilers!) to someone who had never heard of it. It's impossible to do so without sounding insane, especially if you say "crazy old mean old nasty coon" a lot, which is critical for accurate plot description, and not actually offensive in context.
Is anybody gonna mention SaveToby.com?
Coming soon to theaters: Jesus Camp:
I attended an extremely Fundamentalist Christian camp every summer for six years, but even it was not like this. The phrase "spiritual warfare" was bandied about, but in the "let's pray really hard" sense, not the "let's train our children for the coming war" sense. Be very, very afraid. There's really nothing funny about this, actually.
(Triptych of the East River Impromptu Bonfire in Williamsburg, August 14, 2003, by Sarah Balcomb. Click to enlarge.)
So, the totally not surprising rumor is there could be another blackout tonight. I know, there probably won't be, but the blackout of '03 was one of the best nights of my life (and probably yours, too.)
So now I'm all nostalgic and achey and wistful and full of longing all of a sudden, so I've dug up some Blackout-related stuff from the old version of this website. (You know, before I was seduced and corrupted by the glamorous-yet-ultimately-empty blogging scene.)
After the blackout, I asked some of my friends for their own blackout stories and photos, which can be found here (and are still awesome.)
I also wrote up my own blackout story for Knot Magazine three days later. Reading it for the first time in three years, I wince at how bad it is (A "subtle" 9/11 reference in the first sentence? Oh, Lindsay of '03, I just wanna muss your already-messy hair.)
But there it is, in all its sentimental, style-less glory, and it represents a much more idealistic time in my life that I would kill to get back, so there.
But don't click, here's the gist:
* Sarah Balcomb and I rode our bikes around darkened Williamsburg with backpacks full of cheap cabernet that we shared with everyone we encountered.
* At one point I stripped and did a Lady-Godiva-on-a-bike-but-with-short-hair thing for like thirty terrifying seconds in the middle of McCarren Park. (Future games of "I Never" would benefit.)
*A guy stole Sarah's bike from its kickstand-spot five feet away from us, and was not deterred by Sarah's thrown shoe or my expletives.
*Before we left the bonfire, we waded into the East River to properly send off our melodramatic message-in-a-bottle: "It is the night of the Blackout, and we are drunk..."
* Then we wandered from Williamsburg bar to Williamsburg bar with an ever-growing group of people whose faces we never properly saw, until we stumbled home at dawn.
In short: best.night.ever.
(I'm allowed to navel-gaze four times per year, okay? It's in the rules.)
I was searching for pictures of Bigfoot (long story, just got a "forest" photo wall mural that I want to insert a pic of Bigfoot into) and found this.
HOW AWESOME IS THAT? I really really want it so I can reenact that scene from "Big" with my friends (or, more likely, make a new friend based on his or her willingness to reenact that scene from "Big" with me.) But alas, I don't think it will fit in my apartment. And I don't know how to play piano with my feet.
Instead, let's just all watch that scene from "Big" together. And remember.
I think I'm going to that tomorrow. I used to date a guy in my Williamsburg days who took me to the Mccarren Park Pool on the back of his bike on our second date, when I didn't even know it was there and the only way to get in was through a hole in a barbed-wire fence. The only word for it was "magical." (I'm not expecting magic tomorrow night, just good friends and Michael Showalter.)
(Word on the street is the beer license fell through, so bring your smugglin' purse.)
Recent Comments