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With apologies to Johna, here are the pastries, a merman,
a merbike, but no meryak!! Guess that one will challenge us til next year.
Horns aplenty (more than in Pamplona Seattle) feted the solstice, as did
hooks on lures,
harlequins of
many genres,
spiral horned,
orchestrated horns,
harlequins with parasols,
and here . . . beyond the cowboy in blue toga, library maids and masters with a classic edition of Jules Verne . . . .
By the next day, revelry had migrated to Red Hook, where theatrical scenes of fund-raising on behalf of PortSide NewYork took place, involving officers of
someone’s flotilla bearing keys to the city. By the way, if you can make it to the Community Board 1 meeting TONIGHT by 6 pm, I’ll see you there. Important!
And someone commented . . asking what this mermaidographer looked like, click here and go to #9; thanks for these to Claudia Hehr.
Cheers. Summer is here . . . and I may tomorrow be agallivantin . . .
Meanwhile, if anyone got good pics of the librarian mermaid/mermen contingent . . . please share?
aka . . pastries pasties and paint, starting with the self-described ”naked cowgirl.”
Why
gild
the
lily?
I’ll
just
put up
fotos
but
further
remain
mute.
See you at south Brooklyn aka Isle of Coney next year.
Happy summertime.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Coney Island–the reef–has existed within the sixth boro since time immemorial, this gathering has occurred since 1983, and tugster has blogged it since 2007, drawn by the natural beauty of creatures–like this one– with
their altruistic sensibilities, their
bio-diversity, their
breathing behavior in dry–if muggy- air, and … more.
But I couldn’t help noticing yesterday that . . . as the mermaids school on this reef, so does another species . . . camera-bearers. Even chief-liaison Dick Zigun has cameras turned on him.
And mermaids themselves sport cameras, maybe as mimicry.
But yesterday the camera-bearers were everywhere!
They schooled–dare I say swarmed–each time a seamaid emerged out of the reef.
Not that the mercreatures seemed to perceive threat; in fact,
it looked like mutual enjoyment
a case of fun, fanfare,
flourish, and frippery.
And camera-bearers feasted at every turn.
And how do you suppose I got these fotos of
such lovely creatures, who
traveled by a range of
conveyance?
More on that tomorrow . . . and the pasties and paint verson of the story.
OK, all fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
Totally related: in the third foto from end above . . . one mermaid sported a tugboat atop her hear but my shot was blurry. Also, I missed a shot of the “librarian mermaids,” which, if anyone got, I’d love a link or a copy.
In recent years, the villains have included developers and politicians. Let’s see if you can guess who got pilloried in 2010. I give no clues, although I will show dirty pictures.
Eeeew! Sullied skin and scales; sticky besmirching gunk!
A polluted sea on the sidewalk,
such beauty begrimed,
a beached fowl befilthed by a fouling foam,
a pestiferous plague on pickup and passengers, and
all drawing out righteous indignation.
Face it . . . many of us are traumatized . . . and what can we do?
In the Gulf of Mexico and many other places our consumption has brewed a cruddy, nasty, soiled, nasty, stinky concoction that
chokes when brought to the mouth.
The sea . .. and the land and the shoreline are
yours and ours. But how do we claim what is ours?
What must we all do to save beauty from beastliness?
Click here to see Rick (old salt’s) post with a great clip of the becrowning of Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. Here’s Lou Reed’s “coney island baby.” From frogma, musica!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Some related pieces: a Frank Rich essay from Sunday’s NYTimes that I like, oil spills we don’t hear about, a cautionary tale from Nigeria where oil has issued forth since 1958, info and pix about the momentous 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara, and an article about life of the crew of vessel known as OCS-G 32306 integral to efforts at end this nightmare.
So who was the villain here?
My gratitude to all the performers for their theatre of grief.
Coney Island has such a distinct culture that the sixth boro (the watery parts between the five terra-boros) should just annex it.
Very introductory but fascinating history of Coney’s evolution can be had in these short articles by Lisa Iannucci, Jeffrey Stanton, and Laurence Aurbach Jr. One theme of these articles is that Coney has a rich history of inverting the genteel norms, entertaining rather than uplifting, dissolving the distinction between audience and performer, and (for a holiday) legitimizing some folks’ ideas of the illegitimate. (Some of those phrases come from the lecture by Goeff Zylstra recently at Alongtheshore.) It sounds like the alongshore of Coney makes a candidate for the capital of the sixth boro, and the Mermaid Parade its official holiday.
May these few fotos whet your appetite! Doubleclick enlarges. More tomorrow. I took this foto almost immediately after arriving yesterday, and I was so happy I could have gone home satisfied. Mermaids exude such grace!
Dick Zigun, mayor of Coney, leads off the 20th annual parade. Thanks for ALL your efforts, Dick and crew. Oceans of appreciation to all the performers!
King Neptune and Queen Mermaid aka Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson ride the ceremonial cart.
Charm and
ferocity,
Fun for all ages, youngsters
of all ages: THIS is the circus that has come to Coney.
Beplumed posteriors and
profiles, they have given me a smile I can’t erase for days, months even.
Those black smudges . . . yeah, the parade did have its dirty parts, but for that, your patience until tomorrow is required.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
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