Mermaid Parade 2013 b

It can only be midsummer for a few long days.  Store up on the color, frivolity, music, and laughter the mermaids bring ashore for the rest of the year.  When they come through the intersection and turn down Surf Avenue, everyone stops to watch them pass.

 

And then, the hoop stops spinning and drops.  Tails and scales return and mermaids hurry back to their occupations beneath the waves, leaving us to return to our pursuits.  The moon wanes, as the music fades, replaced by raucous horns of frustrated drivers stuck in traffic.  Days shorten.  Temperatures oppress.  And we have only memories of this to get us through another year.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

And if you think this is an NYC-unique event, check out the zeemeerminnen.

Mermaid Parade 2013

Sinuous lines of body paint . . . can mean only one thing:  the Coney Island mermaid parade.  Click here for a Daily News profile of parades going back to the 1940s.

Dick Zigun, mayor of Coney Island,  starts out the beat, as he always does, but

then recognition went to those folks who contributed to make the parade possible.

Enjoy the color, imagine the sound of drums and laughter . . .

and frisson along some new ideas.

Happy summer.  Troubles be banished for a while.

It’s called the mermaid parade, so what would you expect.  And their marching bands make loud festive music.

Some bring consorts.

Frogs and politics crept in too.

But otherwise it was music and dance  . . .

a walrus or two . . .

and bright curvy colors.

Happy summer 2013.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Here are some posts from parades in  2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 . . . .

Mermaid Parade 2011c

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?

Mermaid Parade 2011b

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.

Mermaid Parade 2011a

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.

Solstice ’10

June 19 . . . from the boardwalk after the parade, and (maybe celebrating solstice inland) nary a mermaid or seamaster in sight.  An unidentified sloop plots a course between two outbound c-vessels.  See frogma’s solstice on the boardwalk pix here.

June 18 . . . a McAllister boat heads past the World Financial Center after escorting in a cruise ship.  Between the mirrored walls and sheathed in blue . . . that’s the state of construction on One World Trade.   Does the name sound a bit like a commercial version of the Bob Marley song?

June 17 . . .  crewman watches as Atlantic Coast pushes a loaded cement barge up the East River.

Earlier that day, the unit anchored in the Hudson;  barge is Cement Transporter 5300 . . . clear enough.

Crewman uses telephone on the afterdeck of Adriatic Sea.  That’s Jersey City in the background.  A year ago, Adriatic appeared here.

Left to right:  barge New Hampshire, Scott Turecamo, Mark Miller, and Americas Spirit.  Fort Wadsworth lies in the background.

Ocean King looks to land on Pier 16 for a crew change.

I’ve never seen Ocean King (ex-David McAllister, Resolute, launched 1950) in the sixth boro before last week.

Cornell heads south past Battery Park City, hard at work in the golden hour for fotos.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp in the past 5 days.

Happy Solstice.  If you want more mermaids . . . let me know.