Halloween

I had the good luck to watch the NYC Village Halloween parade from the rooftop of a friend's apartment on 6th Avenue only feet away from the West 4th stop. We climbed out his kitchen window, up the fire escape and a scary ladder and clambered on to the roof. The parade was pretty cool- a writhing mass of drunken costumed crazy New Yorkers. Just about as opposite from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as you can get. There were some neat costumes- a group of pizza slices that came together to make a whole pizza, the required Jedi and Storm Troopers, a fantastically accurate Juno & Co. Overall, not as many Jokers or Palins as I was expecting. Instead there were an awful lot of bananas.

Halloween is a madhouse in the city. It's a carnivalesque highly politically and socially charged moment only restrained by the very prominent police presence (because the party was on 6th avenue, we had to have someone from the apartment come get us and escort us to the door. the police had barricaded the entire block). To me, it felt only a bit short of an Obama rally what with the political floats and costumes- lots of get rid of george bush signs/costumes. It's also widly unorganized which also makes it very Village-y. People in homemade costumes dance down the street and the occasional shoddy but enthusiastic float comes by, punctuated by local bands. Fun night!