...you never know what you're going to find when you come around the curve. Hit the jackpot this evening with some Chinese women doing a synchronized dance routine to a song blasting on a nearby boombox.
1. Air (Yellow) represents mind and thoughts, the ability to think.
2. Water (Blue) represents emotions.
3. Fire (Red) represents will, the ability to direct your thoughts and emotions towards action on the physical plane.
4. Earth (Green) represents all the materials on the physical plane that the three subtle-elements interact with.
5. Space (White), or aether, represent the "5th element" and it is the "background canvas" or "cosmic lattice" that the "material earth" is projected upon.
While I believe that the "five elements" actually related to a funamental truth about the structure of matter at the microcosmic level, I also really like how in alchemy they're used as a metaphor for the ingredients of human experience.
Here's Lisa celebrating him! Or is has she already moved on to celebrating the Asian lady in the wicker cowboy hat? But hey, I guess it's appropriate either way. Win!
...and we went to Orchard Bar for Sarah and Karen's party. We got there late and the dance floor was practically empty...save for this dude who was tearing it up in his flip flops! Hahah.
Amber was in full-effect that night. Every time Lawrence would look away, Amber would start dancing all sexy and freaking him from behind without touching him. Do you know how hard it is to dance all fast behind someone without touching them and accidentally giving yourself away? Girl's got skills.
The best thing I've ever seen in my life was this pack of eight year-old girls from the Lower East Side who rolled up on their bikes to watch in disbelief. Their collective look of "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE CRACKERS DOING?" cannot even be described.
After watching them try to make sense of the situation for more than five minutes, Grant and I wandered over and tried to make things more interesting. We explained (er, ok - lied) to the girls and told them that the kids were dancing as part of a hidden camera show - they were dancing stupid on purpose in hopes that people would yell stuff at them and heckle them - but the problem was, no one had heckled them yet. We told the girls that if they started shouting insults, they'd totally get to be on MTV. We let them ponder that for a few minutes, and then slunk back to enjoy the magic that ensued. Needless to say, the Dance Revolution packed up and headed back to their NYU dorm in a fucking (embarrassed) jiffy.
Kid in the Green shirt: "Do you know what's lame? The fact that people just don't dance, man. I mean, it's like we spend our whole lives being afraid and then one day, we die. That's just so sad. Know what I'm saying?"
Token Asian Friend in Bad Hat: "I'm totally picking up what you're laying down, nigga. Why don't we all go to the park after breakfast and just dance? Just like forget everyone and dance. Let's just totally let go and take it to anotha level. I bet if we do it long enough, everyone else will join in and it will be a big ironic party! I've a boom box and a pair of track pants upstairs. What about the rest of y'all? Y'all with me?"
...a bunch of college freshmen playing a boom box and self-conciously dancing while trying really hard to pass off their insecurity as irony. (The fact that I was standing four feet from them laughing and unabashedly taking pictures probably didn't help). It only took a glance to imagine the conversation that had been held minutes earlier at an NYU dorm cafeteria table that prompted this "happening."
Quicly became a duet. Er, sort of. This girl didn't sing with me, however, she did lay writing on the stage while I sang and did all sorts of crazy floor dancing. It significantly enhanced my performance.
Right when we'd gotten to the bar, there were a few girls that came over to us because they could tell that we "weren't from around there." We chatted them up for awhile until we noticed that it was causing all of the guys in the room to give us the stinkeye. As the night pressed on and some of those guys started getting drunker and giving us the stink eye again, we decided it would probably be best to quit while we were ahead and call it a night. We snuck out right in the middle of a slow jam. Farewell, Coarse Gold!
For some reason this is the only pic I have of Grant singing...see him there in the background? Look carefully, I know it's hard to see him behind the group of people who actually got up out of their seats and started doing a FUCKING KICKLINE to the end of his incredible rendition of Frank's "New York, New York." (People from California got up and kicklined to "New York, New York" sung by a Brit. Think about that.)
Shortly after, his girlfriend returned and somehow Jen Choi ended up on stage dirty dancing with her. (It was also right around here that my camera's batteries fucking died on me. I managed to snap a few more pics, but I kept having to turn the cam off for a few seconds, let it rest, then turn it on and try to take another pic before it died again.)
While we were standing around shooting the shit with Tracy, all of a sudden this girl busted out onto the dance floor with the strap from her giant "fashion purse" pulled over her face and just started freaking the fuck out. After watching her do her thing (maybe it was performance art?) for a few minutes, we decided it was time to head out.
You know, life's funny: One minute you're riding high at a fancy-smancy club in the West Village and dancing with a hot chick. And then just 10 minutes later...
Grant was sweating this chick for awhile, so after he finished his ridicu-normous-sized drink he mustered up enough liquid courage to go up and start dancing with her.
After resting up the first night, we decided to hit the town on our second night. We asked for the local "hot spot" and were promptly directed to some Cabana-type bar in the middle of a strip mall parking lot....where we met this guy, the drunkest guy ever. He was from England and wanted us to call him should we ever visit. He wrote his number down on a 20 pound note in the most illegible handwriting I've ever seen.
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