Sunday, July 8, 2012

Providence Waterfire with Bird.

Where: Providence, RI
Scene: A mass of people waiting around, both patiently and borderline silently, for a guy riding around in a gondola to light up fire pits along the river.
Reminds me of: When Bird and I lived together in college and we ordered a gondola shaped pizza from a local pizzeria.

This is a bad picture of the dude who lights the fires:  


This photo certainly does NOT give the ridiculousness of the situation justice.  The guy takes his time, I'm talkin' a good four minutes per fire pit.  He does some crazy winding motions with the fire sticks, really drawing out the whole shabang.  He is bald except for his lengthy ponytail and is wearing black pants with flames on them.  We decided that when he is not lighting water on fire, he probably is either a martial arts instructor or works at Hot Topic.

Once the river is ablaze, the crowd begins to chatter excitedly while staring at the flames.  Bird and I can only handle staring at one thing for so long, so we decide to wander.  We stumble upon a swingfest.  Who knew that basically everyone in this tiny state capital knew how to jitterbug?! Pretty much everyone is hardcore digging the scene....except for this kid:

NOT INTO IT!!!!!

And finally, we couldn't leave before I got my fortune from some statue artist people.  Put a dollar in their bucket, and they will give you your fortune via a piece of green paper.  These guys must be bankin'...and for what?! And yet, always curious on fortune fronts, a dollar I did give.  My fortune reads: "act now upon your wishes".  Damn straight!



After all of this hoopla, I naturally got insanely lost driving home.  I'm talking driving an hour and a half in the wrong direction. That's what happens when the gps system is programmed to be "off road".  Awesome.  And this is why I need a subway system....

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