Let's do it in the middle of the street

I seem to have had a nice weekly activity over the past few weeks that fits perfectly into the spirit of this blog. This past Friday night Cambridge's local government did all the work in closing off a block of Massachusetts Avenue (the main thoroughfare through town) in front of City Hall right near my 'hood in Central Square and setting up a big outdoor dance party. For four hours (alas, I was only there for the final 90 minutes) around 1000 people filled the street and danced to blaring music beneath massive colorful lights being shined down from the roofs of nearby buildings.



That alone screams "awesome," but it was made that much better with a one-hour tribute block of songs to the late Michael Jackson.

On top of all of this, they lit up the City Hall building with all sorts of colorful, semi-psychedelic light displays; the spirals on the sides and the saxophone up top were spinning throughout the night.


Semi-spontaneous dance parties in the street = Very cool.

Simple fun in the sun

The fountain cools and wets your skin. The sun warms the stone. The stone warms and dries your skin. Repeat.


Some friends and I doing just that near the reflecting pond in downtown Boston a couple of weekends ago. Definite fun times, almost no effort/money necessary.

Ahhhh, huge tornado! No wait....

It's Giant Twister.

I'll let the photos do the talking. But Giant Twister is pretty awesome, especially when people finally get over their own lame self-consciousness--when we first arrived there were literally 50 people standing around the mat watching the three people playing--and join the fun.


Even after more people joined and the mat got close to full, people still often insisted on staying in their own little space. At one point I attempted to get everyone to try to move to the opposite side simultaneously (i.e. people on the left go right, people on the right go left), but the group as a whole wouldn't take. Then, my three friends and I decided we'd each start in a different corner and then work our way to the center, at which point it was an all out battle to be the last man standing. Of course, I went half way to the center and then fell over on some other random person instead. Nonetheless, very awesome.

Kids never hold back their excitement. Someday adults won't either. (Note: one of those is not true).

UPDATE: It dawned on me that I never actually explained where this took place. This was last Friday night at the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA) on the waterfront in South Boston. Dan Deacon also performed, and the event was given a scathing review by Bostonist here. I agree with the review, although I also did have a ton of fun, too.

Three week break

Time for a three-week break as I attend a science policy colloquium down in DC :)