He swings it, round and round. It forms a ring around his body, like that of Saturn's, but these aren't frozen space particles-- this is fiery hatred! An absolute expression of the life and death of flame. He swings two chains around his body. Flame trails from rods wrapped in lighter-fluid-drenched swaddle, hits and crawls along the uninhabitable asphalt. In fashionable blue.
I can feel the heat
from several feet.
His body must be
hot and sweaty.
The ring secured around his finger snaps and he loses grip on the chain. It hurdles, ball over chain right into my face and my beard bursts into flame! I am now writhing on the cobble in front of Gallery 5 trying to extinguish my face.
Okay, that last traumatic bit does not happen. Just something I envision while spectating.
Tonight is the first night I am able to go to a First Friday event on Broad in over a year. For those of you not from Richmond or for those of you who have been epically lazy, First Fridays are a huge celebration held on Broad from about second or first to about Belvidere. It's like seven block parties, all devoted to art galleries, bars, and live music.
I arrive alone and am drawn to Gull ( you really have to watch the videos of him play to get the idea ) who is playing on the sidewalk. He is a masked musician named Nate who sings and plays guitar and drums all at once. This is riveting but I must meet with my friends, so I do. We watch Poi outside of Gallery 5 for half an hour.
I feel like this guy created it. Or at least brought it to the forefront in Richmond. Or at least was a main contributor to those who did.
His name is Evan Moses and this is an old ass picture of him that I creepily stole from facebook. He introduces me to poi three years ago, so I have seen poi a million times(maybe exaggerated). It is only when this older chick dressed in all black comes to the center of the crowd with a hula hoop and some fire am I impressed. She looks like Leslie Mann and becomes one with the hoop, which is on fire. It is sort of like this but set to trance, not porno groove. And there is only one hula hoop. But it's on fire!
I miss Andrea's lantern workshop, which sucks because I see like twenty people around 10:30(which is half an hour after the event is supposed to wind down/cease to exist) and they're totally awesome, albeit really cheap lanterns!
My group wanders back to Broad where Brandon and I end up singing with Gull. This is his last song and he encourages people to join in. He even repeats the seven syllable chanting part like ten times, just so we get it straight. He looks to Brandon and I, the only two really participating and, through his skull-like mask with his totally distorted microphone, tells us to do it louder. He raises his free hand(for the moment) at us. We sing louder and he begins the drum part to accompany the pre-existing guitar. More people join in. Eventually, at least half of the 30-40 people there are involved. The tune is stuck in my head for the rest of the night. It is stuck now.
I eventually leave and ride home. I blow through a stop sign and am stopped by the cops for the second time. I mean, I see the car, looking all innocent in its idle darkness and say to myself, "Shit, I'm gonna get pulled." Of course they let me off with a warning, it is two cute, younger rookie female cops. I win. Though one of them writes something on a pad of paper after ID-ing me. Guess I better take this warning. Be careful, right?
"You got lights?"
"Yeah, I just turned them off to save batteries." I stammer, "when you pulled me."
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