Famous Ankles

I did go to the 2008 Mermaid Parade. I’m glad I did, but it sure wasn’t what I expected…but I don’t know really what I expected.

It’s an odd parade. Part of it is on the streets of Coney Island, but half of it is on the Boardwalk. I knew that they wouldn’t have certain parts of the parade on the Boardwalk such as anything motorized, but I couldn’t resist watching the parade there. It was just too unusual to miss.

So, for a parade that started at 2pm, I got there early and started waiting in on the route at around 1pm. And I’m glad I was there that early. It filled up quickly. It’s a very-well attended parade, but I have to admit it was very unexciting in the sense of no real thrill to the crowd. Hey, it was hot. But mostly, I think, it was the lack of music. There were a couple of odd marching bands (and no conventional ones) along with some boombox music and the like, but it just didn’t have a real soundtrack to it.

In this and the posts to come, you’ll find that I’ve edited the selection of photos pretty extensively. You have to understand that NY laws state that if a man can go without a top, so can a woman. And a lot of women took that to heart. Not a tremendous number, but quite a few. So, in the interest of remaining safe for work and for family viewing, I’ve excluded a lot of my pictures. Many that I’ve included might be too much for some people, but I think they’re relatively safe.

I have no idea how many posts I’ll make of this. The parade had many small groups and I got photos of almost all of them, but some were eliminated for content and others for redundancy and others simply because the visuals were uninteresting. I plan to complain about this during some of the posts (or maybe all of them) because the parade was just too disjointed and all over the place. It was, I suspect, designed to look very playful and spontaneous, but it just ended up being another group with somewhat clever costumes being followed by another group with similar costumes. And then another. And another.

Anyway, here’s what it looked like on the Boardwalk just before starting.

The parade started with a small marching band and a big Mermaid Parade sign.

Very quickly, we had our first mermaid. This one on a pretend phone call.

I liked the next one and thought it boded well for the parade. A celebration of subway cars that were sunk to help form an artificial reef.

The parade was filled with young ladies clad in their swimsuit finest, augmented with whatever accessories they felt like adding. Well, the next were young, but I’d hardly call these their swimsuits.

I didn’t really think much when I took the next picture. But, after the parade and after I reviewed the other photos I took; I kind of like this one. I think it might have been interesting to have an entire contingent of people in the olde-timey swimsuits.

I saw the next person and all I could think of wsa “glamor girl”. I haven’t the foggiest if it is a Jean Harlow impression or some other.

The next photo was for a group that protects women’s and children’s rights. The “Amethyst Women’s Project”.

The next picture is pretty much typical of much of the parade. Lots of girls in these sorts of tops.

Some people were interested in being outrageous. Or at least a little weirder than others.

Parasols on parade…at least in the background of the next photo.

A fan-dancer came up next.

The next picture is odd enough. A vampire fish woman with bears emerging from her waist? With a globe-like thing growing from her head.

More costumes. Well, the ones in the back are stylized jellyfish, but I’m uncertain about the showgirl. And the guy’s costume. Maybe some sort of plankton?

In the next picture, the best part is the little girl in the back. She has these huge fake crab claws.

Another little girl mermaid. Long tail. A bit more anatomically correct than mermaid costumes of my youth.

Mom with a parasol protecting her son from the sun, who has other things in mind. After all, he’s a pirate. With a misplaced eyepatch and a lollipop!

I could have gone a week guessing costumes, but I wouldn’t have thought of a family weather map.

The next was the most colorful group in the parade. Plus they did their own music. So little music in this parade…

Minimalist costumes…in the sense of not going way out of their way to create a costume.

There was so very little music to the parade. Or at least, I just don’t remember very much. This group brought their own music (note the woman on the left carrying a boombox).

A cute little mermaid followed.

A swooping sort of dancer designed to symbolize a swooping dancer, I presume.

The next seemed to be a pirate family of some sort. The family that pilages and sows terror on the high seas is a family…

You want kids in baskets? I got yer kids in baskets right here! Well, the baskets were decorated to sorta, I guess, be (maybe, possibly) turtle-types of things. Maybe.

Jellyfish man! The umbella with tentacles (jellyfish tentacles) was a popular theme.

Okay, another non-sequitur: Debbie D the Brown Haired Mermaid and a wizard. Debbie, I understand. The wizard? An available costume for the guy?

Channel 7 news was there for a feature. Like the rest of the Press, he got in people’s line of sight.

Explore posts in the same categories: Events, Parades, Wanderings

This entry was posted on June 22, 2008 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Events, Parades, Wanderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.