Is the 4th of July the most photogenic of U.S. holidays? It certainly is the most fun. Food, drinks, explosives.
From the house I grew up in I could see the fireworks streaking over the Washington Monument and the 4th of July is filled with many strong memories:
–a Beach Boys concert on the National Mall being blared from my neighbors stereo as they played volleyball and drank beer.
–getting kicked out of a secret George Washington University parking lot after the fireworks when I had been in a car with my girlfriend for too long(!)
–visiting the Fort Greene Hospital with Sohrab Habibion at 2am after an m-80 accident (yes, we are still friends and no his nickname isn’t Django but it was very traumatic) and almost getting shot by a super-sized bottle rocket by Jason Asnes in DUMBO (3 strikes you’re out… no more fire crackers for me).
–Sitting in a backyard in Williamsburg and realizing the orange chunks shooting up were embers not firecrackers and that the fire at the Rosenwach Water Tank Company building was serious.
–discovering the freshest air imaginable in Rustic Canyon in LA on the way to a party in Santa Monica.
This year we spent the day with Ian, Michelli and friends at the Knauer Family Farm in Pennsylvania. It’s near Knauertown i.e. it was settled by Ian’s family before the Declaration of Independence was signed. O.G. These guys know cooking like Asamoah Gyan knows pain. Maybe they should write a cookbook or something. Obviously NYC is best when you leave pretty often. Check out the pix:
On a related “America, Fuck Yeah” moment: Someday I’ll tell you about my lifelong project of reading the biographies of all the presidents (I got side tracked and have been slowly working my way through Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton for ever but I just picked it up again so watch out James Madison). It’s now the 5th but nonetheless Happy 4th of July.
ps I never post this many pix but I’ve been thinking about stories instead of single images.
pps Kerrilynn asked what the firecrackers mean. I said something about the Rockets Red Glare but that was kinda naff.
The Star-Spangled Banner
O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Lyrics by Francis Scott Key 1812
