Summer Glut

Tour de Queens: underwhelming, to say the least. Average pace: 5 mph. Attendees: more than 2,000. It felt great to be a part of something huge and urban and active, especially an event that pisses off cars (blocked off Queens Boulevard for 15 minutes!). But an exciting bike tour this was not; I was told the NYC Century is more my speed. I'm still working on upping my endurance ride to 50 miles...

At Flushing Meadow Park, a relic from the World's Fair

Lots of cyclists at Forest Park

It also felt pretty great to be part of a massive group of Queens cyclists -- I felt a little surge of local pride, and hope that the event at least pissed off enough people (or pleased them! we got a lot of applause in Woodside) to make a stir in the headlines of some local papers. My fellow cyclists were serious, too, not a bunch of single-speed high-waisted skirt-wearing sideways-ponytailed too-cool-for-school types that never wear helmets. There were even little kids in Spandex!

In other cycling news, I finally met my goal of biking out to Levittown from Astoria -- and I'm not trying to seem ironically nonchalant by telling you it was not that hard. Scarcely 30 miles, the ride was pretty much a straight shot from Flushing Meadow Park to Broadway Mall, after which I risked it on about 3 miles of side streets. The Long Island Expressway is the trick; after scouring the threads from some New York cycling online forums, I discovered that the LIE Service Road is the "longest uninterrupted stretch of biking road in the New York area." The trip was far more relaxing than any city biking I've done, even the vaguely coastal trip to Coney Island. Seeing the LIE choked with cars on a Friday afternoon kept a smile on my face nearly the entire time, as did the shade from the massive deciduous trees lining the road throughout the length of the service road. Legend has it that you can take the LIE Service Road all the way out the the Hamptons... 

Animal Collective: once again, a frolic in Prospect Park to the electronic urban djembe beats of my beloved Baltimore musicians. Two years ago I chilled on a picnic blanket and enjoyed the music from afar; this time, I was crammed up in the front with the dancing facepainted fools. I was joined by Nicole, Chris, and Kelly (and all of her siblings!); it felt good to be around some kindred spirits.

The set in daytime -- the eyes and mouth of the big jungle face turned out to be screens onto which crazy images were projected. Yes!

Neon indians 

New friends (and facepaint proprietress) 

Set at night, jungle mask unlit