A Commonplace Book

Two days ago Saturday the nervous prophecies of an undead gathering came true: a few hundred of New York’s finest undead took to the streets of the Upper East Side, bringing with them blood, carnage, and a desire for conspicuous consumption.

The day couldn’t have been any more beautiful as we started at 59th and 3rd Avenue, walking east towards Bloomingdale’s. As was pointed out by The Zombie Queen, Bloomingdale’s security and employees seems to be increasingly nonchalant about the presence of the undead in their store every year. The shoppers, however, were universally confused and bemused.

Highlight Number 1:
As we lurched across 5th Avenue to the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, a breakdancing crew was just starting a routine for some tourists. Not only were the dancers cool about several hundred bloodied 20 and 30 somethings crashing their act, but one of them put Thriller on the sound system and kicked off an impromptu zombie dance party.

Highlight Number 2:
Zombie group photo at the Army recruiting station in Times Square. Below is a picture from the group’s perspective, but you can still see Zombie King’s ominous head in the dead center of the shot.

Highlight Number 3:
The outfits. Its amazing the effort and creativity some people put into their costumes. Personal favorites of mine include

Zombie Pete Doherty and Zombie Amy Winehouse,

Amish Zombie (not visible are a garden tool and basket on his back),

And of course, Zombie Marcel Marceau/Zombie Mime. An opera hat with a flower in it is more difficult to find than you’d imagine.

I wish I’d been able to take pictures myself, but I was a bit busying with the zombie wrangling, which is about as easy as cat wrangling only the cats are easily distracted by tourists and expensive clothing and you’re trying to herd them down 5th Avenue. So instead thanks for the photos I’ve used here must go to Grant Berger and IsaacWayton.

And finally, lavish mountains of praise must be heaped upon Irene Kaoru for providing overall organization, as well as Ricky’s, Carriage House, O’Lunney’s, and M1-5 for giving us shelter as we lurched, shuffled and shambled from 5th Avenue to Chinatown. The day wouldn’t have been possible without all of their help.

On October 20th, 2007, the zombie hordes will storm the streets of Manhattan, and anyone can join the undead army.

Full details and sign-up for the email list are at www.zombiecon.com

This past Tuesday night I seriously underestimated at least one of two things. First? The number of die-hard Wes Anderson Fans in New York. Second? New York City’s unemployment rate. Perhaps? Both.

Fox Searchlight organized a screening for Hotel Chevalier, a short film being billed as a prologue to Mr. Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, at the Apple store in SoHo. I arrived at the corner of Prince Street and Greene Street at 7 PM, two hours before the given start time of 9 PM. I was obviously a minimum of 3 to 4 hours too late, though, because the line was already about 250 people deep. And thats not including all those who, like me, saw the line and immediately walked off in search of food.

(This is not an exaggeration. Pull the area up on Google Maps, and just imagine the line starting on Prince Street, stretching north up Greene Street, and ending within spitting distance of Houston. I assume it got worse in the remaining two hours before the event.)

Given the average age of the line, I can’t fault anyone who waited in it. Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, and Natalie Portman all were scheduled to be present for the screening. If I was still in college (like most of the NYU students whom I’m implying probably comprised the line), I’d probably have cut a class and brought a book too.

Still. A 5 to 6 hour wait for a 13 minute movie? Moreover, it’s a 13 minute movie which would be available on the internet and for free within 24 hours. It’s a bit tough to find on iTunes, but the link here will take you right to it.