At the Ball No. 3
A beautiful stranger at the Gemini & Scorpio Bootleggers' Ball New Year's Eve party.
I never do find out who she is, but by the time we meet she is feeling frisky and ready to play with the camera. We shoot together for a while, riding the wave of the moment.
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Uploaded on Jan 4, 2010
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For a Year of Fire
Midnight at the Bootleggers' Ball: after a few rounds of burlesque and a few stabs at the bar, the room is full and the moment is full of import.
On stage, the Musical Fiery Contrapticon, built for the occasion by troublemaker Dan Glass, belches out of burst of flame. There's a shriek of joy from Gemini & Scorpio organizer Larisa Fuchs, a roar from the crowd, and a flurry of hugs and kisses and warm, wet eyes. It's 2010.
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Uploaded on Jan 4, 2010
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Larisa, Bootlegger Boss
Larisa is the chief party person behind Gemini & Scorpio's events, and she outdoes herself tonight with the Bootleggers' Ball.
For the first couple of hours of the party she's still at work, wrangling chairs and keeping the room in good cheer. By the time midnight erupts in flame and roaring, she's in costume and all smiles.
Now, that's a hat.
It's 3:30 a.m., and my brain is starting to wilt. The new decade has begun, or not, depending on how you prefer to count it. And in just half an hour, I'll be inspired to send out a few ill-advised "Happy New Year" text messages ... oops.
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Uploaded on Jan 3, 2010
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Seth Meets the New Year
The bar line is hellishly long in the before-midnight part of New Year's Eve, and Seth and I do some tag-team beverage runs. Here he returns, triumphant, from a sortie to the House of St. Eve specialty cocktail section.
One of the nice touches at the Gemini & Scorpio Bootleggers' Ball party is that we're supposed to bring our own drinking vessels (you know: bootleggers, Great Depression, that sort of thing). Some of the vessels are run of the mill, or optimistically grand; some are funny anachronisms (I get a laugh out of the guy dressed to the nines and drinking from one of those shiny aluminum bike bottles); some are just-so bits of personality.
To wit: Seth brings a distinctive Maker's Mark promotional glass, which I instantly covet. Melody has an awesome Bobba Fett mug. Which I instantly covet. Seth is holding my decorative beer stein, which I won somewhere but have no idea where, while I take this picture. I get a lot of compliments on the beer stein, which is probably making its beverage debut tonight. It has spent the last 15 years or so sitting on a shelf looking decorative. I guess other people covet the beer stein, which seems fair.
One of the party's dress options is "hobo chic," and Seth turns up in a wrinkled tux with a rumpled formal shirt and an unbalanced bowtie. This sort of cracks me up, since my dress options are pretty much exhausted just trying to look like I basically belong here: dressing up by dressing down is far beyond my resources. I'm exposed as an amateur.
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Uploaded on Jan 3, 2010
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Natalie Adorned
I met Natalie only recently, after a performance at the Metropolitan Opera, where she plays one of the scandalously scantily-clad women in the current new production of Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann.
It's great to find her here at the Bootleggers' Ball New Year's Eve party. After midnight, she and Melody (also one of the Offenbach naughties) disappear into the face-painting corner, and emerge with even more sparkles and swoops than before.
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Uploaded on Jan 2, 2010
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