The Dodgeball Side of the Pool...

McCarren Pool closed as a concert venue a little over a year ago, and in its honor, I thought I'd post a little piece I wrote after attending the next to last concert it was open. A bit more grandiose and flowery than my usual, but hey...style evolves, no?:

The dodgeball side of the pool (on the right when coming in) was perfection. Everyone on point, down to the gawkish boy studiously "reading" a novel in awkwardly nerdy exhibitionism on the steps.


The slip and slide side however was the polar opposite. Everyone either trying too hard, not trying hard enough, or just simply not hitting it.

Was it the sun favoring one? Was it figurative, with the dodgeball game occupying the deep end of the pool, possibly raising subconscious allusions to symbolic, sartorial or intellectual depth or even to witticisms referencing the gene pool? Was it the grounding nature of competitve sport with its more traditionally gendered context that was allowing individuals freedom to play, however subtly, with the ideals of beauty and handsomeness...or maybe for the observer to be struck by the contrast?

Whatever it was, it seemed a blanket distinction without exception...regardless how almost identical individuals from opposite sides may have appeared. I would have been willing to bet I could have found two guys with the exact same tattoo from opposite sides of the pool and one's body art would transcend all previously known body-mod art while the other would be so gauche as to make one shiver.

Rather than look longer, however, for once I forsook my socio-anthropological mandate, grabbed another beer and just basked in the "rightness" that was that perfect summer Sunday.