And yet my brother, my friend (with whom we had spent the night) and I were awake and abroad on the streets and en route to the financial district -- Wall Street, in particular -- with the primary intention (or so we told ourselves) of witnessing an event. I had even brought my Super-8 camera along with me.

It must be further stated that we were ambulatory (and soon to be much else) at the behest of a man and a woman we had had a scant twenty-four hours (or less) acquaintance with -- marking this event as one of the most unusual beginnings for a friendship in my experience.

We arrived, huddled over our respective cups of coffee (our sole source of heat), to discover a sizeable crowd already congregating around the intersection. The photographer and his assistant were apparent in very short order, and then likewise our newfound acquaintances. I shot a few scans of the crowd with the Super-8 and, as preparations drew near to the actual event itself, I don't know exactly what happened. Perhaps the spirit was infectious, or perhaps hearing the instructions as conveyed by the photographer made me realize clearly how unlikely it was that a sanctioned opportunity such as this would come around again anytime soon. Whatever it was, it was an impulse that both my brother and my friend joined in on; and so, at the signal, I did a quick spin again with the Super-8 at the suddenly active horde of people, and then laid it carefully aside to begin frantically removing my layers and layers of clothing.

I remember thinking that the lunacy wasn't in being involved in a nude photo shoot with a mass of similarly unclothed people, but that it was REALLY COLD; a fact that, if I had in any way adjusted to it, became apparent again very quickly. I don't think anybody there was able to think about the public transgression taking place in the hallowed streets of capitalism: we were all too busy freezing.

We ran to our first assigned positions: lying in rows down both sides of Wall Street, our heads at the curb and our feet towards the divider. My legs kept rebelling against lying on the frigid asphalt for more than a few seconds at a go, so I lay there twitching spasmodically against the chill, trying to will my unresponsive body into some semblance of stillness while we waited for the impressively slow photographer (who -- in truth -- was not, but merely seemed so) to take the shot. Then, en masse, the naked droves leapt up from the street and swarmed around the corner, lining up along the wall of a bank (not quite as the photographer had wished, as was evident in the resulting photograph). After another length of interminable waiting (for probably less than 15 seconds), we fled towards the clothes we had all divested and scrambled madly into them before we accidentally chipped off some extremities. I did another quick scan of the mad re-clothing with the camera, and suddenly found that I was incredibly awake, as was everyone else. The photographer was busy breaking down, and the other photographers (who had been lurking down the street, capturing as much as they could on video) disappeared into the air. The entire day still stretched before us, as dawn was only now erupting into the fullness of the morning.
G6(7)