Sooner or later, the end of quarantine lockdown is coming and it will be such a joyous shindig! Here is a little watercolor painting from my moleskine sketchbook which begins to conceptualize the freedom and the fun of the summer of ’21…and yet even in my imagination the roller-skating goddess is wearing a mask! I wonder how long it will be before we ever see a public gathering without some weird respiratory accessories (assuming such a thing ever happens again). Anyway, the image shows the Coney Island Boardwalk at night. In addition to the magical rollerskating disco woman–who needs no explanation–there are two novelty rubber chickens and some sentient dancing fruit (probably left over from the ’80s). An accordion player plies his craft as a shy young hotdog takes a first few tentative dance steps. While the rollercoaster runs in the background, a crab in the foreground seemingly wonders if a cigarette will give him cancer.
In the upper left of the image is a rather strange steel structure which Brooklyn residents will immediately recognize as the “Parachute Jump”. This was some sort of horrifying human sacrifice-themed amusement park novelty of the early twentieth century and its steel skeleton still lingers at the edge of the continent to remind us of delights now gone forever. Preposterously a spoonbill is flying towards the erstwhile ride. Everyone knows that is not a native bird!
ferrebeekeeper 
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April 16, 2021 at 5:49 AM
K Hindall
Shudder. Parties in the streets. Just what an autistic does not need!
Lockdown as such was over long ago here in central NYS. But my sister and I loved it. Everyone stayed in their homes, and it was quiet outside. People avoided you on the streets rather than insisting you talk to them. Yeah, everything had to be delivered and that was expensive, but oh, the peace and quiet!
We were hoping that we would also be able to say, “Remember how hard lockdown was for you? Well, regular life is that stressful for us!” but no such luck. Neurotypicals still don’t get it. Of course we’re the ones who are weird and therefore have to be forced to be neurotypical because surely that’s the way humans are supposed to be.
Really not, folks. Humans come in all kinds of neurologies, and the most common kind is not superior just because it’s the most common.
I have no doubt there will be partying here when lockdown is gone from the whole country. My sister and I are dreading it.