644660 thirty three photographs of a wedding: lostcosmonaut

lostcosmonaut

644660 thirty three photographs of a wedding

Jan 16, 2011 18:55

been shifted to th side by cold medicine a couple days, which gives me a convenient excuse to stay indoors, chug tea, and watch bad movies on AMC out th corner of my eye. I'm pretty sure this exact experience is being shared by one million other Americans, which is a comfort, th same way knowing that Shaq smokes up and tweets mundanely is a comfort. I've taken advantage of this funny time to review 300 photographs of th wedding and pick out a few representative ones for anyone now reading this. It strikes me now that th performative essence of a wedding is wholly compatible w/ th performative essence of an Internet diary, though both @ their best are fast-moving public shadows of what is private and unknowable.

First, this is th guy who officiated th ceremony, here standing peacefully next to his own wife:

Many of you know him and therefore won't be surprised that he incorporated a significant passage from Swamp Thing into his homily/incantation, a late draft of which included this line -- "Tenderness, passion, violence ... my enemy's blood erupts to fill my mouth with molten copper" -- though I was focused so much on my own breathing and mental heartbeat during th ceremony that I can't say whether th line survived into th final version.

My cool aunt bought th cake, which Trevor swore was th best wedding cake he'd tasted. Again, I can't personally confirm its goodness because by th time of th cake-cutting portion of th evening, my senses had stepped out of their containing lines.

One of th concrete recurrent pleasures for me while reviewing these pictures has been catching people in th same frame who otherwise haven't had occasion to be in th same frame. Some of these instances are more jarring than others. It's not too odd seeing Samantha standing next to my local cousins, aunts, and uncles; but den seeing Trevor's head in th background of a shot of those same cousins is as disorienting as it is satisfying;

and den Shannon popping out of th front door of th stone house carrying two loaves of fertility bread that she & Jacob baked themselves (in th shape of a naked man and woman) as Samantha's long-lost cousin Marc takes a smoke break to Shannon's right ......? Nobody else will get th same charge from this photograph that I do, but I reckon that is how, many years from now, I'll be able to tell that this wedding (this incantation) was not somebody else's wedding:

This is th only shot of th dance floor that I liked, because it had no flash, and because I can tell what music was playing just by who's dancing. This was during th Rubén Gonzaléz section of th playlist, probably "Quizás, Quizás" or "El Bodeguero", midtempo Cuban numbers that gave th sweaty "Rump Shaker" crowd a breather:

Opposite th balcony shown above, which contained th bar and a green screen, my brother set up th kids' balcony, which contained two tents. It turns out that two tents and a bunch of flashlights and glowsticks are all it takes to keep 20 little kids 100% engaged from 8:00 p.m. to midnight. Below, Samantha drinks and chats w/ a kid I went to kindergarten w/ and am still friends w/ nearly 33 years later, as th kindergarteners of today run around doughing trazy in th background:

And here are some green screen shots. A lot of people were too busy dancing to get green'd, which was a blessing because those people kept th night raging, but now it might appear as if they were less there than other people, when in truth it could be argued that they were more there.

My brother knew about th green screen in advance and came prepared for a photo op:

Fast forward to five hours past their bedtime:

I knew it was a serious party when somebody got v. spazzed up and snapped th green screen's support pole in half. Luckily, my cousin had duct tape, and Samantha's cousin is 6'7":

Knowing that powers cosmick were probably keeping watch over th proceedings put my mind in a centered and peaceful state:

@ a quarter to midnight -- emboldened by th cosmick peace inside, booze, and th presence of only beloved family and friends -- I decided now was as good a time as any to find out whether I could sing and play guitar @ th same time. Some people do this habitually and w/ apparent ease, but for me it's something like reciting th alphabet backwards while somebody calls out th wrong letters in my ear. I'll refrain here from judging myself on th rhythmic-ness of th results, but here's a picture of me trying, while Drew holds th microphone and provides harmony vocals, my brother accompanies me on a second guitar that might be in tune w/ mine, and Tom ad-libs on drums:

Th following day, Roger (my kindergarten bro) asked me if ah'd writ th song myself, which proved either that he'd never heard Taylor Swift's most ubiquitous hit, or that it sounded nothing like ah'd meant it to. "It was obviously heartfelt," he said.

In th end, my one complaint is that Sami and I wanted more, more, more, more. More clowning w/ Drew Ailes.

More whole-assed speechifying by Eran. More sitting on th floor in (near) silence. More getting to th unplayed songs on my playlist, as seen projected here on th wall, 13 seconds before midnight: