Summer Guide 2004
NO SEASON COMES saddled with bloated expectations like summer. When the leaves start to change, if you haven't had your fill of fun then it's your own damn fault. Perhaps due to the collective memory of the school calendar, this is true even in places with permanent summer. California, say. If you don't have fun in the sun, if you aren't living out a Mountain Dew commercial, you're a loser. What's more, you're a loser with sweat-stained t-shirts.
That December is the unofficial suicide month and not July has always surprised us. How can all those cut-off jeans and tank tops not lead more long-faced boys and girls to flick the switch on this cruel world? How can those endless nights of West Nile-bearing mosquitoes and lonely, sticky sheets not cause more bridge dives into the cooling waters of Lethe?
Forget the happy family myths that poison the winter holidays. Summer is worse. In this country, June, July and August are meant to be nothing less than a three-month cruise through a J. Crew catalog: hammocks and Chardonnay on breezy porches, laughing lovers with taut flesh, bonfires on the beach and spongy sandals that leave the toes dangerously exposed to the weight of a wayward steel-toed boot.
We like hammocks and sea breezes too, but since a J. Crew summer isn't an option-at least not for us, and probably not for you-we don't dwell on the goings-on in spots both sandy and civil. If J. Crew Land does exist, we imagine it to be pretty dull.
That's what we tell ourselves, anyway.
SUMMER 2004 is gearing up to be two seasons. There's plain old summer-steaming asphalt, rabid rats, rancid garbage, and does anyone have July 12 in the Blackout Pool?-and then there's the run-up to the GOP convention.
As we've noted in these pages, the specter of the convention has already made itself felt-and heard-in lots of annoying ways. They're tearing up the streets, forbidding up-skirt photos on the subway and preparing to exchange our homeless population for an equal number of fresh-faced Mormon missionaries. Fine, we made that last one up, but still-our leaders are going to an awful lot of trouble to guarantee the safety and comfort of our esteemed guests.
Then, by late August, with GOP preparations at a fever pitch, with G-men disguised as trash collectors on every corner, summer will be just about over. We pray your kicks will be gotten, that the hammock on your fire escape held tight, that you caught a few good waves out in Far Rockaway.
As for the convention hoopla, just remember that it could be much worse. We could be Athens.
See you in 2012.
The Editors
"How to Stay Cool" illustrations by Marc Crisafulli. Opening illustrations by George Pfromm II. Cover illustration by Mario Zucca.