Dance Like Everyone's Watching

Just Plain Ol' Fun...

Friday night at Union Square in NYC people gathered for a silent rave. Yes you read that correctly...a silent rave. Apparently this type of thing is enormously popular in Europe and particularly London where they've held this event on more than several occassions. It consists of people bringing their iPods, Zunes or any sort of portable device (with head or earphones) that plays music. Then they all begin to dance to their own music at the same time. To onlookers it seems like a bunch of young people dancing with no music playing, but the music is literally in their heads.

It sounds incredibly lame to those who are overly cynical (I thought this was incredibly stupid at first), but I went to Union Square to witness the spectacle and I thought it was pretty cool. Does that make me lame? Probably, but to see a scene of young people genuinely having a good time with no extracirricular activities involved made me smile. Sometimes we're afraid of looking like fools in front of people (or in my case...all the time), but it helps to have a little nonsense in your life. Although I think it would have been better if they somehow got the ravers to listen to the same DJ mix at the same time, the value of a communal experience with music can never be denied.

I left after a half-hour to watch the Mets/Phillies game, but the "silent ravers" stayed until about 11 pm. My hat goes off to them. I know I sound old saying this (I'm only 25), but if I were 5 years younger, I probably would've joined them. Kudos.