Coronavirus and The History of The Coney Island Mermaid Parade
(Copyrighted by Larry Baumhor, 2020)
The 38th annual, 2020 Coney Island Mermaid Parade is canceled due to the coronavirus. Or is it? The original date for the parade was June 20th. The mermaids remain in the sea and the honorary kings and queens of the parade, many of whom are famous musicians remain in their residents, hostage to the coronavirus.
Coney Island USA will recreate the Mermaid Parade in a live-streamed event on August 29, 2020 in restaurants, bars, and other venues throughout the world.
“The Mermaid Parade, originally slated for June 20, was postponed due to the novel coronavirus — and its hosts decided to keep the event socially-distanced out of fear of spreading the disease.”
“We can’t have 800,000 people in Coney Island for obvious reasons,” Mark Alhadeff said who is a member of Coney Island USA, the arts non-profit that hosts the parade. The last thing we want to do is have a super spreader event.” By Rose Adams, posted June 23, 2020 Brooklyn Paper https://www.brooklynpaper.com/coney-island-group-unveils-plans-for-reimagined-mermaid-parade/
“Dick Zigun, the founder of Coney Island USA and one of the Mermaid Parade’s main organizers said the event will be moved online. While the tradition would be less spirited if held in a virtual space, it would be an event many New Yorkers could look forward to. The virtual plan includes pretaped floats with costumed participants practicing social distancing.” by Kimberlean Donis, April 22, 2020, https://www.bkreader.com/2020/04/22/the-mermaid-parade-grapples-with-covid-19-cancelation-organizers-say-it-may-still-happen-in-the-fall/
“Nearly half of Americans report the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. A federal emergency hotline for people in emotional distress registered a more than 1,000 percent increase in April compared with the same time last year.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/04/mental-health-coronavirus/
How are you coping with this pandemic? How is your mental state?
I use escapism. I sublimate. I fantasize. I dream. It’s not enough. The coronavirus has wreaked havoc with my mental state. I am a writer and photographer. When writing I can sit down at the computer when I’m not paralyzed and I visualize the circuit board in my head crisscrossing, firing, stopping, exploding, and soothing each electrical current in my brain. Opposite and congruous thoughts talk to each other and sometimes it’s a beautiful thing.
I’m taking you on a ride that’s more thrilling than the famous Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster. Beginning in 1983 “the parade brings mythology to life for local residents who live on streets named Mermaid and Neptune; it creates self-esteem in a district that is often disregarded as “entertainment”; and it lets artistic New Yorkers find self-expression in public. A celebration of ancient mythology and honky-tonk rituals of the seaside, it showcases over 3,000 creative individuals from all over the five boroughs and beyond, opening the summer with incredible art, entrepreneurial spirit and community pride. The parade highlights Coney Island Pageantry based on a century of many Coney parades, celebrates the artistic vision of the masses, and ensures that the summer season is a success by bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the amusement area in a single day,” Coney Island USA, https://www.coneyisland.com/programs/mermaid-parade
 |
David Byrne and The World Famous Bob, King & Queen of the 1998 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, photo by Norman Blake |
“The World Famous *BOB* is no stranger to the spotlight. Since the 1990s, the Neo-Burlesque icon has been part of a new performance movement, bringing together components of striptease, dance, comedy and theatrical mayhem in one bombastic one-woman show. She describes herself as a “female-female impersonator” – an ambiguous identity fit for an ambiguous performer whose fame has soared atop her ability to blur the lines of gender and sexuality.
“I was extremely ambiguous when it came to my gender, because I had just come from San Francisco, where I strongly identified as a New Wave fag during the day, and a Drag Queen at night,” *BOB* explained in an interview with BlackBook Magazine, recounting her early days in New York. “When I moved to NYC, it was an attempt to live out my biggest dream — to be a fancy freak in New York. I still wasn’t sure of my gender, but was very inspired by the trans community.” It’s hard to answer the question, Are you a boy or a girl, when you’re not sure yourself,” she added,” by Katherine Brooks, updated Dec 06, 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-world-famous-bob_n_4374260
2010 Coney Island Mermaid Parade video
 |
Lou Reed & Laurie Anderson King and Queen of the 2010 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, photo by Egan-Chin News |
2011 Coney Island Mermaid Parade video
 |
Arlo Guthrie and Nora Guthrie 2019 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, photo by Norman Blake |
 |
Arlo Guthrie and Nora Guthrie 2019 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, photo by Norman Blake |
 |
Woody Guthrie sign, Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2019, photo by Kim Rancourt |
2019, Arlo & Nora Guthrie, King and Queen of the Coney Island Mermaid Parade video
“On Mermaid Avenue between West 35th and West 36th Streets, a sign marks where folk music legend Woody Guthrie once lived. His building no longer exists but his connection to this neighborhood will endure now that the city is naming the block Woody Guthrie Way.
Guthrie, who was originally from Oklahoma, lived in Coney Island from 1943 to 1952. His wife Marjorie came from Sea Gate and he spent time with his children on the beach.
Guthrie lived in Coney Island when he recorded the American classic, This Land Is Your Land. He drew inspiration from the neighborhood for some of his other songs, notably Mermaid Avenue.
“He’s also buried here because his ashes were spread here after he died in 1967 right off the rocks at W. 37th Street,” Denson said. By Jeanine Ramirez, Brooklyn Paper, Coney Island Street Renaming to Honor Folk Legend Woody Guthrie https://www.ny1.com/nyc/brooklyn/news/2019/01/10/coney-island-street-to-honor-folk-legend-woody-guthrie-#:~:text=Guthrie%2C%20who%20was%20originally%20from,37th%20Street%2C%22%20Denson%20 said.
“Twenty family members flew in to support Arlo and pay homage to his dad for naming the street Woody Guthrie Way in Coney Island. Woody lived here until Arlo was about six-years-old. Arlo was very appreciative and gracious as the king of the parade and in accepting the street sign in his dad’s honor. I brought my copy of Alice’s Restaurant and had Arlo sign it,” Kim Rancourt informed me during a phone interview. Kim Rancourt has lived in the Coney Island area for decades. He knows everything and everybody. I named him the Professor of Coney Island. We met when I was on a writing assignment during the 2017 parade when Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were queen and king. I was a nervous fuckin’ wreck because I had the wrong press pass and couldn’t get access to Debbie and Chris. The Professor calmed me down, assuring me I’ll get a photo of Chris and Debbie.
When the Professor is not conducting traffic in Coney Island, he owns and operates a New York tour business. He said, “Larry, I’m taking you on a free tour.” “That’s cool. Where we going,” I asked?
“The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn,” Kim Rancourt said. And then he goes into a ten-minute dissertation about the cemetery.
Vey iz mir, I thought. “Thank you,” I said. For more information about NY Tours, be it Coney Island, Greenwich Village or the Green-Wood Cemetery for that matter, contact: https://www.newyorktinytours.com/
Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, Queen and King of the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, 2017. The following photos of Debbie and Chris are by Larry Baumhor
I wrote a story for Please Kill Me, Chasing Debbie Harry & Chris Stein at The Mermaid Parade published on June 21, 2017. I did not have the proper press pass to stay on the parade route and photograph Debbie and Chris. It was a comedy of errors. I kept getting thrown into the barricades in front of the fans by security. I wouldn’t give up and continued to photograph Debbie and Chris. I would take one or two photos and security would literally throw me into the barricades. Like a putz I was yelling, “I’m from Please Kill Me.” And then thrown back into the barricades. A fan yelled, “You moron. Get the fuck out of here, you moron.”
https://pleasekillme.com/chasing-debbie-harry-chris-stein-mermaid-parade/
I kept yelling, “I work for Legs and Gillian at Please Kill Me.”
“Send my regards,” Chris Stein stated.
 |
2013 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2013 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2013 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2014 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2014 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2015 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2015 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2016 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2016 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2017 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
 |
2018 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, by Larry Baumhor |
It wasn’t Coney Island for me; it was paradise. My friend Donald Lokuta, an internationally known photographer took me under his wing and showed me the ropes.
I interviewed Donald for this story: “The parade is a celebration of the beginning of summer. It gives the participants an opportunity to design their own costumes and dress-up and show off their creations. Some marchers are masked as they assume another identity, and in many cases, it offers an opportunity to display a side of one’s self that is seldom seen. To me, it’s a window into how we see ourselves.
One woman that I photographed for this series said, “I was a mermaid! Her name is Katrina, Queen of the Waves. It’s my inner mermaid persona.” We all have a persona, a mask that we wear, an image that we put on for society. It’s what we want others to believe we are. Like an actor in a play, we design our own roles in life: a businessman or woman, a politician, a student, a teacher, an athlete, etc. But the image that we create is likely not the real person, although we and others may believe it is.
As Carl Jung said, “The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.”
What we portray in daily life is likely not real and the masks and costumes we put on is an attempt to escape from one unreality to another – if only for a short time.” Photography by Donald Lokuta can be seen at his website: http://www.lokuta.com/
Donald and I photographed in an outside makeshift studio which allowed enough indirect light on the mermaids without the sun causing shadows. The mermaids were breathtaking in their looks with hand-made creative costumes. I was in another world while photographing the mermaids and high as a kite. Here’s my blog from the Coney Island Mermaid Parades from 2013 through 2018
https://larbam.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-post.html
.JPG)
Comments
Post a Comment