Elinor Nauen

Fireworks

In 2007, my birthday fell on the Chinese New Year, and for once, fireworks were legally allowed to be set off in Chinatown. What a thrill to walk just a few blocks and get both fireworks and birthday at one & the same time.
Fireworks are like birthdays. You grab ‘em as they  Read More 

We always go on the roof because we can never remember if we can or can't see the fireworks. I finally figured out, after living in the Ezra Pound for 40 years, that some years we can see them & some years we can't. Which is why we can't remember!

Last year they were down at the Seaport or out in the bay, & if we leaned out (dangerously)  Read More 

I have no memory of ever having gone to Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Maybe because someone else drove? Maybe because, as I wrote in "The Philadelphia Story" (1998), "how boring Veterans Stadium was, with a bunch of soon-to-be-cut rookies." There's the proof but it triggers nothing. No "right! how could I have forgotten?"

Near as I can tell, I've been to games at 22 Major League ballparks:  Read More 

Fireworks are like birthdays. You grab ‘em as they go by or you don’t, and if you miss them, that’s it, the carousel doesn’t wallop you around again anytime soon. Look up! Look up, they’re bright, surprising, free, and like my niece said when she was 3, about pink, they “mean nothing.” They mean nothing the way cumulous clouds, or a poem in a bus, or spaghetti with oil and garlic mean nothing—or everything. Hating birthdays is like hating fireworks is like hating all the little joys that give life beauty & mystery.

Fireworks were invented in China, no later than the 7th century, and China is still the largest manufacturer and exporter in the world. They use noise, light, smoke and floating materials (such as confetti) to get effects. They may burn with flames and sparks of many colors.

Philip Butler, who married into the Grucci family, said in the National Geographic that after 30 years in the business the closest he can come to explaining the human attraction to fireworks is that  Read More