Street Party - Meet your Neighbours in your Traffic-free Street

Pat Kane, in a recent Play Journal post, writes about a new wave of weekend playfests taking place throughout London, in at least partial response to the subway bombings and the consequent public insecurity. His comment:

"Is it a domestication of the kinds of activist carnival that typified the anti-globalisation protests of the late nineties and early oughties? Yes, undoubtedly. But what should the system's response to emergent, street-level protest be? Panoptical security is surely one way to spend the tax dollars. Trying to build up the sense of civic attachment to the fabric of a city through gratuitous, open public events, with a combination of spectacle and participation, is another."

Yeah, Pat, you got it again. It's about reaching a time when playing in public becomes a political act.

One of the groups he mentions has a remarkably elegant message. They conduct Street Parties. Their slogan: "Meet your Neighbours in your Traffic-free Street."

O, and if you want to hold your own all-American street party, might I humbly suggest the Junkyard Sports Mini-Golf Course-and-Community Building Festival with Potluck? Well, might I?