The Fourth of July...

...in a Third World Country.

I grew up going to the fireworks at the Mall in Washington DC. In college (and for a few years after) I would see the fireworks in the East River in New York City. I’ve been living in LA for almost 5 years now, and I still have no idea if there are any professional, free shows here.

There is fair competition to the super displays I grew up watching, though. In the past, my attempts to explain the fireworks here were often met with un-amazed reactions, so this year I busted out my camera.

I don’t know who buys them, where they buy them, or how they feel safe launching them in a crowded city, but the streets of my neighborhood are lit by fireworks for at least a week before the fourth – building in intensity until sundown on the big day. And once that sun sets over the Pacific, a barrage unleashes that doesn’t even start to slow until 11 at night. To my naïve ears, it sounds like war.

My only regret is that I didn’t stick a microphone out my window. That’ll be next year’s project.

The pictures that follow don’t do the experience any justice. Low light without a tripod means wide angles, so the pictures I took make the fireworks look small and intermittent. There’s a link to a really crappy movie file at the end of this post that may help with that a little (it's dark and the audio sucks). Oh, you can click on the pictures if you want to see them a little larger too.









And here's that movie [avi, 3.6 MB].