Bubble Battle 2008

Hundreds of people came to Times Square on Saturday evening with bubble wands, bubble guns, bubble sword-shaped wands, even a helmet-mounted bubble blower. It was really fantastic to see so many people blowing bubbles, and it was impossible to transcribe how the bubbles looked in the sky and against all the flashing ads of Times Square.








Every time a tour bus came by, everyone cheered. It must have surprised the tourists to see something like this - some of the tour guides seemed pretty openly mystified as well. If it's advertising New Yorkers as pleasant, though, that's priceless.




At one point, someone pointed out that a couple of the bubbles looked opaque, grey compared with the rest of the clear ones. The reason was that some of the kids next to us were experimenting with blowing cigarette smoke through a bubble wand, instead of regular air. They were like floating crystal balls, and looked great against the sky, in contrast with the rest of the bubbles. But the best part was watching them pop, when they exploded into a puff of smoke. Bubbles that actually leave a trace when they go.