Independence Day II: Chalk! Chalk! Chalk!

My favorite photo of the day. Who is this woman who walks into the heart of the chalk fling thing in a white dress and pearls. She is so serene, so of and yet not of the mayhem around her. Who is this woman?

Last year, the San Pedro Town Council raised the bar on Independence Day with the introduction of the Flying Pinata — a candy drop from a hovering helicopter — and the chalk fling thing.

The chalk fling thing is a variation on the paint thing that marks the Carnival time leading up to Lent. Kids run around Central Park and specific blocks of downtown smearing each other with water soluble paints (hopefully washable). Adults even get a chance to join in because — well, it’s fun. Why leave all the fun stuff up to the kids???

You can see remnants of the paint days all over town in the form of handprints and paint smears on walls.

With chalk, you get the bright colors and frenzied rush that  comes with dusting up everyone around you in electric pink and green and yellow clouds. Staffers toss the packets of chalk into the crowd and you basically become the color of the person next to you who opens the packet and flings it into the air.

This is how you do the chalk! You go all in or you go home!

Then it all washes away.

And it is very democratic. If you are anywhere near the bandstand in Central Park, you will get dusted with chalk. And as the keyboardist for the electric dance and show band Gilharry 7 discovered, green chalk all over your keys is the price you pay to play.

Here are more photos from the crazy fun anarchistic chalk fling thing:

Oh man, not my keyboard.

For a while, green was the color of the day.

And there she was again, white dress and pearls.

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Finally somebody broke out the blue!

Just before the chalk fling frenzy broke wide open.