Last night I went for my customary midnight stroll down Duval Street, and what did I behold but an impromptu music video organically sprung from out the sidewalk in front of a grocery store slash liquor store slash rolling papers and cigarettes and all type of soft vices kind of store. Like most establishments on Duval Street the store opens directly onto the sidewalk, like an arcade. This store regularly plays techno music extremely loudly. Along came a gang of youths, none older than teenagers, a couple under the age of ten and quite tiny, well they all began to dance. They were brimming with energy and smiling and pounding out these fast impressive moves to the heartbeat challenging music with its whizzing siren overtones. All of them were jumping and shimmying and clapping with their knees so they looked like gyroscopes. They were rather fantastic and many of us passerby stopped to watch, clogging the curb. Ambling down the sidewalk from the other side of the street was another group of youths. The newcomers paused and observed the dancing gang, a few were boys still in their teens wearing the shortest of possible red micro shorts with legs so long they seemed to begin under their arms, like flamingos. One flamingo pulled up his shirt and, exposing a torso hard like a two-by-four, rolled the hem into his teeth. Then he said something to his crew and they crossed the street. The dancers saw them coming and ramped up the speed of their gyrations. The flamingos bound and fell right into an energetic dance of their own. One guy put his hands behind his head, elbows out, and began descending slowly on powerful legs meanwhile motoring his behind so fast it was a blur. Another of the incredibly long legged flamingoes ripped off his hoody and tossed it to the ground and leapt into the splits, falling fast and expertly and gracefully to the cement sidewalk, where he pulsed with pneumatic speed, and then he grabbed himself between the legs, collecting his spilling self, and rolled and tucked, and all the time laughing delightfully. The store’s cashiers were also swaying and moving their hips to the music, and clapping their hands above their heads, encouraging the dance-off.

The song ended and the dancers bounced in place, and slapped each other’s hands, and backs, and then began to disperse, melding into the thick flow of nocturnal revelers.

And I continued on with my stroll.