Writer’s Bloq is a group whose intent is to help great writers get discovered. They recently took their passion for writing on the road in their Writer’s Bloqparty Tour 2012, and they took along a handful of Impossible PX 680 Color Protection and PX 600 Cool film….
The things we carried weren’t all necessary. They weren’t necessary but they were significant, each and every thing in that van. Our inventory: eight warm bodies, eight thick blankets, a half-case of wine, a concrete block, a Thomas Pynchon novel, a jar of Vaseline, empty water bottles, candy bags full and heavy, a small array of scarves, a Moleskine half-written, a large canvas of Mount Kilimanjaro, an extra tire, worn bubblewrap, blue headphones, three handles of whiskey, powder packs of Vitamin C, a brand new umbrella, emptied Styrofoam coffee cups, a brush or two beneath our feet, and Polaroid cameras around our necks. Together, these things covered the entire floor, created their own kingdom of intimate knowledge. Together, they would get us through a week of adventure, the escape from our respective New York boroughs and day jobs for the Writer’s Bloqparty Tour 2012, our modern-day literary Parisian parlor.
But the things we carried above the floor were far more valuable, and as such, they were much harder to uncover. The unyielding guilt of moments past, the insufferable memory of the heart, the mind starved for inspiration. A journey for all writers plagued with a relentlessly restless soul; an adventure seeking a perfect whiskey, pure inspiration, and our beloved Kerouac.
We would soon wake in Cambridge, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and back home in New York. Each and every night we would find ourselves in a new city and the eight of us would go about hosting our literary
Bloqparties, where we’d set up art based on our pieces, donated to us by artists all over the world, and share our writing. As the nights progressed, we would choose to sleep less and less and then not at all. We would be greeted by packed houses and loud, strange, lovely venues. We would meet local writers and they would meet us, sharing our enthusiasm for storytelling and never-ending wonder.
Occasionally, someone would stop us to ask “do those still exist?”, pointing to the Polaroid cameras hanging from our necks. The older folk would spare details about their childhood cameras, while college students confessed they wanted to “try” instant film for the first time, looking disapprovingly at their iPhones.
Three months have passed since the Bloqparty Tour 2012, but the instant photos of our journey remain. They tell a tale of writers bold and stubborn enough, guided by an unquenchable hunger for the world before them.
