January 20, 2010
Playing with Fire
Date: ~2001
Location: Wayne, NJ
Description: 1342 is a pretty significant number. In that year, Louis I ascended to be king of Hungary, Kitzbühel became part of Tyrol, and Persian physician and alchemist Al-Jaldaki passed away. But more recently, 1342 were the numbers of a very active apartment in Wayne, NJ. My twin brother Mitch and I moved out for the first time with good friend Jeff, a seasoned not-live-at-home-anymore-er. As such, there were parties to be thrown, shenanigans to engage in (you can throw a TV off a third story balcony as long as it’s filmed), and fire to toss around. Mitch had long been a juggler, and was refining his skills in the early moving-out years, to the point where he would juggle flaming torches, often times during parties on a crowded balcony. It never really seemed to register that he was doing it on a wooden deck right next to a large cluster of trees and other flammable nature. The apartment complex did later succumb to a large fire, but Mitch and I had already moved out long before that.