Blog: Parties

Since last year's Mothball was such a great success, we decided to repeat it this year. The weekend after Labor Day worked best for everyone, and with the timing, a "back to school" theme was natural. People wore their private school outfits with the plaid skirts, letter jackets, even graduation gowns, as well as the bridesmaid and prom dresses appropriate for any Mothball.

More images...

Nolan cooked my first guest chef dinner, and fresh from his travels in South America, returned for an encore.

Here are the rest of the pictures from Living Liberally's fundraiser, "The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy," completing the set started in this post.

For four years, Drinking Liberally has been assembling liberals across the country to create communities of shared values. Laughing Liberally has created comedy shows, Screening Liberally has shown movies, Eating Liberally has cooked delicious meals, and more. All of these activities were organized by volunteers.

On April 21, these groups combined into Living Liberally and raised money to hire its first full-time staffer. Thanks to the generosity of many wonderful organizations such as Media Matters for America, Working Assets, BlogPAC, Advomatic, and more, a generous donation of a fantastic space by The Open Planning Project (publishers of Streetsblog), along with many individual friends of Living Liberally, the fundraiser was a roaring success.

Here is the first half of the pictures. The rest will come as soon as I get a chance to edit them.

Life has been busy. I'm finally catching up on pictures from January, when Jen Donovan departed from The Tank with a fun party, and Danny cooked the latest incarnation of the Guest Chef series, featuring artichokes, the lobsters of the vegetable world (eating them requires extensive disassembly and involves dipping in butter, the edible part is a small minority of the overall mass, and they are delicious).

The start of a new year brings another birthday and another birthday party. This year, friends gathered at my apartment for board games in the afternoon, followed by pizza, and finally a trip to Brooklyn for ballroom dance at First Saturdays at the Brooklyn Museum.

Since I spent most of the day gaming and dancing rather than taking pictures, the only photos I have are mostly by other people, and thus many wonderful friends who joined in the dancing, like Wendy S, Noel, Mike F-S, Lee and Irene, Nichole, Justin, and others, aren't represented in these pictures, not to mention the many people who joined earlier in the day for board games and pizza. Thanks for a fun and memorable day!

A few months ago, I was talking to a female friend who had just purchased a bridesmaid's dress at considerable expense. She commented how much she disliked the color and thus expected never to wear it again. And at that moment I had the idea: to throw a party for guests to showcase the bridesmaid's dresses and other ugly outfits they would otherwise never wear again.

For inclusivity, the idea expanded to encompass any outfits worn in years past, which the owner would either never otherwise choose to wear or never have the opportunity - high school prom dresses, first interview suits, college tuxes and sorority party gowns, and more. The name "Mothball" was perfect, and last Saturday over 100 people filled my apartment with a dazzling array of outfits, from formal dresses to high school baseball uniforms, medical scrubs, high school goth attire, and customes of flamenco dancers, sailors, and more.

I've returned from a week and a half long trip to the West Coast, including Jamie's bachelor party, a Laughing Liberally show at the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles attended by over 1,000 people, and the four-day Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas. The convention featured many guests from the political world including Senators Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, Howard Dean, recent authors including Ambassador Joe Wilson, Professor George Lakoff and Air America host Sam Seder, likely Presidential candidates Wes Clark and Mark Warner (the latter who threw a lavish party at the top of the Stratosphere hotel), many netroots candidates, top bloggers from Daily Kos, MyDD, Firedoglake and many others, and a crowd of over 800 blog readers of all ages.

Laughing Liberally comedians performed at all four plenary sessions, featuring Baratunde Thurston, Katie Halper, Lee Camp, and a new member of Laughing Liberally's team, Bush impersonator James Adomian. Drinking Liberally organized a laid-back happy hour after the conference program on Friday and a raucous afterparty in our suite (as big as a typical Manhattan two-bedroom apartment) Saturday evening. Everyone left energized, socialized, and contact-ized.