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Dorks on one side of the line.  Cool kids on the other.  This high school dichotomy holds fast for much of New York nightlife, and it’s something that Seen Magazine is trying to change.  Starting with their launch party.

On July 4^th, Seen Magazine, the street wear brand Mishka, and the Comic Books Legal Defense Fund threw an epic party at Water Taxi Beach, artificial patch of sand and neon palm trees on the East River. Music by Beach Fossils and the Death Set blasted as the sun set over Manhattan.

There were taut, tan young things dousing themselves in beer.  There were beachballs and photobooths and enviably flat stomachs and freaks being gotten on galore.

But!  There were also comic geeks- including pasty pasty me.  The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (valiant free speech warriors if there ever were) had gathered us.  We had painted up Etnies sneakers and took turns on the artstage, marking up giant canvases.  Gig poster artist Brian Ewing, “pop art princess” Tara McPherson, and comics creators Nikki Cook and Khary Randolph all turned out finished paintings in under two hours.

In the end, perhaps cool kids and dorks are doomed to sit on different sides of the room.  But, for one night on the 4^th of July, Seen got them to hang together.

Words and photos by Molly Crabapple

 

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