The Art of Fireworks

I used to think I knew about public firework displays. Throughout the old British Empire, November 5th is Guy Fawkes Day, a time when fireworks are set off by small boys determined on their own destruction and people gather in groups to watch displays presented by those in the know.

Not that I went to many public fireworks displays. Generally we were content to collect as many rockets, catherine wheels, roman candles and sparklers as we could afford and then have our own little party in the backyard on the appropriate night. Oh yes, I thought I knew about fireworks.

I did go to one public fireworks display after we came to England but what I remember from it is not the fireworks; they were the usual things, rockets and fountains of sparks, only a little more impressive than our own. What stays with me is the burning of the guy.

Of course, I knew the tale of Guy Fawkes, how he had been arrested just before carrying out his plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, been convicted of treason and burned at the stake. And I knew that our Bonfire Night was a celebration of his failure and the continuation of British democracy. But I don't think I had ever thought about the reality of the story until that night in Milton Keynes (we were visiting friends and they had dragged us off to see the show).

In the center of a large open field, the organizers had built a great mound of timber, old furniture, cardboard and anything that would burn. On top we could see the shape of the guy, that effigy that was supposed to represent the old miscreant. Against the black of the night sky, he was a vague presence but only dimly perceived and I presumed he would be much like the scarecrow figures that were once towed through the streets in a toy cart by children shouting, "Penny for the guy, penny for the guy!"

Then the bonfire was lit and, by the light of the flames, we could see the guy properly. I was horrified. He was a much more lifelike representation than I had ever seen before. In the flickering light he looked so real that he might almost have been moving. As the fire grew quickly to reach up to his legs, the full horror of this ancient punishment hit with a force that sickened me. This was the reality that we had celebrated so thoughtlessly for so many years.

I did not go to any public fireworks displays after that. Come the millennium, I saw the displays in London and Sydney on television and was not overawed. Just a bigger version of the same old thing, I thought, perhaps a little more co-ordinated but much the same even so.

Then I came to a little town named Danvers in Massachusetts and was dragged off to see the Fourth of July fireworks in the park. At least there would be no guy, I thought; I can live through this. Little did I know what was in store.

There were thousands waiting on the grass for the display as we arrived in the evening. We found a good spot and slotted our blanket in between the patchwork quilt of others, then sat and waited. A band was playing, helping to pass the time until the moment arrived.

And when the time came, the lights were turned off and all eyes went to the open space in the center and the fire truck that stood in attendance. With a roar of rockets, the show began.

In those first few seconds, I was captivated. There was music and the fireworks were perfectly timed and matched to complement it. Crescendoes of sound and light mingled to form a display such as I had never imagined before. This was how it should always have been. I settled back to take it all in.

I do not know who designed the fireworks and their order that night but the man is a genius. Not even in Disney's film, Fantasia, were music and vision so beautifully combined. Exploding universes of light sprang forth and multiplied, weeping willows of golden fire poured down upon us, perfect circles of rubies and emeralds hung suspended and then winked out, molecular diagrams of complex formation spread themselves across the dark backdrop, great crashes of cannon fire reverberated deep in our chests, and all the time the music mounted and ebbed, creating and blending with the incredible display. And, in the blackness behind, the smoke trails formed white-blue spiders and hydras, waterfalls and blossoms. On and on it went, the music changing from pop to rock and then to classical, and in the sky the lights echoed it and completed it.

The final piece was the Boston Pops Orchestra's version of the 1812 Overture. The irony of the strains of the French and Russian national anthems ringing out on the Fourth of July was not lost on me, but this paled into insignificance in the triumphal crescendo of this finale. As the explosions of the rockets occupied precisely those moments when Tchaikovsky had intended cannon fire, I had to recognize that I was held by an art form, one so immediate that I could not tear my senses away.

So spellbound had I been that I was unable to join in the applause and yells of approval that punctuated every pause between pieces; I was too impatient for the next to begin. But, as the last concentration of bangs and thumps died away at the end, I could not help it - I clapped until my hands stung.

Suddenly I find myself a fan of fireworks displays and I cannot wait for the next Fourth of July. It is just as I said of their museums: when the Americans decide to do something, they do it properly!

Technorati tags: Fireworks displays; Fourth of July; Danvers.