I loved this couple. So seemingly normal and cute. Yet so terrifying.
MZM2011 has a Flickr group you can join if you like. Once you’re in, add your photos to the pool and tag them “mzm2011.” There’s also plenty of pictures being linked over on the wall of our Facebook page.
If you have a collection of pictures you’d like to share, feel free to provide a link in the comments!
Still to come: A roundup of our favorite zombie getups, and a video dump post.
Yesterday evening we encountered something that we really haven’t dealt with before during our five-year tenure as the Mid-South’s premier zombie walk event (I just made that “premier” bit up; is it true?!): Persistent resistance from officials who did not want us there.
This post is going to be about public spaces and the right to assemble, the right to be weird, and the misplaced anger of some authority figures. It is likely to run long and be full of detail and some philosophic wonkery, so I’m putting the bulk of the post after a jump. Still, if you are interested in your rights as a taxpayer — hell, as a human being living in an increasingly vibrant city — to utilize public spaces in responsible yet creative ways, I encourage you to read it and let me know what you think.
I can’t even begin to estimate how many people came out for MZM2011. Buuuut I’m gonna do it anyway. I tend toward conservative crowd estimates (it’s my inner skeptic) but I am telling you, there had to be at least 1,000 delightfully undead freaks (and their zombie-fighting counterparts!) trawling the streets of Downtown Memphis tonight. We stepped off from G.E. Patterson along South Main and by the time the front of the horde had reached Beale Street, the tail end was barely a couple of blocks from where we had begun. That, friends, is a HUGE train of zombies.
We collected more than 500 pounds of food and some cash to boot for the Mid-South Food Bank, proving once and for all that zombies are not nearly as self-serving as their reputation would make it seem.
Thanks, as always, to all of you who come out and make this event possible. We could not keep this going — and growing — without you.
And thanks to the organizers who helped put this thing together. Duane, Christin, Cole, Kerry, Jerm, Krissi: You guys have all earned your zombie wings many times over. And to the on-the-spot volunteers (Brian and Edith, and those whose names I didn’t get, as well as all of you who made our flyers possible), please know we appreciate your help so much.
Thank you and thank you and thank you.
Stay tuned for more posts in the coming days with links to photos and videos and blog posts and all sorts of fun stuff featuring your beautiful, bloody faces.
<3,
Lindsey