The folks in charge of this year’s 4th of July fire­works show in New York City deserve some serious thanks. Unlike shows I have seen in the past, this one really stands out as being truly artistic. The pyrotech­ni­cians repeat­edly lay­ered colors, tex­tures, and effects, cre­ating a canvas in the air over the Hudson River. I had a pretty good view of the show from far uptown on the west end of Harlem. The rockets were launched from sev­eral dif­ferent points, cre­ating a wide-screen-like pre­sen­ta­tion from our van­tage. The struc­ture of the show was spec­tac­ular. Unlike the incon­sis­tent rhythm of many fire­works shows, this one was nearly con­tin­uous, but flowing; the visuals faded smoothly from one to the next like a well-orchestrated piece of music. There were also a few effects I had not seen before: shaped explo­sions that appeared as cubes in the sky, vivid magenta colors, lots of color tran­si­tions, and – my per­sonal favorite – the bursts of color that seemed to wiggle like a school of tad­poles scat­tering from a disturbance.

If there was one com­plaint, it had to do with my loca­tion rather than the show itself. I couldn’t hear any of it. Up at 125th St., I was more than 70 blocks from the launching point – about 4 and a half miles. How­ever, it just so hap­pened that there was a small park across the street from Dinosaur Bar­beque where Monica and I were having dinner, so we decided to stay for the show. We were pretty for­tu­nate. That far uptown was not very crowded (rel­a­tively speaking), and the view was perfect.

So thank you, you mas­ters of the muni­tions. A show worthy of a nation’s birthday.