Funny short by filmmaker Ilya Chaiken, set during the great power outage of '03. It was a bizarre moment in New York. The city stopped for almost 24 hours, depending on where you lived. People couldn't get up to their high-rise apartments or hotel rooms. I had a date scheduled that night, but with the mobile network down, I couldn't reach her, so I went to find a friend of mine instead. I had to creep up a dark stairwell, using my cell phone as a flashlight, to leave a note on her door. She found me later, and we drank warm beer in a candlelit bar. Unfortunately, we missed the massive bonfire in nearby Tomkins Square which I only heard about after the fact.

The next day, I tried to track down the missed date at her apartment. She wasn't there, but the super told me about a wild party on the roof of her building the night before, from which one of the guests tumbled off (and survived). The super was offended by the audacity of the unfortunate guest to fall off his building saying, "If you come to someone's party, maybe you use their bathroom. You don't fall off their roof."

After that, I took the opportunity of an unexpected holiday to go for a long rollerblade around the island. The Upper West Side got its power back in the morning, so I joined Deadman for brunch in his hood. My boss called at some point. He was traveling out-of-state and seemed to have difficulty understanding that there was no way for work to be done when the computers wouldn't turn on. It gave me great pleasure to explain it to him.

Anyway, watch the video. It's a good laugh and captures the moment. Plus a friend of mine manages the actors.

PS I think that the city should institute an annual blackout day. It's not a bad thing to upend your usual routine. Of course, that's easy for me to say; I live in a walkup.