On Sunday April 19^th Machine held it’s ‘Pancakes in the Forest’ event. Because of the demand the event lasted from 11am till 2pm. The delicious pancakes were served up by, Mr. Wong, familiar to those who’d seen him do noodle duty at the Forest Opening Night party.

After collecting their stack of pancakes everyone proceeded inside where a new tree had sprouted in the forest in typical Machine style, with a small blue spigot which yielded delicious, not-sickly-sweet, Maple syrup. I later learned that the syrup was of the homemade variety, cooked up by an acquaintance of Christy McCaffrey (who along with Sara Newey was responsible for building the forest). And it was ingeniously replenished by pouring a jar of it into the tree via a funnel.

Thus armed with syruped pancakes people sought out seats on the grassy knolls, logs or other available spots in the forest. They then proceeded to either direct their attention to the Bear Movies playing on a portable projection screen at the far end of the forest, or more likely strike up a conversation with the other breakfasters in their neck of the woods. Proof that you don’t need alcohol to grease the social wheels, maple syrup will do just fine.

Since it was one of the final chances to experience the forest, it was not surprising that as it got later the crowd grew. People spilled out onto the sidewalk from the full gallery and pancake wait times increased, but no one seemed to mind – everyone seemed to know everyone else or were getting to know each other on this laid-back Sunday afternoon.

On Thursday April 23^rd the forest was dismantled, and I hope that if you didn’t get a chance to visit, the pictures in this article from that last event gives some sense of what it was like.

via Sunil Rampersad, 28 April 2009 3:00pm | 2 |