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The undead to hit Main at midnight
Zombies to hold Halloween parade
Herald Staff Writer
The Zombie Liberation Front, Durango chapter, will take to the streets at the witching hour tonight for the city's first Zombie March. Promising noise, music, insurgence and traditional zombie activities like begging for brains, the anonymous organizers of the ZLF have plastered the city with posters and fliers in recent weeks inviting revelers to join the march.
Reached by e-mail, organizers agreed to a Herald interview on the condition of anonymity and acknowledged a local ZLF membership of 13 "undead individuals." The core zombies, joined possibly by hundreds of costumed hangers-on, will meet at College Drive and Main Avenue at midnight before marching north on Main to 12th Street and back.
The nameless, and presumably brainless, spokesperson contacted provided written answers to a series of questions posed by this reporter. Some excerpts from the cyber interview:
Is there a message to the zombie madness?
We are brainless, not voiceless. The Zombie March is disorganized as a hybridization of zombie walks and Reclaim the Streets. A zombie walk is an organized mass of people dressed up as zombies, who take to the streets, and - in the case of a pub crawl - visit various drinking establishments along the route. Reclaim the Streets is an international public space reclamation movement that liberates roadways and streets from obstructive and destructive vehicle traffic for truly human and pedestrian use.
Is there a standard zombie costume and is everyone encouraged to attend?
Zombie costumes are encouraged, but all Halloween creatures are welcome. Anyone who would be out at the bars or running the streets at midnight is encouraged to attend. Although there is a pub-crawl element, we will only mill around any one establishment for a few minutes, long enough to grab a drink and gather more zombies. Underage zombies can roam the streets outside, gathering souls.
Any anticipation of police intervention, and if so are you worried?
We intend to be in the street celebrating and dancing. There will be a zombie bloc, who will moan and demand brains according to zombie style. We will stop and mill zombie-style in front of populated bars, demanding brains and more zombies. Although we do not anticipate any police intervention, our intent is to simply fork around police if they are present, onto the sidewalks if necessary.
The Zombie March may awaken memories of Halloweens gone awry for many longtime locals, but the organizers say they have no intention of fostering any violence or destruction. Before 1991, Durango held a city-sanctioned downtown street party that progressively degenerated into what one Durango Police Department sergeant called "a giant drunken party" in a 1995 interview.
The downtown party drew crowds of thousands throughout the 1980s, but legendary incidents such as the trampling of hundreds before a national television crew and the explosion of a practice grenade in a dense crowd signaled the end of the municipally sponsored chaos. Countless fistfights, public drinking and urination, and drunken driving put the final nails in the Halloween party coffin.
On Thursday, Durango Chief of Police David Felice said he was aware of the Zombie March, but that the department plans no special patrol of the event. Felice said there will be a few extra officers walking the streets tonight because of the usual spike in downtown foot traffic on Halloween, but the zombies will probably be left alone unless the situation becomes unlawful or unsafe.
"If it gets to the point where the volume pushes people into the street and where they could hit by cars, we'll have to step in, but as I understand it there doesn't seem to be any destructive behavior planned.
"I'm curious to see what happens, too," Felice said.
ted@durangoherald.com'>ted@durangoherald.com
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