feather2pixels

The Mission was in top form for last week’s Day of the Dead. The procession traversed a couple of blocks about twenty-fourth street and there were lots of the following:

-candles
-faces painted white
-drums
-(bacon-scented?) incense

To-shi-o, Corinne and I stumbled down the street to take it all in and I’m now convinced that all parades–even non-occult related parades–should take place at night. The darkness enhanced everything good about it: the intrigue, the seemingly controlled chaos, the sense of the familiar becoming unfamiliar. The brown bagged beer also enhanced these things.

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Oh, and the oil spill. The fucking oil spill. The Chronicle led the next day with a 140 gallon estimate and at an actual figure of 58,000 gallons, as usual, the Chronicle was 0.8% correct. Or 99.2% wrong. Depends on your perspective I guess. Of course, the error isn’t really the Chronicle’s fault (although a six block walk to the bay would have confirmed this number as ridiculous), as everyone is now sorting through the explanation of the USCG’s now famous slowness in getting its story straight (it now appears that at least part of the explanation involves damage to the sounding tubes used to measure tank depth).

Overall it just sucks. Every major beach in the area is closed except Ocean Beach, the greatest of the beaches, and it’s unclear when they will be safe or even if they will ever be truly safe–even small amounts of benzene are enough to can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness. Anyway I was on the beach today and it was very unclear what was going on. There were ominous looking signs and loads of workers in white haz-mat outfits picking at the sand, but there were also plenty of surfers, dogs, and general beach miscellany. Are we safe or are we unsafe?

As the media hunts for prey to satiate its never ending bloodlust for blame, the people around me seem to be reacting with varying levels of defensiveness and xenophobia (“Down with Hanjin!”) across party lines. The old boys club at the Maritime Academy (which may actually turn out be the alma mater of the pilot in question) has been decidedly defensive. If you are asking me, they are giving way too much attention to the reactionary nonsense of the first 48 hours, which has included everything from “no single hulled ships in the bay” to “no ships in the bay.” Right. Also, they were really pissed about the front page pictures of oiled birds on day two of the Chronicle’s coverage. One thing conservatives have grown to hate, I’ve noticed, is any level of insinuation that non-human life may be as important as human life. Or human money. Or human jobs.

Wow, for ten minutes I didn’t write on endlessly about myself! (Though you should know I printed some really shitty new postcards this week) Here are some pictures.

I gave a little five minute survey to my students on Friday. I do this kind of thing occasionally because I never have any idea how effective I am. But also, there are always comments like this and I love them: