Sunday, June 3, 2012

Things Are Happening, It Seems

I'm two blog entries behind - I had two very interesting experiences this week.  On Wed, I went with my friend D to City Lights to see a sort of sneak preview reading of a book about to be released (it technically wasn't published yet but you could buy copies), The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System, by Jerry Mander.  It was fascinating and substantive.  Then the next day, alone, I had tickets to a premiere piece by Liss Fain Dance, and it was also fascinating and substantive.  I really want to give each of them the consideration they deserve.

So as I am working on those, here is a little tidbit: I went to San Francisco's summertime Sunday Streets, which is basically this non-event in which a section of streets - usually in a popular / funky neighhborhood - is closed to cars, and the pedestrians take over, in whatever way they like.  Public yoga, spontaneous parklets, a lemonade stand (curiously called "Life's Do-It-Yourself Lemonade; I had to try, and, sure enough, the girl running it pointed to the ingredients and talked me through the process, step by step; I guess it's better when you do it yourself?).


It was nice to see people out and about.  The shops were open, sure, and the restaurants were crowded, but the streets were mellow.  Musicians every few blocks, of varying skill and genres.  Some booths selling wares, some promoting something - a couple looking alarmingly corporate-y.  I tried to focus on the parade, really, of neighbors and community.  It WAS like a little parade, people decked out in their funest finery - hats, strollers, sleek bikes - in fact, one bike was decked out in pink tiger fur with a tail rigged up (invisibly, tres Maker Faire) to swish and twitch.  Yes, bikes were everywhere - you couldn't move for bikes.  In fact, I was meeting a friend (my friend, D, again, actually), and he, thankfully, had a bike with him that we could walk along with.  You had to have either a pet, a baby or a bike, or you were suspect. 

My friend D's bike actually IS quite lovely - new, maybe even this was the first time he was officially taking it out.  It had disc brakes (he pointed it out AND a passer-by noticed as well and admired them outloud), and a belt instead of a chain, for the pedals.  It was sprockets and a gear, very sexy-looking, really.  When he walked with it next to me, I felt proud, that's how good looking that bike was.

But it was great to get out, as I say, enjoying people enjoying each other. I got some mini street tacos (one veggie: asparagus, mushroom, fingerling potatoes; one carnitas - both very good) and some lemon verbena ice cream.  Yes, lemon verbena ice cream, made with the FRESH herb - and you could taste it in every lick, really surprisingly good: lemon, but not citrusy, which was unusual.  I could almost TASTE the green.  I love herbal products.

It's good to have a city that does this.  I have been thinking about this lately a lot, and making an effort to go out more. On a practical level, my work has slowed down in the last few weeks and I find myself able to get off in time to make it to events. On a personal level, I just find that I long for something more than the endlessly spiraling routine of work, home, sleep, weekend, work, home, sleep, weekend. This is not to say I don't DO things - I see friends, I laugh in public, I take vacations and I write three day novels - but I do love the arts and other events, and feel I don't get enough. I pay to live in this very expensive city, I may as well enjoy it. You know, it's like going to a hotel and making sure you take advantage of the free pass to the spa even if it cuts into your pool time.

So things like this - free and fun - are a bit of a no-brainer.  Plenty in the city costs - SF is your oyster if you have money - but my Wed event was free, my Thu one cost a little, not much.  My opera season tickets come out to about $15 per performance.  The Dickens Faire Pickwick Season Pass, if you go for every day, comes out to like $7. How can you fail to take the city up on that?  Everyone I know has their favorite annual events, many of them free: watching Bay to Breakers, the Stern Grove concerts (you need better knees than mine for that one, though), Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the Free Folk Festival (next weekend; FREE is right in the name), the Pride Parade, Carnival and so on and so on.  And people come out.  San Franciscans get up and get out there, even if it's just to get stoned in Dolores Park and lay in the sun or maybe kick a ball around.  They don't just sit around or give up, they get right out there.

I get right out there too.  I love going to live events, places where people are talking or laughing or singing or dancing.  It's wonderful to be around like-minded people who enjoy what you do, but in various forms.  I lay on the blanket, you kick the ball around, those people foam fight, these people blow bubbles.  It's very cool, man. Very much sometimes like I imagine San Francisco was during it's peak (yes, I'm talking the late 60's); a sense of freedom, implicit encouragement present in the streets to do what you like.

When it was all over - Sunday Streets ends promptly at 4pm, don't you know - the cops came down Valencia, two cars abreast with two motorcycles behind them, going very slow, no siren sounds but the siren lights flashing round, flashing round.  They spoke from their megaphones to the people piling onto the sidewalks: "Sunday Streets is now closed. Thank you for coming.  This street will be open to traffic now.  Sunday Streets is now closed."

So, there's that - a bit of a bummer when the state comes and shuts down your T.A.Z. (a la Hakim Bey).  After all, you just wanted to hang out with friends.  All D and I did was wander, look at things, talk, see people we know, see people we don't know.  We did it together, and it was very pleasant. It wasn't Carmina Burana or skydiving in the Alps but I enjoyed it.  Gentle community fun - I'm all for it.  Now on to the next most recent community adventures.

2 comments:

  1. I had a very New York attitude when I lived there. I made sure my apartment was close to BART, and then I never took BART anywhere. I identified the various neighborhoods of the city, and then stayed in my home. I marveled at existence of the nude Bay to Breakers, the sex clubs, the street fairs, the performances in the parks, the openly gay you-name-its, the convenient phone numbers for marijuana acquisition (back when marijuana was illegal in San Francisco); and basically never did any of them, and eventually moved back to New York.

    Oddly enough though, as soon as I got back home, I started treating it as if it were San Francisco - I sought out free events, I went outside and walked around, I spoke to people randomly on the street, and so on.

    So apparently, San Francisco is not only a great town to live in, it's a great town to *have* lived in and made no use of until eventually moving to a completely different town. So I think that should be included in its list of fine qualities.

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  2. So now you know why I can't sit around in New York - because I don't want to sit around anywhere! I love your last 2 sentences here.

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