photo season
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hoarse of a diffr'nt cullah
berkeley studies
one of the pleasures of the bay area is berkeley, california, that living
time capsule of the 1960s. i’m especially fond of the telegraph
road street vendors, who sell their visual art, handmade jewelry,
tie-dye clothing, and socially conscious bumper stickers on weekends
whenever the weather is not too damp for shoppers. |
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last year we found this guy who’s living comes from reselling pentel
0.5 mm mechanical pencils, with wooden tubes turned out on his lathe. |
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so when daver said he wanted
to research at the ucb campus, i suggested that he needed a chauffer
with a fast car like mine.
well, that was last weekend. we didn't make it up to berkeley until
today. uh, it was raining. yeah. that’s it. |
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the parking situation was silly. all the garages appeared to have flat
rates of $25. we figured there was an event of some kind.
at first i thought the guy on the left here was homeless, but his sign
said he wanted tickets, not a handout. a-ha—home game!
daver and i pooled our parking karma and found a space on the street a
block from campus. the meter had a one-hour limit, but it gave twenty
minutes for only a quarter. |
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daver scuttled off to do daver things in the library. i blinked at my
freedom and walked slowly towards telegraph, relishing the thought of
doing the street fair without dancing to the rhythms of others. |
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the first vendor i saw was still setting up her wares. what would a trip
to berkeley be without tie-dye?
turns out that even at eleven am, most of the vendors weren’t yet
arrived. i decided to visit some shops that i had enjoyed in previous
years. |
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the ambush proved successful. my first purchases of the day were
cherie moraga’s this bridge called my back, which i’ve
wanted for quite a while; a book of african names with translations;
and a pin that says “bad cop, no donut!” for my friend
jonahue, the laughing policeman.
i arrived back at the meter—ha!—with seventeen minutes to
spare. while dropping the books in the trunk, i had to wave off a circling
member of the parking frenzy. then i noticed woah! telegraph road
was finally open for business.
it was time to resist the pressures of handcrafts available nowhere else!
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i fondled smooth leather wallets. i wished i had a use for hand
stitched books with textured linen paper, bound in ostrich-skin. i
sniffed scented refills of the stained glass candle holders. and, of
course, i smiled at the ever-prevalent tiny-bowled pipes with replacable
brass screens. |
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it appears that when i shop while wearing my black leather jacket, i
have the visage of a smoker. twice i was accosted by roguish looking
fellows, who wanted nothing more than a cigarette. perhaps i’ll
bring a pack next time. |
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after the second person mistook me for a cigarette machine, i
discovered it was time to feed the meter again, so i trundled back
towards my car. |
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there was a surprise for me under my windshield wiper. fiends,
i thought. no donut!
fortunately it was merely an advert flier for another one of those
10-10-xxx long distance companies. i don't recall the numbers, but i do remember
the bulldog logo, so i know which one never to use, no matter what.
i was a good boy and immediately placed the ad in a garbage receptacle. |
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this is when i heard the drummers thumping, so i headed towards the
rhythm.
ucb has this huge paved commons area in which people congregate to do
all sorts of things.
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in addition to the hacky sacker, i watched a troupe of kids doing
strange moves in unison. they were obviously all on the same team,
but i never figured out what their gig was. |
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first they stuck their right feet forward. |
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then they stuck their right feet way forward. that guy in the
middle in the navy shirt fell over. |
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the kids just stood around after this, so i turned my attention
elsewhere. perhaps they needed to rest before trying the left foot.
watching people act silly is only so entertaining.
i moved on to the real attraction of the commons. da drums.
usually when i visit the ucb campus on the weekends i can count on
hearing a jam session. sometimes i see a full kit; sometimes there
are just a few bongos. today i saw four drummer-dudes and a kid
with an accordian set up.
these guys were having a good time. the serious fellow at the
two conga drums in the middle actually he smiled and nodded when i
held out my camera for permission. that’s when they got all
solemn, looking off to the side after i started snapping shots. |
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all but one. i tried to get a picture of the child playing the accordian, but she
ducked, and laughed whenever i aimed my camera at her! |
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the beat echoed off the buildings around us. the driving tempo never
ended completely, they never all stopped playing at once. they wove
their beats amongst each other, pervasive and compelling, so that
even father time might stop to listen, twitch, and start tapping
his foot before moving forward on his business. |
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i stayed on campus longer than i shopped telegraph road. |
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daver eventually finished his research. he was happy with his photocopies,
and i with my day on the streets. victory conditions! |
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thank’s to amy’s scanner!
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this is my sister ann, with my niece alexa jane. they live in evanston, illinois. i get to meet alexa later this month, for the first time ever. woo! woo! |
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this 1995 photograph
looks to me like museum curators, just after lieutenant columbo
announced that he didn’t understand a clue they had never
thought to conceal. photo credit: don henderson. |
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here are those museum
curators in the summer of 1998. i think nancy preston took this photo. |
mark’s camera clogs your bandwidth
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this lady in purple hangs out with me all the time, even though she’s my ex-girlfriend. i think should buy her flowers more often. | |
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this mysterious stranger keeps visiting us. he comes and goes like the wind, never staying long, but always leaving with memories of fun and games. he didn’t at all mind me playing with the camera while he was visiting. |
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