The Flaneur had an unusually eventful month this year. Here are a few fleeting impressions for my unfaithful readers.
Seismic activity of human origin continues along Milvia Street. While the venerable New Deal Post office building threatens to tumble into the claws of rapacious real estaters, the bulldozers and cranes have been busy dismantling the ancient gymnasium building at the high school. A steady stream of dust swirls up from the athletic fields still under construction behind the gym now collapsing in clouds of particulate matter. The whole area smells like someone's musty cellar from the 1930s.
Farther along Milvia an even more disruptive scene takes place in the dust. The phenomenal quixotic soccer field at Carleton is being crimped into a ballpark. A breathtaking expanse of open lawn where I would sit and rest in the sun, a halfway point from the Berkeley Bowl to my home, is gone. The digging began July 5th and now represents a hazardous walk past the sad defunct Ice Land skating rink building through dirt borne by howling winds. A microcosmic remnant of a once-happy town, appears today as a kind of a melancolony.
But demoltion derbies, surgeries and hypodermics of all sorts aside, one finds the golden vein of wonder in everyday life even still.
A birthday rolled up with a real bateau ivre of a picnic with a primordial pal down at the kite-festive Berkeley marina.The wind blew steady over our salmon and stout as we sheltered in the weeds. The part of the brain that exists in the future was stimulated by a fortune of sidereal indications. One leg I left in the sun in a new pair of shorts came home sun-burned-- a rarity for me and all part of my slightly seasick evening. But all for pleasure as the water waved into cat's paws and a phantasmagoria of kites snapped overhead. A stack of jelly fish kites were condom-like with a submarine subconscious effect suspended in the air.
We drove back toward the golden wall of the Berkeley hills looking smaller now as the bay remained so vast behind us.
So the actual birthday arrived with the early morning fog still chilly around me as I hiked up to the San Francisco train. I stopped in the Park as the Farmer's market swam alongside. Smoked here to enliven my long quiet passage by rail. Good times good travel under the Bay and under the city to emerge up around the Mint and submerge again until Irving street riding the N Judah out to Golden Gate park.
Always a light-footed ramble down past the Botanical garden with its lonesome fountain--tourists are sparse now that they must pay to frolic there. Over to the grass-roofed, hobbiton amusement park of the Academy of Science I stroll.
Obtaining my ticket ($35 for adults...the ones who have to pay it), I sidled off to a deserted corner of the grounds to consume my double-dose blonde brownie. I notice a nice fenced-in garden there that I would access for lunch. A slightly dour bored-to-tears guy loiters around the garden, presumably to thwart fence-hoppers. He observes me boredly.
Next I slip inside the dense forest of signage, screens, out-landish interior architecture and occasional live creatures. Twenty-five years since my last visit and it certainly is a changed place. I tunnel about and take a breather on the living roof before lunch follwed by parking myself beneath the sloping glass of a very deep coral tank with myriads (might as well use the proper word) of colorful fish in kinetic patterns over waving heads of coral. In this I drifted quite a long while. A tower of luminous jelly fish recalled the jelly fish kite formation of last week. Little kids commune with me telepathically. I try to use my mind-power to affect a chambered nautilus hovering in his tank--he moved to keep his eye on me
The grand finale was two viewing of an earthquake program in the dish-screen of the planetarium. Great fear of falling effects and a scene on a beach in which the cliffs behind you advance in a most hallucinogenic splendor. A real head-kick as we descend to the earth's molten core of fear.
from my notes:
All in all, a lively summer in a refusal of being made to suffer by apparent sensory phenomena.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
More Anti-Happenings Around Town
To the Flaneur's wizened resignation time and entropy march on.
It was the beginning of May I was managing a busy first-of-the-month day. My itinerary included a stop at the cannabis drive-in in order to restock my home supply of one of God's great gifts to mankind.
It operated out of a mirror-windowed building that curved and sloped over a parking lot giving away its origins as a fast-food place.
The advantage to the place in addition to being walking distance from my home was that it offered a room where one could prepare and consume one's purchases. Fine coffee was provided by the house, an idea I always found to be a prudent one--everyone had a coffee and woke up a bit after the magic indica dust made them a little sleepy.
But today low and behold and without prior notice even though I had been there a week or so earlier, the gate was locked on the business at noon. Their landlord it seems had been intimidated by the federal district attorney, a woman aptly named Haag, and given them the boot. A few familiar employees manned a table to get the hapless customers like myself to sign up for home delivery. Chagrin falls on the local scene.
As for myself an hour later I was at the old place on telegraph where I had gone for years and was very happy with the buds I found.
Alongside the quaint and mildly pleasing news that Harold way which runs between Kittridge and Alston near the Library and Post Office would be changing its name to Dharma Way. A large Tibetan Buddhist school and book and tanka shop had acquired all properties on the short street and moved the wheels of the City it seems. Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums about Berkeley when he lived here for in the mid-fifties. It foretold of a wave of "rucksack revolutionaries" to follow in the sixties, some of which marches on in the post-apocalyptic new century.
But the big whammy arrived with the news in the Daily Cal yesterday the the great funky old building on the National Historic Register that has been the Berkeley main Post Office for 97 years will abruptly be closed and sold off. Roll with it or blast off, baby.
It was the beginning of May I was managing a busy first-of-the-month day. My itinerary included a stop at the cannabis drive-in in order to restock my home supply of one of God's great gifts to mankind.
It operated out of a mirror-windowed building that curved and sloped over a parking lot giving away its origins as a fast-food place.
The advantage to the place in addition to being walking distance from my home was that it offered a room where one could prepare and consume one's purchases. Fine coffee was provided by the house, an idea I always found to be a prudent one--everyone had a coffee and woke up a bit after the magic indica dust made them a little sleepy.
But today low and behold and without prior notice even though I had been there a week or so earlier, the gate was locked on the business at noon. Their landlord it seems had been intimidated by the federal district attorney, a woman aptly named Haag, and given them the boot. A few familiar employees manned a table to get the hapless customers like myself to sign up for home delivery. Chagrin falls on the local scene.
As for myself an hour later I was at the old place on telegraph where I had gone for years and was very happy with the buds I found.
Alongside the quaint and mildly pleasing news that Harold way which runs between Kittridge and Alston near the Library and Post Office would be changing its name to Dharma Way. A large Tibetan Buddhist school and book and tanka shop had acquired all properties on the short street and moved the wheels of the City it seems. Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums about Berkeley when he lived here for in the mid-fifties. It foretold of a wave of "rucksack revolutionaries" to follow in the sixties, some of which marches on in the post-apocalyptic new century.
But the big whammy arrived with the news in the Daily Cal yesterday the the great funky old building on the National Historic Register that has been the Berkeley main Post Office for 97 years will abruptly be closed and sold off. Roll with it or blast off, baby.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Anti-happenings around Town
In which the Flaneur fesses-up to slacking off this year, a brief and incomplete round-up.
Someone called "hey, Raymantico" in my open window from the street. It was Ian my former house-mate who is active in Occupy. He came up and invited me with him to visit the latest encampment, "Occupy the Farm" in nearby Albany. A doctoral candidate in music his appearance had changed since we'd first met. From the clean-cut grad student (who nevertheless played in at least two bands, one Ethiopian-pop the other wooly dense stuff like Mahavishnu Orchestra on nitrous oxide or something) to the back-to-the-land-archist cat with beard as long and wild as his head-hair. He hurtled through back-streets and crowded boulevardes both at what is for me breakneck speed toward the agricultural tracts owned by the Yooniversity and occupied by a mostly young bunch of students and friends.
The place had a charming mood of the makeshift practicality, and good vibe gathering. A small kitchen wafted aromas of the evening meal on its way. Ian became engaged in several conversations so I pushed on for an unguided tour. In the near distance beyond the central mid-way as it were planting and watering took place in the extended evening light of spring. Closer to were a couple of information tables and other operations some adjourned for the day. The concourse culminated in a ring of hale bales above which folks were stringing light bulbs. Tonight was to be a jamboree and various folk guitar toting young minstrels bided time as a stage-area was wired for sound. I sat in an available canvas lounge chair and watched the long shadows across the ruled farm land.
Who would not sympathize with the quixotic idealism of some the stated goals of this action? That is to make a statement about preserving some of the last viable farm land hereabouts versus the publicized plan to create a whole foods market and modest retirement housing there. But seriously considered it has less chance of prevailing in the courts of property than did the appeal to UC's better nature in the call to preserve the monumental oak grove. That legacy was, as we know, eventually shredded for the uber-stadium plans the funding for which, what do you know?, have recently been exposed as a fraud-ridden part of the boom boom war and investment scandal years. As the last secretary of state once asked, "How could we have possibly known?"
At some later court proceeding against Occupy the Farm, a UC lawyer referred to this state-owned public property as "private property." In other mad mad courthouse news the judge who had issued draconian stay-away orders for enrolled students arrested on campus at Occupy Cal, has since been indicted for elder abuse and grand larceny from an octogenarian trustee lady. Accept judgement from the moral high ground, ye must.
And as it inevitably shook down, platoons of police state overkill arrived and ejected Occupy the Farm a few weeks later. Some were arrested one brave soul allegedly urinated on a riot-clad cop from a tree. Shortly after ward both the city of Albany (trapped in a mutual support agreement with the gestapo-like UC police) and the UC police themselves both submitted a bill for police expenses to Occupy the Farm members. Albany asked for less than four-thousand dollars. UC's villainous mouth-piece Mogolof has demanded around four-hundred thousand and counting. People who are humble enough to sleep out with their crops are thereby damned to a huge financial liability for daring to protest UC officials for selling off public holdings to bankroll their own careers and gild their own parachutes.
On that idyllic night in May, Ian and I didn't hang long enough for the show to begin. The meal smelled great but the line was long and I was happy to leave the vittles for the others especially those hauling water to remote crops. Instead we decamped to an area where instruments were played and the smoking chalice was passed about. As we pushed on through Ian again held up in conversation I climbed a little tower like outdoor airport stairs and looked over at the small group enchanted by music and herb. Hope among the remnants of the natural world getting smaller as we were soon winging toward home.
Someone called "hey, Raymantico" in my open window from the street. It was Ian my former house-mate who is active in Occupy. He came up and invited me with him to visit the latest encampment, "Occupy the Farm" in nearby Albany. A doctoral candidate in music his appearance had changed since we'd first met. From the clean-cut grad student (who nevertheless played in at least two bands, one Ethiopian-pop the other wooly dense stuff like Mahavishnu Orchestra on nitrous oxide or something) to the back-to-the-land-archist cat with beard as long and wild as his head-hair. He hurtled through back-streets and crowded boulevardes both at what is for me breakneck speed toward the agricultural tracts owned by the Yooniversity and occupied by a mostly young bunch of students and friends.
The place had a charming mood of the makeshift practicality, and good vibe gathering. A small kitchen wafted aromas of the evening meal on its way. Ian became engaged in several conversations so I pushed on for an unguided tour. In the near distance beyond the central mid-way as it were planting and watering took place in the extended evening light of spring. Closer to were a couple of information tables and other operations some adjourned for the day. The concourse culminated in a ring of hale bales above which folks were stringing light bulbs. Tonight was to be a jamboree and various folk guitar toting young minstrels bided time as a stage-area was wired for sound. I sat in an available canvas lounge chair and watched the long shadows across the ruled farm land.
Who would not sympathize with the quixotic idealism of some the stated goals of this action? That is to make a statement about preserving some of the last viable farm land hereabouts versus the publicized plan to create a whole foods market and modest retirement housing there. But seriously considered it has less chance of prevailing in the courts of property than did the appeal to UC's better nature in the call to preserve the monumental oak grove. That legacy was, as we know, eventually shredded for the uber-stadium plans the funding for which, what do you know?, have recently been exposed as a fraud-ridden part of the boom boom war and investment scandal years. As the last secretary of state once asked, "How could we have possibly known?"
At some later court proceeding against Occupy the Farm, a UC lawyer referred to this state-owned public property as "private property." In other mad mad courthouse news the judge who had issued draconian stay-away orders for enrolled students arrested on campus at Occupy Cal, has since been indicted for elder abuse and grand larceny from an octogenarian trustee lady. Accept judgement from the moral high ground, ye must.
And as it inevitably shook down, platoons of police state overkill arrived and ejected Occupy the Farm a few weeks later. Some were arrested one brave soul allegedly urinated on a riot-clad cop from a tree. Shortly after ward both the city of Albany (trapped in a mutual support agreement with the gestapo-like UC police) and the UC police themselves both submitted a bill for police expenses to Occupy the Farm members. Albany asked for less than four-thousand dollars. UC's villainous mouth-piece Mogolof has demanded around four-hundred thousand and counting. People who are humble enough to sleep out with their crops are thereby damned to a huge financial liability for daring to protest UC officials for selling off public holdings to bankroll their own careers and gild their own parachutes.
On that idyllic night in May, Ian and I didn't hang long enough for the show to begin. The meal smelled great but the line was long and I was happy to leave the vittles for the others especially those hauling water to remote crops. Instead we decamped to an area where instruments were played and the smoking chalice was passed about. As we pushed on through Ian again held up in conversation I climbed a little tower like outdoor airport stairs and looked over at the small group enchanted by music and herb. Hope among the remnants of the natural world getting smaller as we were soon winging toward home.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
scarified sacrifice (eclipse of the sun)
weird bird utters other
a strange glow manifest in the blood
waxy yellow light of solar eclipse
irreality in the temple grounds
voices from the himalayas in waves
wash on the occluded hillside
the enchanted sidewalk home
evening's intoxication overspills
the deepest finest red rose of twilight
a strange glow manifest in the blood
waxy yellow light of solar eclipse
irreality in the temple grounds
voices from the himalayas in waves
wash on the occluded hillside
the enchanted sidewalk home
evening's intoxication overspills
the deepest finest red rose of twilight
Eclipse of the Sun
20 May 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Naive Poem
1.
flowers frieze into stylized design
duck and ducklings swim in a line
seen from a fantastic height
the quixotic pedestrian bridge
shoreline meadow alone
water in the creek
seven black-necked geese
large brown rabbits in a small herd
superabundant birdsong
birds unseen in the trees
the industrious bumble invades
an ultra-orange poppy
mocha hash chocolate
five pointed star in brilliant blue foil
in fennel-green borders of the reserve
red-winged blackbird rules the day
matings songs swell
into a vertiginous hurdy gurdy
incarnadine finches
fly ahead up the path
wind on the cove beneath me
mesh generation fifty seabirds
spaced apart on the grid
cormorants fish the boundaries
grass shelter on the last hillock
someone may have lain here first
below the insistent wind
food from home
mount tamalpais is dim
the bridge is evanescent
mild bay mist obscures the west
I want to live in the diamond sparkle
2.
the wind over me and down to the cove
gusts play on the water
the sunny surface becomes a kite
wind streams around me
down hundreds of yards to the water
the surface like a great kite
grass moves iridescent
the wind turns its red side
to its green side
12 May 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Baneful Bagatelles
with wisdom disillusionment
saw a guy with two lobes on one ear
wonder if he had a secret twin listening in
the winter wind
sweeps the old house
asking for my whereabouts
a curious lamp from long ago
flickers when the wind
blows shut my window
a haunted tin pot
rattles off somewhere
a dinner for ghosts consisting of air
leave me alone I desperately say
and just for the moment
the wind went away
the cathedral of meth
is lit from within
by the sensory impressions
of its strange denizens
a patch of nowhere forever
silence in the street today
was stunning
like another door closing on deafness
motionless sunlight on the hills
added to this effect
no one else in the world
for a moment
the death mask an actor wears is apt to become his face
two gloomy ravens
hung low in a winter tree
sky turned charcoal gray
the past is something we drag with us like a grand piano stuffed with viscous horses
heavy wind and rain
came down the street
like everything else
I'm sick of all the squares on the sidewalk
a dream
on the night of the solstice
full lunar eclipse
a pattern of ants
on the wall
the stars' mockery
tule fog came
ushering in vagueness
trees appear as the heads
of old acquaintances
houses vanish behind
diffuse street lights
tail-lights red shift
exaggerated silence
memories are corridors
countless in number
leading in all directions
from the mirror ball
at the center of the mind
the past is not far away
it's not even the past anyway
I pull over for repair
the murderous world of traffic
plunges on without me
owsley stanley
gone into the convulsive australian
with the other large early carnivores
with the devils with the zebra wolves
with the giant flightless parrots
open another room in a mansion in the sky
you floated all boats
my own bateau ivre in sixty-eight
has to be the hand of fate
how inscrutable and vast a reckoning
through the night time fog
a distant television
someone else up late
siren's soft finial
lashed to a lathe
rain parades
streets end at the water
supper clubs on the pier
momentary ireland
clouds land on green hills
thought of sheep
a dream
george zimmer in a business suit
walking on a financial district sidewalk
shooting up with a glass syringe
every time I look out the window
I see the same guy
standing in my backyard
looking in
with his eyes closed
it's my wife's ex-husband
old stage-door johnny
and two pastures away
there's another guy standing
her third husband a painter
way off on the hillside
I can still see her first husband
nonchalant as ever
somewhat weathered by the years
no one recalls his name anymore
Her second husband is out there too
he's hidden in a glade
down by the creek
I glimpse him through the trees
when the leaves are down on the old logging road
They're all dead of course
and in my own season
I'll join them out there one day
tough in winter flowers in spring
the long slow summer the gaudy falling leaves
torn clouds
squid maps
a twisted sky
the past is a bed of nails
the abominable snow lady
paroxysms of extinction
clive evil
catacombs honeycomb remembrance
the stars' mockery
Monday, January 30, 2012
Northern Skies
Under the somber skies of January, the Flaneur confesses his devotion to the mysterious Nick Drake.
(coming soon)
(coming soon)
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