Exoskeleton of Giant Prehistoric Fish on Ocean Beach in San Francisco

Seeing is believing.

 I went back to Ocean beach yesterday but I didn't see this colossal fossil.

This was the last photo with my former digital camera.

A photo-journal of yesterday's adventure will follow shortly.

September 2013

TheSecret of the Sea 

Inter-chapter number one

Prochainment

Chapters from The Secret of the Sea:

"Color Theory and the Circular Enigma"

"Heat Wave Beaks on Ocean Beach"

"A Secretive Prehistory of San Francisco"

Thirty-first of December

 trees in early bud
pale sun already going down

  the last dharma flag

31 December 2013

Save Our Berkeley Post Office Building

We are quite fond of our old Berkeley Post Office building,

 one of the pillars of our community.

Always busy, visited by everyone,

there have recently been festivities on these stairs

It's a hallowed old spooky place

where I keep a post box

They don't always treat the fixtures very well

Box 364  zip 94701

And a glimpse behind the scenes

view from a stairwell

It's a Historic Place and we sort of like it that way, damn it

It represents a dignified history

The stately elevator with its brass door

An illumination of democratic ideals

The wisdom of a town with peaceful traditions

Reflected in the notable WPA-sponsored artwork

BANG! Not anymore, baby.

Remember that stairwell?

Paranoia strikes deep 

always plenty of federal money to squander 

on keeping petty authorities safe from the public

Remember that part about the National Historic Place?

Well, it turns out that the Republicans in Congress would like to eliminate the postal service as we know it. They have imposed impossible pension funds set-asides to further weaken the USPS defenses and forced the sale of real estate in an attempt to comply. Privatization marches on.

Into the situation stepped an opportunistic well-connected investment group spear-headed by the honorable regent of the California University System, Richard Blum. He happens to be the husband of our long-serving Senator Diane Feinstein who seemed to have little problem with the CIA advanced interrogation and surveillance  programs until they included her.

Blum and his cohort are buying  post offices in the high roller real estate markets like Berkeley.

The Berkeley Post Office is yet another front in the relentless depredation of the Plutocracy

2013-2014

Art Moderne Street Clock Missing

The Flaneur supposes one is one's senior citizenship when one dwells on lost things.

 These photos were taken last summer uptown at 17th Street in Oakland. 

Today the building has been refurbished and the clock is not there.

 Is it really lost though? 

Probably destined for some restaurant or at best the Museum.

 It's a kooky survival of Orientalist deco kitsch.

I was always delighted to see it still there over the years.

Theis shot are included for their documentary value 

alas, I can't seem to figure out how to post it vertically.

July 2013

A Gift from God

The earth produced vegetation: the various kinds of seed-bearing plants and the fruit trees with seed inside, each corresponding to its own species. God saw that it was good.

Laws are made by charlatans who trick people into electing them whereupon they become full-time "fund-raisers." Wicked men who serve the evil rich.

Le Bon Dieu looks after his people.

 It's so nice to come home to my slippers and my rolling tray

"Marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol."- President Barack Obama.

Yeah and a leaf of dinosaur kale is no more dangerous than a leaf of tobacco.

420 24/7 365

Birds of the Berkeley Marina (The Secret of the Sea Pt.II, Chap.3)

In which the Berkeley Flaneur  hikes deep into the Berkeley Marina on an ornithological dig.

Begin here

All across the purple heather

 Walk in through a grassland preserve

The female blackbird sits on a nest

right along side the asphalt

The male guards the scene, he followed me on

It's a strange place, land where the Bay was

Artificial nature

Looking back toward Berkeley

An index of our feathered friends

California poppies and fennel grow between the boulders

These poppies radiated so vividly

I trespassed over a wire fence to get close

A  jack-rabbit bounded out of subterranean catacombs as I did

Down to the Bay

 at the Northernmost point
Rocks like black fractals

My sacred spot

 Owned by no one open to all

At home in the great outdoors

A striking red wing blackbird

perched on a dry fennel stalk

The friend I came here to meet

He would just soar in the steady onshore wind

And get to the top of the sky

And for a boundless instant
I'm up there with him

Then he brings me right down again safely

hovering over his nest of  bright green fennel

like a military jet straight up and down

Sky Window

Just beyond it, my point of contemplation

Around toward the Berkeley breakwater

and past it the extraordinarily Berkeley pier

Vaguely evident is the new Bay bridge etcetera

Lovely in its Easter raiment,

this hardy copse endures constant wind

It faces the Golden Gate directly across the Bay

Back past the boats

No local people ever ride these Hornblower boats

Strictly for the marks who stay at the touristy hotels

Some fortunate few get to stay here all night, every night

Unlike the Flaneur who must cross a field of poppies

before he falls asleep

31 April 2014

Stinco de Mayo

The Flaneur observes local observations on Cinco de Mayo, Mexican Saint Patrick's Day.

 Going in the paper was lit

Coming back out--borracho!

5 Mayo 2014