Ye olde insomnia again, so here I am, blogging at 2:30 in the morning. Fell asleep on the couch at like 8, moved to the bed shortly thereafter, work up just after midnight. Some day I’ll learn.
These photos were at the last Zero Fucks show, shortly before the quarantine came down. It was after many workplaces had gone work from home, and it wasn’t super crowded because I think people were already starting to stay in. I always love going to the shows they put on, it’s such a good vibe; even this one was pretty great.
The surge is well underway here. Maybe not in the bay, but the US at large is back on that hockey stick growth in terms of new cases. Completely fucked. We should probably cancel the rest of the summer, everybody go back to staying inside as much as possible. Of course, our government is shit, and won’t lift a finger to help us, even as more people have died from COVID than two Vietnam wars. We’re gonna have to do several politically impossible things if our liberal democracy is going to make it through this. 1) has to be UBI, so people don’t have to go back to jobs that will cause more death. 2) has to be the dismantling of the police, because anything else would be inhumane. 3) is probably remove the president from office, by ballot box or by general strike, demanding his resignation (and his VP; Pence is probably worse).
I have a whole post written about moments like this, how you can’t tell what will happen once you break out of local minima in complex systems, but it’ll have to wait. Maybe tomorrow.
Posted by matt on 2020-06-25T09:39:29Z GMT
lot of irons in the fire at the moment. Protest photos, and the ethics thereof; a whole essay on why software sucks sometimes; a stack of photos from mid-march on. These were on the third of march, election day. I voted for Warren, for the record.
So, while all those things are still getting sorted and falling into place, I figured I should just push out a blog post. Some photos, a little update. Things are moving, here. Knee is mostly better, ankles have good and bad days. They still haven’t arrested the cops that killed Breonna Taylor, but we’re still in the streets (It took prosecutors a year to file charges against Oscar Grant’s killer, for reference). But/and: Just heard SF public schools is following Oakland’s lead and ending their relationship with SFPD. It’s not all bad news. We can do better, be better, and we will.
So what am I doing? While I was having trouble getting around, I was mostly trying to spread good information (protest tactics, anti-racism resources) mostly via twitter, and also donating money to a lot of stuff that came over the transom. I didn’t tweet too much about that, seemed too much like bragging to my midwestern upbringing. I’ve been taking comfort in little bits of poetry that come back to me, bits of Ulysses and Lays of Ancient Rome (“How can man die better than facing fearful odds…”) and others too. Roethke and Baldwin, too.
Now that I am getting around a little better, I went to a protest last Friday at the port, and it was amazing. I’ll probably write more about it when I actually post the photos. Don’t know when that’ll be.
Posted by matt on 2020-06-24T07:50:16Z GMT
I don’t know if it’s obvious from my posts here in the past, so I’m gonna say it here anyway: Black Lives Matter. Abolish the Police, tear down all the prisons, pay reparations to the descendants of slaves that built this country. And open the borders. And make all the billionaires give back what they stole. Maybe then we can stop protesting.
God I need to get out and shoot. The things! They continue to happen!
What else? I came across this old post where I said “A state of profound weirdness has become the new normal.” It really is an almost perfect blog post, but I really underestimated how weird things would get.
I’m almost out of pictures in the pre-covid period, maybe one or two more posts. Gonna have to get shooting for real, before I catch up to the present.
The best time to start is now.
Posted by matt on 2020-06-09T06:14:42Z GMT
These were just like, a random Friday (except the last one, which I shot from the car earlier that week). We just decided to gather at a local bar, grabbed our going-out stuff, and went. I think we even rode bikes to the first bar? Ah, the memories.
I joke, but only a little. I did get to leave the house this weekend; after complaining about it friday, I switched from the ankle boot to a brace which lets me have a normal gait, but is less protective, and that’s made a huge difference in my mobility. I can actually just walk around the house a bit, unload the dishwasher, etc. We went to a little parklet in a friend’s neighborhood, saturday, so at this rate those photos will be out in about… two months. We all sat over 6 feet apart, but it was nice to sit in the sun with some friends, at least for a little bit.
Today was a banner day: I got to look at a potential space to rent for light industrial work, so I can move the welder and metalwork out of my current space, and maybe even the sewing table? Or maybe the electronics. It’s somewhat out of my hands, but it would be really nice, if it works out.
Also today: we went for a drive, over the Richmond Bridge, to the Marin Headlands, which were closed to vehicles, and then to almost the top of Twin Peaks, where there was also a road closure and a bunch of people trying to park and walk. We paused at intervals and took pictures from the car. It wasn’t going on a nature hike or anything, but it was pretty nice after being inside the house for two weeks.
Posted by matt on 2020-05-18T08:36:50Z GMT
