Parallaxis, People and Protest

Beneath a bright afternoon sun, a crowd of teenagers converged on a busy plaza. Several of them wore black and white scarves wrapped around their heads and faces, and a few waved Palestinian flags while helicopters buzzed overhead. A peaceful but commanding presence, this scene was not in the West Bank or Gaza, but San Francisco. Energized by a Bay Area hip-hop artist with a political message, these young American activists gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall on Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and the Palestinian conflict.

And they weren’t alone. An estimated 25,000 energetic and passionate anti-war protesters marched in the streets of San Francisco Saturday to mark the third anniversary of the War in Iraq. The march ended in Civic Center Plaza, where the crowd gathered to listen to speakers and performers deliver messages of peace and resistance.

Saturday’s march was one of hundreds held across the nation and around the world in an effort to keep the anti-war message alive. In proud exercise of their First Amendment rights, the marchers found creative ways to communicate individual messages, from waving homemade signs and banners, to wearing elaborate costumes and even body paint.

The crowd was a cross-section of the City itself, with Catholic nuns, Muslims, Jews, hippies of all ages, young parents with their children, ravers, yuppies, punks, military veterans and people of all ages, nationalities, and political philosophies coming together for a shared goal.

Accompanying the anti-war sentiment were a variety of other messages and causes, from calls for the impeachment of President Bush to rallying cries to end the Palestinian occupation.

Several dozen youth from San Francisco and Daly City came out to support Hip Hop artist Patriarch, who performed on the rally’s center stage. A native of San Francisco, Patriarch commands a raw style of west-coast, crunky hip-hop that speaks of real life injustices while reflecting his Palestinian and North African heritage.

Among its many definitions, crunk describes being so filled with energy you’re about to explode, and Patriarch’s lyrics and heavy beats convey that deep emotional intensity and passion. “My music is real, straight-forward, to the point, and revolutionary,” he told me. “A lot of people feel it because it’s an educated voice anyone can relate to.”

Delivering political messages about real-world issues, Patriarch and his label, Revolution N.O.W. Records, aim to mobilize youth with music. According to label founder Fuad Hawit, “Our goal is to unite and empower kids throughout the world through music” with meaningful messages that inspire positive political and community involvement. "Now stands for Nation of Wisdom," Hawit said, referring to the record label.

Drawing from personal experience, Patriarch raps about Palestine as well as American injustice and struggles around the world.

“I’m for humanity, man, and that’s a common cause everyone can relate to.”

Read more about Saturday's protests here.

Find out more about Revolution N.O.W. Records and Patriarch from their web site and on MySpace.

Muni Memories #2 – Addendum

A number of people (that number being two) have expressed a burning desire to know more about my experience riding the 14 Mission - the passengers, the crabs being eaten alive (and recklessly shucked to the floor, still kicking), and their eaters.

The thing is, as I said before, a Muni story doesn’t always have a neat, tidy ending. Sometimes, you reach your stop while a story is still in progress. Sometimes, the stories get off the bus while you’re still riding. And sometimes, the stories just fizzle out or fade away.

Here are some examples of how a Muni story might end:

1. And then I got off the bus.


2. She apparently had no idea what she'd just sat upon. And although I wanted so badly to see what happened when she stood up, she was still seated when I reached my stop.


3. The oblivious performer continued his impromptu striptease as I stepped off the bus. Just before the doors closed behind me, I heard someone shout, “Oh my god! I’ve never seen such a…”


4. The passenger pulled the cord and exited at the next stop. Alas, the chirping sound coming from deep within his mountain of dreadlocks would forever be a mystery.


5. As the driver phoned the police, the elderly Jewish man continued to taunt the young Palestinian, shouting, “Come on, bitch! I’ll F- you up, big time!” I decided to take a different bus.


6. We sat in silence for the rest of the journey, each of us no doubt quietly praying that the pool of liquid would not flow in our direction.

So it was with the crab story. I sat there, not saying a word, not looking up, but simply staring with sick fascination, unable to take my eyes off of the still-moving fourth-of-a-crab that had landed between my feet. It had landed on what was left of its back, if you’re curious. And I think, if it had landed otherwise, the two attached legs might very well have begun to drag its disembodied remains across the floor, perhaps away from me, but maybe up my pant leg. Luckily, it was on its back.

As flabbergasted as I was to have witnessed the eating of two live animals, while being struck by a flying piece of one, it’s possible that the chucker of said crab chunk was just as flummoxed by my (lack of) response. I mean, I just sat there looking down at his food/pet. He might have thought, “Gosh, what’s with that guy just sitting there looking at my crab? He doesn’t even have the courtesy to pick it up and hand it back to me? Now he just touched it with his boot! That’s disgusting! I can’t eat that now!”

I did not have the courtesy, you see, to pick up the twitching partial crab carcass and hand it back to him. I was extremely inconsiderate, in fact. Not only did I just sit there, hoarding a chunk of his delicious pet, but I touched it with my filthy boot, which has been in direct contact with all sorts of vile disgusting surfaces, the floor of a Muni bus among them.

For such a crowded bus, the rest of the ride was oddly quiet, probably because everyone was staring in shock at how impolite I was being just sitting there staring at a piece of that man’s tasty companion between my legs, not even offering it back to him. But I didn’t look up, so I don’t know for sure. When the bus reached 4th St., I stood up and left the crab, and its eaters, behind.

Moments later, someone else got on the bus and undoubtedly took my seat. I wonder what they thought when they looked down. That’s where their story begins. Mine ends here.

How Do You Think?

Are you a visual person? Do you think in words, or images?
- A question someone asked me last week

I struggled with that question, in part because I'd never really thought about it, and in part because, upon giving it some thought, I realized the answer was neither.

I decided to post the question here, and see how others respond. When someone says, "Think of an apple," how does your brain work? Do you picture an apple, or does the word apple come to mind? Or, god forbid, does your brain work like mine?

I think with neither words nor images unless words or images are required of my thoughts. Instead, I tend to think in broad senses of "understanding" (or perhaps "meaning") that incorporate emotion, the senses, and a library of associated words and images wrapped up in the "understanding." This "understanding" is like a web of interconnectivity, such that the "understanding" I associate with an apple is not separate from the "understanding" I associate with a pear, but rather partially intertwined in the ways that both share some of the same "understanding" in my mind, yet retain elements of separate "understanding" as well.

Thus, when told to think of an apple, my mind accesses the understanding I have associated with "apple" - which includes a variety of colors, waxy, shiny textures, the flavors and colors of juice, the smells of an orchard, the brief pain and surprise of accidentally biting into a seed, logos and computers, associations with gravity, the sound of crunching, the feeling of cool, moist spray on my lips when I take a bite, and on and on - but my mind doesn't automatically focus on any one of those associations in particular (so I don't necessarily see a red apple). I receive all the associations at once in a rush of meaning that I can only describe as "my understanding of apple."

If told to picture an apple, however, I can vividly picture an apple - and I have several images before me, perfectly vivid and realistic, in my mind, when I try to do so.

Now, since my thoughts are not in words or pictures - I also must always translate my thoughts into words before communicating them ... so I wonder, since this is the first time I've tried to translate how I think into words for others to understand... did any of that just make sense to anyone?

And I would like to know: How do you think?

Muni Memories #2

The 14 Mission

Muni’s purpose is transportation. It is incidental that a Muni bus can also be a vehicle for unusual stories and memorable experiences. As a passenger, when you board the bus you board it with your own story, joining people who are already on board with their stories. And when you exit (through the back doors, please) you leave with your story while others are just getting on.

It’s the nature of Muni transportation that, more often than not, you’ll board a bus with a good story already in progress, or reach your stop before a story’s conclusion. You may never know what started a particular Muni story or what the outcome was. A Muni story is often just a slice of surreality between the realities of your origin and destination. The following memory is a perfect example.

The 14 is a crowded bus that follows Mission Street for miles, from San Francisco’s southernmost suburban neighborhoods to the towering skyscrapers along the Embarcadero. It passes through El Corazón de la Misione (the heart of the Mission), one of San Francisco’s largest neighborhoods, populated primarily by families from Mexico, Central, and South America.

The sidewalks of Mission St. are crowded with people and lined with produce stands selling delicious and inexpensive fruits and vegetables freshly harvested from area farms. The walls and buildings are festooned with flags, banners, and brightly painted murals. There are taquerias selling burritos the size of footballs on nearly every corner. In a city of microclimates, it’s one of the sunniest and warmest neighborhoods. And like many San Francisco neighborhoods, it possesses a unique flavor that hearkens to its immigrant history.

It was a typically warm, sunny Summer day in the Mission when I boarded the 14 at 26th Street. I was going downtown for a movie and had wisely brought a jacket. I could already see a thin plume of chilly fog flowing through the breaks in the hills and hovering among the skyscrapers of the Financial District.

The bus was crowded. There were about a dozen people standing towards the front, but I found a seat facing sideways near the back. When the bus stopped in front of the Sun Fat Seafood Market at 23rd St., a pair of Latino fellows took the last remaining seats, one across from me and the other in the rear of the bus to my right.

The thing I noticed right away about these two guys was that they had crabs. One each, to be exact, held in their hands between folded pieces of wax paper, kind of like you’d hold an Éclair... or a pretzel. But they were crabs. Big ones. Their bodies were about the size of a DVD and their legs extended from their bodies several inches in every direction. And though I didn’t want to stare or appear too interested, I had to confirm what I thought I’d seen, or more precisely I wanted to prove that I hadn’t actually seen what I thought I’d seen, coming from between those folded sheets of wax paper: motion. But my eyes had not deceived me. Those legs – they were kicking. These two gentlemen had, apparently just before getting on the bus, made a purchase at the Sun Fat Seafood Market of two live crabs. And now they were holding them in their hands on a crowded bus that was lurching through heavy traffic down Mission Street.

I’ve always been a sign reader. When I regularly drove I-80 in Nebraska, I used to know every sign between Lincoln and Grand Island by heart, even the little signs. Rest Area Next Right. Beaver Creek. High Winds On Overpass. Weather Info: Tune Radio to 1430 AM. Exit 312.

So as a sign reader and a Muni passenger, I’m pretty familiar with the posted Muni regulations. It is a felony to strike a Muni bus driver. Front seats are reserved for seniors and persons with disabilities. It is against the law for anyone under 18 years of age to have in their possession a permanent marker with a tip greater than ½” in diameter. Food and drink are not allowed on any Muni transit vehicle. Radios must be turned off. Pets are allowed, but dogs must be leashed and muzzled. And of course, above the driver’s head, the eternal, and almost lyrical message: Information gladly given, but safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation.

Given the clearly-posted rules, one must conclude that the crabs these men brought on board the 14 Mission were not food (which is forbidden), but pets (which are allowed). And thus, it was on this very bus ride that I, and many other mortified passengers, learned first-hand, in graphic detail, of an unfortunate loophole in Muni’s regulations, for nowhere is it posted that one is not allowed to eat one’s pet while riding in a Muni transit vehicle. Well, these two good men began exploiting that loophole in earnest.

I suppose you could say that I was just a little bit flabbergasted. They tore into those crabs and sucked and gnawed the meat right out of them, cracking the exoskeletons and spitting bits of shell onto the floor as they chewed. And those legs just kept wiggling. Try as I might, I couldn’t not keep from avoiding staring (I employ a quadruple-negative here, ladies and gentlemen, in an attempt to depict how truly difficult it was not to stare).

As if the crunching and spitting weren’t enough, the fellow across from me decided to break his crab in half - I guess in order to get to the really good stuff in the middle - but the main shell proved to be a little tougher than he expected. He strained for a moment, then really put his weight behind it and with a sudden loud crack and a well-timed pothole, launched half of his crab into the air. In exquisitely slow motion, it spiraled in a downward arc, losing bits of that delicious center as it spun, two remaining legs rotating around the chewy middle, crossing the aisle as I watched with a growing mixture of alarm and dismay. My eyes grew wide and a little squeak that only I heard escaped from deep in my throat as it struck me on the inside of my left calf and landed with a thunk right between my feet.

My first thought was, “Wow, that made quite a thunk.” My second thought, “Don’t look at it.” And my third thought, upon looking at it, “My god, the legs are still kicking!”

The funny thing is, if I’d been riding a crowded bus with a live crab that I’d just broken in two, flinging a living, writhing portion of it through the air and striking another person with it, I’d have looked up at that person and apologized profusely. However, I never looked up to receive the apologetic gaze of the half-living-crab-tossing Muni passenger across from me, so I have no idea if he felt even a little embarrassed. I just kept looking down at the half-crab at my feet, watching its two remaining legs extend and then curl inward, over and over again.

I touched it with the tip of my boot, wanting to kick it from underneath me. But for some ridiculous reason I thought that would be rude. Yes, I’d just been hit in the leg by a flying chunk of half a living crab, and I was afraid that kicking it away from me would be rude! I’m such a Nebraskan sometimes.