feather2pixels

The zenith of my romantic life: August 20, 1993:

I’ve spent the last two nights at Will Franken shows. Will Franken is a comedian. I think Will Franken is the best comedian. Will Franken is a Libertarian. Who would have thought the best comedian would be a Libertarian? Usually I find Libertarians distasteful, even more so than Republicans sometimes.
The following is a list of famous Libertarians:
1. Clint Eastwood
2. Dwight Yoakam
3. Kurt Russel

The following is a list of famous Librarians:

1. J Edgar Hoover
2. Marcel Duchamp
3. Casanova

The annual Academy career fair took place yesterday. There were so many companies in attendance that the event overflowed from the gymnasium to the student center. That’s basically all the room we have here. Dressed in my steadily downgrading work clothes (jeans and homemade Willie Nelson tee-shirt for this non-teaching day), I took a few minutes after lunch to check it out.

It turned out to be one of those moments, like graduation or our arrival in Kobe last summer, that made me feel love for my job and the people involved with it. I found most of my seniors moseying around, dressed fancy, looking slightly uneasy. Here, in their quest for maritime employment between two Division III basketball nets, they suddenly seemed young. For a few moments, I was struck by the idea that I might be doing something here beyond amusing myself for twelve hours a week. And they all seemed very happy to see me.
Then, I walked to my office and read celebrity gossip on Yahoo.

This key recently came to be in my possession. It looks quite ordinary. Friends, this is no ordinary key. This is the key to my screen printing dreams. This is the key to CELLspace.

Even dedicated feather2pixels readers who recognize the name CELLspace may still be confused about what exactly goes on there. The confusions ends here. CELLspace is one of several adjacent warehouse spaces on the 2000 block of Bryant Street that serves as a community-based art space. It hosts after school programs, private art studios, adult art workshops, and events. Lots of events. This weekend there was a massive clothing swap, which is a great place to pick up loads of Old Navy clothes that Mission hipsters are embarrassed to wear. If there is a roller skating party in San Francisco, it’s usually here. Also, there is a screen printing loft and I like it. CELLspace always seems to be on the brink of financial ruin and, as a result, working there has always been an unpredictable affair. Some days I get in, some days I don’t, and some days I end up crying on the sidewalk. But not anymore. Now I have a key.

Most recent project: Jill’s save the date cards.

On Wednesday night, Nowell and I discussed Postcard #28 with a reporter from the Haight Ashbury Beat, which is a newish SF neighborhood paper. The paper took notice of Nowell’s Cole Valley address and was attacking the local boy makes good angle in what turned out to be a slightly surreal interview, if only because it lasted four times longer than the film in question. For a night, we got to feel like local heros.

Some exciting recent multimedia content:

Tahoe:

The Ocean Beach Christmas tree burn:

Inner Richmond storm aftermath:

09:00 on the first day of school and I’ve already made an ass out of myself. So I am teaching a class called Statics, which is kind of exciting because it’s the first real engineering course you get in engineering school and I enjoy having that kind of impact on college kids. I was under the impression that my class begins at 08:50, which would be true if I was teaching Thermodynamics.

What really surprised me is that nobody said anything for three minutes.

A few notes on the somewhat amazing 2008 Christmas tree burn at Ocean Beach.

From what I understand this was supposed to be a big event, but the rain ended up keeping people away. It wasn’t coming down too hard in the Mission, so I put on my ridiculous rain gear and biked down to the dark diner on Sloat Boulevard where everyone was meeting and everything was a lot wetter. It ended up being about forty-five people, maybe twenty trees. After sharing a joint with an old hippie, a different old hippie began thumping bongos. This seemed to initiate a single file march to the beach.

This dunes on this section of Ocean Beach are decidedly cliff-like and, flanked on the opposite side by the high tide, we were left with very little actual beach on which to start a bonfire. As a result, the combined forces of the surf and the rain set up a death battle of elements. At first there seemed to be no way to stop fire–the pile of evergreen went up in approximately half a second. Every once in a while a wave caught everyone unawares, but this didn’t seem like a group to be stopped by some soggy feet. Neither was fire.

At one point, two firemen peeked at the scene from the street above and seemed unimpressed. I guess they knew what we would find out soon. Fire packs an impressive punch, but there is not much in this world that can withstand the fury of pissed-off, rainy water.

As fire was dying down, a wave much bigger than anything that came before closed in on us. This time there was no escape. And this time the result was more than just soaked feet; I could feel the sensation of what would be coldness on my knees if my knees had not been numb from the rain. Or the fire. Or something. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that the wave carried the still-burning wood into the Pacific. For real: the dying bonfire fire floated into the dark ocean and it was one of the more outstanding things I’ve seen.

[flv:http://www.feather2pixels.com/blog/post_video/burn.flv 400 300]

The storm was a lot messier than it seemed. It didn’t even rain that hard, but a Saturday drive to the Dumpling King with Jill revealed a city absolutely covered in downed branches and trees. It was all somewhat unexplainable. We took the long route through the park, where the devastation was particularly impressive. I couldn’t believe the size of the debris and the roads were barely drivable. A bad situation on JFK Drive, for example, has only become worse (if they are never going to pave that road, they could at least replace the bulbs on street lights). However, the quality of the city’s chive and pork dumplings was quite unaffected.

The view from Jill’s telephone:

Let the precipitation begin:

These writings are getting awfully negative. C.W.(formerly unhappily known as Freckles) pointed this out to me on a midnight bike ride to the sea and I think she’s right. Here are some positive thoughts to kick off the last even year of the decade.

-The grilled halibut at our 2008 faculty retreat was excellent.
-The biker I ran over last week insisted on a ride to 24th and Potrero instead of money for his broken foot.
-No class on Tuesday or Thursday this semester.
–CELLspace (where I screen print) is making me a spare key so I can come and go as I please. It could even be ready for the summer.
–The Mountain Goats on three consecutive nights at three different SF venues this winter.
-Ten predicted feet of snow at Tahoe this weekend.
-A too-good-to-be-true Kasper Hauser/Will Franken show at SF Sketchfest this January.
-Chance encounters at the no left turn sign at the intersection of 19th and Church streets.
–Double decker busses, killer tigers, and SPAM maps.
-BYOB with no corkage fee at Tajine. Lamb.
-The excitement back in my fitness goals, with inspiring expert instructors, personalized whole-body workouts, and the greatest outdoors in San Francisco.
-The U.S.P.S. Marvel superhero and America’s superlative stamps.
–Pitt 13 WVU 9
–Pitt 65 Duke 64
-End of semester emails from happy students.
-New neighbors, old penpals, family fans, calls from New York City, afternoons at Vesuvio.
-And of course: The Shanghai Dumpling King.

Adrienne‘s living in the Mission now. It shouldn’t be, but it’s almost hard to believe that I have a friend in the neighborhood. But I know it’s true because I got a splinter and a framed map of North Carolina when I helped her move last week. Her place is sweet, too. Part of the excitement is the small room that she’s planning on converting into an art space. In fact, she’s got big plans for the entire 900 block of Shotwell street. Something involving stoops and skills, which would sound crazy if it were coming from anyone else. But Adrienne has no shortage of ideas. And no shortage of furniture made out of old wood. Lots of splintery fucking wood.

Rachel was in town recently. As I was giving my mouse pad a much needed cleaning, the doorbell rang and she was suddenly standing on my stoop, unmistakably her. After a tour of the premises, we took off in her brother’s hard-clutched Subaru for my San Francisco Highlights tour on a blustery Thursday afternoon. Even though those events were more or less planned, it was one of the more notable visits of my time in Mission.

There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to describe exactly who Rachel is. My first girlfriend, who I met in the summer of eighth grade at YMCA camp in South Jersey has too many prepositional phrases. At the top of Twin Peaks, where she treaded close to the inner curb (“I don’t do well with heights”), the air tasted thin and the still bay in front of us felt like a memory of something that never happened to me. Really, she was my first great penpal and my first great obsession in a life that has basically been a series of penpals and obsessions. But the idea of a patterned existence seemed reassuring up there. For a year or two, her letters were the only things that made me happy. Today they are among my most treasured possessions. This summer I re-read them and they blew me away. Somehow, they are at once intelligent and well-written, hopeful and heartbreaking. They teem with what it is to be young. Somehow, they remind me of who I am today. And that is fucking crazy.

At one point at Land’s End, she stopped to sit on a rock. Here, the refuge of the bay gives way to the open ocean and today it looked cold and patient. I excused myself to take a piss on an old gnarled tree and then we sat around for a bit until the wind became unbearable. She’s been through a lot since then, Rachel. It was in her eyes. Is it in my eyes, too? Things feel fucked up with me and I can’t even explain to people why.

These days, Rachel is a writer (in the sense of being a writer that I truly respect: she writes). It’s deeply satisfying for me to recognize the passion of her old letters to me in the words she writes today. It’s deeply satisfying to stand on a rock and know something about the essence of someone I don’t really know anymore. I don’t explain much to her on the rock.