°
°
The sun rests its back against a turquoise western horizon; I rest mine against a large stone cross atop Parc G°el. I can see all of Barcelona: the Olympic park, the harbor, and the Sagrada Familia cathedral. I ascended the hill via much climbing, and an out-of-doors escalator — the only other place I've seen one is in Hong Kong. However, in Hong Kong there is no graffiti. In Barcelona, as anywhere in Europe, my New World sensibilites are shocked to see it scrawled across buildings more ancient than my country. On the escalator ride up, I even recognized some of the slogans: the anarchist symbol, "Nazis Fuck Off" and "Independence". I laughed out loud when I saw the "Free Mumia" sticker and kicked myself for not bring some Andre's Posse, Schwa, or Boston zinester stickers with me.
While I found an interesting vegetarian restaurant ("Self Naturista", a self-serve vegie buffet) I never really did get a sense of where the cool locals hang out. Most everyone at Naturista was reading guide books. However, up here, there must be a punk enclave (though I suspect most of them are in Prague throwing stones at cops and McDonalds). Ironically, the most prominent site up on this hill is a house directly below me, covered in punk graffiti with "Okupa Y Resist" painted on its roof. I wonder what that means?
A dozen dozing sight-seers rest on the opposing wall of our stone chamber as curtains of Mediterranean rain cascade and pool outside. Perched there, the Asian tourists look like the friendly gargoyles that smile down upon the visitors of the Sagrada Familia cathedral. The way their heads gently bob and come to rest upon their chests remind me of the preening swans in the garden pond where I watched the dark clouds rear up from behind Gaudi's stalagmite spires. The skies have been toying with me all morning. A light drizzle, a single hard drop: when would I have to run? Eventually, my answer poured down upon me and the smooth surface of the pond became a haze. Run. Past the swans for whom the rain was of little consequence, towards the sharply muted organic spires that are framed by flashes of lightening.
Now, I sit in this unfinished chamber (absent stained glass windows such that I can still see the swans swimming in the rain) and wonder if these middle aged tourists are meditating, or merely very tired.
In the zines and magazines I read, I read a lot about Seattle and the WTO. I'm down with the protests, but I always find the discourse on the topic to be confusing because I'm down with "globalization" as well. By that I mean we should be expanding the scope of health, civil rights, and prosperity. Now I expect that instead of expanding good things, the WTO is furthering a race towards the bottom: corporate rule, exploitation, and pollution. However, the principle of fair trade seems ... fair. This is how I would specify it, "Governments MUST NOT pass regulation that discriminates on the source of the product or service. Governments SHOULD pass laws regarding the quality and production of products and services." Consequently, a regulation that places a 30% tarrif on grain produced over seas would be illegal. But a law that stated no grain may be sold that is based on a genetically engineered plant would be legal. What am I missing here? Could someone point me to the specific text of these laws?
I saw an excellent POV on PBS last night regarding KPFA°and Pacifica Network. I've read a lot about this station that started as a pacifist response to WWII and subsequently became a source of non-commercial "voice of dissent" programming. (And was subsequently 'sold-out' by its new management.) The POV ended rather abruptly without addressing the conflict, but it did present an excellent background of the station and impressed upon me how text-book history is sometimes presented as complex and varied: right and wrong is only discerned in hindsight. However, this historical presentation is often little more than an excuse. On Vietnam and McCarthy KPFA was right to provide a forum of dissent. Slavery was not a difficult moral situation for anyone other than those that benefited from the exploitation of others; even at that time there were folks (usually Quakers!) that knew the system was wrong. Only the morally complacent and lazy need hindsight to recognize the evils of slavery, war, and tyranny.
I was riding bikes this weekend with a friend and she got doored: the cyclist is amiably tooling along in the bike lane (if there is one) and a clueless motorist swings wide the driver side car door without looking. This usually ends with the cyclist going over the head-bars into the door or into active traffic on the left. This of course makes me very angry, but usually the motorists isn't malicious, they just weren't thinking, so what can you do but try to be cognizant of their ignorance? Afterwards, on my ride home some jerk in a BMW jauntily turned into me out of a driveway. I saw him coming and noted that he wasn't even looking and let his car pass closely enough that I could get off a satisfying punch into his door (on my lowrider I have to punch, on my mountain bike I can kick!).
This week City Hall has stenciled a bunch of new no-bike stencils on the side walks around Central Square. I'm tempted to do some midnight activism and place corresponding no-car stencils in the street. I'm happy to not be on the sidewalk if there is a bike lane and that bike lane is free of taxies, double-parked cars, and opening doors so I don't have to swerve into street traffic.
When I was in Amsterdam I saw what a bike friendly town could be like! They have road, bike, and pedestrian lanes! Boston only takes the most cursory bike friendly steps it can. Did you know you are allowed to take a bike on the T? You can, though you had to adhere to some sensible rules — and some stupid ones. Additionally, the passes were only available during extremely limited and odd hours and at locations that I have not yet been able to get to. The end result is that the "bike pass system" discourages people from using the T and bicycles to get around Boston.
Fortunately, the Massachusetts/Boston Bicycle Coalitions has been pushing for bike friendly roads, and they may have even made some progress with respect to the T passes. Also, Boston's First°Car Free Day°is coming up on September 21! Unfortunately, I doubt it will be a car free day, I expect it'll be more like a "Nearly Getting Run Over by SUVs Day."
*velorution suggested by David, "'Velo' is french for 'bike,' and you can see the easy letter-scramble from 'revol.'"
[update: I just discovered that as of October 1, special passes won't be needed anymore on the T!]
I've already called the RIAA's position on and digital media and players a crock of bull$hit. If you read the links I provide in that rant I can't imagine that you'd disagree.° I've also been casting about for an alternative: screw the record labels and stores, but what about the authors? At the time I wrote:
As I write this I'm listening to a DarkAngel mp3 that I discovered by accident. I can rationalize that I could not have purchased this song given I never heard of it! And that it might prompt me to even go buy some albums. However, ripping off mp3s as a form of righteousness strikes me as rather self serving
Last night, Nora and I went to see VNV Nation and Apoptygma Berzerk; I got to hear a live version of DarkAngel! I also handed their road manager two envelopes with some cash from Nora and me. On the front of the FleetBank deposit slips I hastily scribbled, "Dear Sirs, I've been ripping off your mp3s from the Net. Here's some compensation, I understand the artist sees 20% of a CD sales, so while this is modest it's more money than you'd see from me had I purchased a few CDs." The manager was very cool and said we should hang around and meet the guys. I didn't want this to be a "I get to meet the celebrity" thing, nor was the nasty low hanging smoke in the tiny cube that is Manray an incentive to linger. Still, I think this donation thing is a cool approach, and if I could do it over the Net, it'd be even cooler.
I'm keen to take the new Acela from Boston to Manhatten (though I don't think the fall discount rates apply) and wondered if the following question from their FAQ is really all that frequently asked?
When I was a teenager I read an article in an Ask Beth or Cosmo column from a dismayed young lady who was ashamed of her nipples. When bathing, she followed some motherly advice to apply bandaids before donning her bikini top so as to suppress the precocious buds. However, while she was water skiing her top had come off exposing her band-aids to everyone: a worse embarrassment than had she been au natural. I don't remember the advice but I remember being intrigued for a few reasons. First, I was a teenager and anything could capture my prurient interest. Second, I was myself an extremely shy and body conscious teenager, my leg hair horrified me. Third, I thought it weird that other people felt equally as awkward about something that was a natural feature of the body — and given my first reason, something that one shouldn't be ashamed of!
However, that was the 80s and this is the 90s plus. We don't have cherry lipstick nor blue eye shadow, but even our mannequins have nipples.
__
°
