MY DAY: Wrap-up

100 pages read, 3 naps, 2 baths, 1 1/2 movies, 1 book finished and a whole lot of sleeping in. MY DAY turned out rather nicely.

#10,000

Since I don't own a digital camera and am resisting getting one for no reason at all, I've never pariticipated in the very cool Mirror Project, founded and run by my friend Heather Champ. So I probably don't deserve to be in the 10,000 Mirror Project picture, grinning on the right like I've got a staple remover stuck in my jaw. I equate it two beginning the 12th man on the league's best basketball team, spending the whole season on the bench but collecting a championship ring anyway.

Traffic: The Good Kind.

The Art Car Parade just went right by my living room window. Beep Beep!

My Day:

Today is my first day in three weeks with no work, my first day off in recent memory. Suzan is out of town. Therefore I have declared it MY DAY. Mine. Get it? Mine, mine mine mine. MY DAY has three simple principles...

1. Kevin does exactly what he wants on MY DAY with no planning, thought or consideration. Why? Because it's MY DAY, that's why. Neahh. That's why even though it's a beautiful Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, I may very well spend it inside reading Naomi Klein, watching movie trailers and wondering why I can't be as cool as Ben Brown. In fact, I think I'll do just that. Why? Because it's MY DAY.

2. MY DAY begins and ends when Kevin says it does and does not obey any laws of nature, common sense, health or decency. I may sleep at noon and do the lambada at midnight. I may menstrate. You say I don't have the parts? Shut up. I say its MY DAY.

3. MY DAY. See 1 and 2. Neahhhhhh.

Condition Critical!

Happy 10th Birthday to Critical Mass! In September 1992, a handful of bicyclists converged in downtown San Francisco the last Friday of the month during rush hour and rode in a big clump down the street in protest of the lack of attention and respect non-car transportation gets on city streets. Motorists were confused then angry, the police befuddled but someone listened. Today Critical Mass happens the last Friday of every month in 300 cities around the world and it's pretty damn hard, in most major cities, to ignore the presence of bicycles.

I was fortunate to ride with the Mass yesterday in the city where it all began, with thousands of other bicycles eager for and passionate about a safer, cleaner, more humane city. Critical Mass has a mixed reputation among practically everyone because as progressive as someone claims to be, see how long they stay that way when stuck in their car for an hour behind a wave of thousands of cheering cyclists. And infamously, in some larger rides, cyclists has been arrested and beaten by police, and gotten into screaming matches and physical confrontations with those on two wheels.

Media coverage of the ride has often emphasized these violent confrontations, portraying the riders as law-breaking thugs with a sadly misguided political agenda. Indeed there are rouge element of the ride who still think Critical Mass is about pissing off people in cars. Hell, even I did when I started riding it and still get a perverse charge out the angry drivers. But really I think the Mass, because it has no organizer, no governing body, it just happens, suffers from a public relations problem. I've been in the middle of it several times and mostly you see ordinary people smiling, cheering, happy to be riding in the city they love without fearing for their life. I've seen teenagers and senior citizens, people in wheelchairs, and dozens of parents riding alongside their children.

Thank God in celebration of the anniversary, some wise person passed out a sheet outlining the principles of Critical Mass, which included "MOTORISTS ARE NOT THE ENEMY!" It forced me to remember why I was there. And while I read about frusterated drivers "just drying to get home" and merchants worried that their customers won't arrive if they can't drive, and say "come off your high horse and take the damn bus!", I don't get the same self-rightous thrill I used to.

New Where?

Anybody else here visit Newpages, a portal of information from alternative media outlets? Apparently now they're asking for a password. Were they gonna tell us, the readers, the loyal fans? What did we do wrong?

Slack Part II:

I did another interview on the Slack Street Radio program where I talked about some new fall books, the "book club" trend and the dreaded "How do I get an agent?" question. Please listen.

Booksellers Unite!

Employees of the Uptown Borders bookstore in Minneapolis are voting next month on whether to unionize. Since 1996, 11 Borders stores have become organized (including the one famously featured in the Michael Moore film The Big One) only to have the unions dissolve from lack of employee interest. Yet despite the odds and fierce corporate resistance, employees are insisting "why is it so radical for somebody to work in retail and earn a living wage?" (via NewPages)

Good point.

A thought:

"If the future's looking dark,
We're the ones who have to shine.
If there's no one in control,
We're the ones who draw the line.

Though we live in trying times,
We're the ones who have to try.
Though we know that time has wings,
We're the ones who have to fly."

--"Everyday Glory" by RUSH

R.I.P TAC

Elizabeth Coblentz, aka The Amish Cook died this week. Coblentz, a deeply religious Amish woman's cooking column was featured in newspapers nationwide and written by hand and the light of lantern. Oasis Newsfeatures came into being when it began syndicating the column in 1991. At it's height, the Amish cook appeared in over 100 newspapers nationwide.

We tend to forget in this wind tunnel of information called 2002 that newspapers, particularly small-town ones, were once the bastion of little useful pieces of information like the school lunch calendar, the price of the soy beans and pets for sale. I remember fondly grabbing section E from the Ann Arbor News as a kid and praying that pizza would be the featured hot lunch at Burns Park Elementary School.

We can all go the web for that stuff now. It's quick, convenient, sexy. I'd like to think that even online, there's room for a little homespunness like the Amish Cook. It helps me to take a break and breathe.