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Here In Oakland

Art & Life


   



September 28, 2013

A Good Thing
Saturday. To bed indeed last night at eleven, to sleep, to awake with the alarm and to get up and go to breakfast without much effort. The body is used to awakening at six, whether it wants to or not (I'm guessing) and, although we feel just fine having returned from breakfast sitting here at the computer, I'm sure there will be a nap in the near future. Or not. Quirky, this existence.

Nice day out there, though. The Folsom Street Fair tomorrow in San Francisco, we'll photograph it. Tens of thousands of people show up and the affair has evolved to the point they now have major corporate sponsors, all this for a gay whips and leather fair. The morning paper says they've clamped down on any sex in the booths or on the stages to accommodate the corporate sponsors, but still, it does turn your head around to attend one. There's more going on out there than one's little head can imagine. Or maybe care to imagine.

Anyway, a nice start to a Saturday. Maybe we'll do something with it, maybe we'll manage to blow it off in some kind of useless (non)undertaking. There's always the anticipation associated with an eventual answer to that question.

Later. A nap of sorts. A lie down on the bed for a while, anyway. Gave it a try. Up to walk down toward the bus stop, the smartphone app saying it was arriving in a minute as I was exiting the apartment building front door, missing the bus by maybe forty-five seconds. No complaints, I didn't worry, didn't hurry. Over to the lake to walk by some of the usual suspects engaged in some of their usual suspect activities, a walk on then through the farmers market.

No pictures in the market, but I did stop to listen to a couple playing electric bass and guitar. A couple in their fifties? I can't tell anymore. Anyway, they were good, the guy on guitar speeding along the frets with both accuracy and abandon, the music more jazz riffs over a solid bass beat than anything else that came to mind. Not that I know anything about such anymore. Anyway, nice.

Ice cream and lemonade out on the patio at the morning café, a walk then back, again by the lake, to find a group dancing, making moves, doing whatever a group does together just for (one assumes) the hell of it. So I took some pictures. I wonder if this sort of thing goes on in the wheat fields of Kansas or the suburbs of Wyoming? Maybe in the churches. Who knows what they do in those churches.

So, warm. Overly warm by now in the early afternoon, the day starting well. I'd say. I should really put a long lens on the camera and go out again, I can hear singing and drums drifting in from off the lake as I'm typing writing. Logically I should go, psychologically I'm thinking it might be nap time no matter the weather.

Later still. Put the long lens on the camera, got ready to leave for the lake (music and singing still going on in the background) thought again and put it all away for a nap. No nap. What the hell? Out the door armed with the long lens again for proper pictures.

The same group, but with the addition now of a woman with a bullhorn singing with a band. To put it bluntly, had this same woman come out on a stage in Las Vegas (dressed for the part) and sung with this same band I'd have said “yup”. Whoever she is she's obviously the real deal with a recording contract and a successful career. Who knows? Might be true. On a Saturday afternoon in Oakland.

Anyway I did get out the door, did take a picture or two before returning to see if that nap was still in the works. Makes perfect sense on a warm sunny Saturday afternoon I'm afraid, but no excuses, no complaints (and one or two pictures).

Evening. In looking at last Saturday's entry I see something called Arne Dahl is starting at six, but have no memory of exactly what Arne Dahl might be about or the fact it was the first half of a two part episode. But I'll remember once I've watched the first scene. Be a little concerned if I didn't.

Yes, I remembered once it got going. What was more interesting was it turned out the “bad guys” in the end turned out to be the CIA and one of their particularly egregious agents. I'm assuming, as a popular Swedish television program, this to some degree represents the way the Swedish people feel about our operations in the Middle East, Guantanamo and the rest. Not something anyone would try in a series here, people would be upset, but then that's obvious. It would work on underground left wing television, maybe, something you'd see on a podcast.

Last week I said there was nothing on after this, so maybe I'll get to bed early. Be a good thing.

The photo up top was taken yesterday near Lake Merritt with a Nikon D2Xs mounted with an 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G VR Nikkor lens.


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