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420
Tomorrow we're Greening the 420 (cannabis) celebration in Golden Gate Park's Sharon Meadow for the first time. Not sure what to expect but wouldn't be surprised if it was a shit-show. Today a crew set-up and the day after tomorrow another crew is scheduled to do the final clean-up. I'll just be there for the main event which should be similar to any number of other free concerts we've worked at Sharon Meadow. But we will see.Sallie Tisdale
Yesterday I started reading Violation, a collection of essays by Sallie Tisdale. I love Tisdale both for her prose and for her eye -- she and Annie Dillard are very good at seeing nature for what it is.
I'm four essays and the introduction in and haven't taken a single note. Which is a good thing since I procrastinated starting the book and don't have that much time before our club meeting. But I can't really explain why I both enjoy this and feel no need to write anything down.
After 420
I wasn't wrong about it being a shit-show. The report I heard on the radio this morning claimed the crowd was around 15,000, but it felt larger than that to me. There was great footage of what it looked like from a helicopter, but I can't find it now. (I had everything ready to publish last night when Blogger let me down and ate everything I had done that day. Not even the Cloud can stop this from happening on occasion.)
The morning news also reported that the park looked strikingly clean at dawn -- for years they had been reporting on what a disaster it was the day after. In fact, the park looked great by the time I left at 7:30pm and there were still teams picking up trash and bringing it to our crew to sort. That process was to continue the following day.
We didn't collect that much waste during the event. I probably collected, and hauled to the compost dumpster, 20 bags of compost plus some cardboard. I also pulled a half dozen bags of sorted landfill and even a couple bags of recycling. The majority of the waste was left behind at the very end when the "celebrants" finally were convinced to go home.
This event does not go into my list of favorite events to work, but it was very satisfying to finally be able to Green it. I would be willing to grit my teeth and do it again.
What made the event hard to work was also the most interesting aspect of the event for me. We and everyone else were told there would be no glass allowed in the park (no bottles or bongs) and people would not be allowed to sell water and the like as often happens at large gatherings like this. That's what we were told. Instead, free enterprise found a way and the main, paved, cart path that I usually use to haul heavy toters full of waste to the dumpsters, was almost impassable because of all the commerce that lined and crowded the little path. People were selling water and other beverages, food, bottles of beer, weed, "edibles," and even the forbidden glass bongs. And they positioned themselves and their wares where the foot traffic was best, as this was where one of the main entrances emptied onto the meadow.
I finally gave up on the path and hauled my toter over the gopher pocked lawn.
There was one sad (for me) aspect of the day. One of my favorite crew members, who I rarely see as it is, has finished her nursing classes and is leaving Green Mary to start her new career as a psychiatric nurse. I joked that this event would be a good transition. She should be very good at her new job. I hope I run into her when I finally lose my mind.
When is it too long?
I'm talking about essays... what did you think I meant? You're disgusting.I finally have something to say about Sallie Tisdale. Most of her essays are reasonably short, but the one on elephants went on and on. It was no surprise when I finally reached the end and discovered it was written for The New Yorker. I recall reading a series of New Yorker essays on rice, wheat, and corn (if memory serves) that were wonderful, and this one is also great. I don't know that I would want to cut anything out. Still, I had to read it in two sessions and I don't think that was the intention. It should have been divided into more manageable sections, except that an essay is supposed to be all of a piece.
Anyway, I know a lot more about Asian elephants than before I read this. She makes the point that we never really know what elephants are thinking. We tend to think they are like us when we have no real idea what is going on in their heads. But isn't this nearly as true when it comes to other people? I may think I know what life is like for women or people of color, but I'm just assuming that their reality is the same as mine with a few superficial differences. Which is nonsense.
If subjectivity is the basis of modernity in a post-quantum world where complete objectivity is a discarded notion, then we have to give up the idea that we can know what is going on in anyone's head -- human as well as animal, Just as we can only talk about probabilities when it comes to fundamental particles.
Death
I'm thinking there are basically three kinds of deaths: A. Sudden/surprise -- where you die in your sleep or just keel over or get hit by a bus;B. Quick, but with notice -- where you probably suffer more but have time to sort your affairs and say your goodbyes; and
C. Protracted -- where time and suffering are a major aspect of the event.
I would like to ask people frequently involved with the deaths of others (doctors, nurses, hospice workers, priests) if they think there are advantages to B. and especially to C. I haven't seen advantages (for the person dying) in these cases myself, but perhaps my sample size is just too small. And, of course, people are different so even if A. or B. are best for most people, C. might be better for some.
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