292. Bastille Day, AIDS Walk, and Genji

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Genji

Something I’m really enjoying about this book is the short length of many of the chapters. They can be as short as a page or two. Almost like prose haiku. Genji is continuing to be an overly attentive guardian to Tamakazura. He is her music instructor now. I’ve learned to trust Murasaki S., but I do wonder what she’s about here. Tamakazura’s father has discovered another daughter by-blow (the Omi Lady) and brought her to his house, where she has become a source of amusement to everyone. Tamakazura and her ally within Genji’s household, we are told, now appreciate the wisdom of her not going directly to her father, but this seems a bit contrived as the two young women would seem to be nothing alike. And of course then her half brothers wouldn’t be falling in love with her -- not clear to me if they have actually seen or conversed with her. 

Genji’s day-to-day life as a Chancellor and older person longing for a life of retirement seems quite similar to his younger days except that now he maintains a compound full of past, present, and possibly future paramours. He is currently living with two daughters of men he knows and associates with, and I don’t think either of them are aware of this, I know Tamakazura’s father doesn’t know. Not sure about Murasaki’s father. (Yes he does. This comes out later when Tamakazura is mated off with the husband of another of his daughters.)

This would be a fascinating book to read with a feminist book club... though I would be a little concerned for my own safety. 

A few words about the binding of this edition of the book. The cloth cover is quite lovely, the spine is covered in purple cloth -- wisteria purple being Murasaki’s color and the meaning of the name. The majority of the cover looks like handmade paper or very subtle marbling and there’s a leafy symbol in gold at the top right of the front cover. Haven’t been able to determine what it means as yet, but it is quite handsome. 

All in all a very good looking book. The work is divided into two volumes which fit into a hard case which I haven’t looked at as yet.

Days later: I just noticed that the Knopf borzoi is embossed into the back of the cover. Lovely touch.

The Royal Outing
The Omi lady is yet another character who could have been written by Jane Austen. She has some Mary Bennett about her and perhaps a little Mrs Elton as well. If someone were to do a version of Genji set at a much later date, she could be the half-American daughter who doesn’t get Japanese customs. And Lydia Bennett! This only struck me at the end of The Cyress Pillar, but it’s probably the most apt. I retract the other suggestions and will go with Lydia.

As appalling as some of the gender relations are here, when you remember this is the 10th century it’s an amazingly civil society. A European equivalent would probably be even more appalling.

Purple Trousers
Besides the brevity of these chapters, the other remarkable thing about them is that almost nothing is happening. Mostly a series of interviews with poetry, where either Tamakazura or Murasaki are concealed behind screens or in another room and communicating through one of their women. I’ve started to imagine additional chapters in which the young lady is tipsy and flatulent. And her poems are rude limericks.

Bastille Day

Aside from our not having a single toter to help with carting around our equipment and the bags of trash, this event went quite smoothly. Most of the day was on the boring side. The turnout seemed better this year, I suspect because of the World Cup, with all the French expats feeling more French than usual. (See also notes on the following day.)

The entertainment started at 4:00pm -- maybe earlier than last year -- and was mostly cover bands. The last group was the best. They played popular music from the 1960s sung in French. I always hope for “French” music I haven’t heard before but always get the usual hits from the ‘60s but in French. The musicians were older guys, but the two singers were young women dressed in what I would describe as Carnaby Street fashions. They looked quite smart; and sang well. 

Since we are so much aware of our bad luck, I have to mention an instance of quite striking good luck. Recology provided us with four,  six yard dumpsters for the event. This would give us one dumpster for each trash stream plus a spare if we ran out of room for something -- or we could have made one a dedicated cardboard dumpster. Except that when we (not me personally) arrived, one of the dumpsters already contained a bunch of trash and a wheelchair. “We” sorted everything else, but left the wheelchair. 

At the end of the day we locked up the dumpsters so people don’t steal even more of the recycling and, more importantly, don’t contaminate what we’ve sorted. These dumpsters are quite battered, so if was hard to get even one of the two possible locking points to work for the three dumpsters we had used. But, finally we got them locked up and turned to the dumpster we had left empty except for the wheelchair. This one was so mangled we could do nothing with it. We so lucked out.

AIDS Walk 2018

(I think my 3rd AIDS Walk)
Walking down my hill on the way to breakfast and then work, I saw a mass of people blocking Powell Street opposite the Sir Francis Drake Hotel and heard, for the second day in a row, the strains of Le Marseillais. And that was how I learned the French had won the World Cup.

AIDS Walk has always been a mess and last year it was a disaster. I had to stay over an extra two hours past the end of my shift just to get things in order so we could finally leave. But I complained and made a bunch of suggestions and, surprise, I was listened to. This year was almost easy.

There were still a half dozen or more trash boxes provided by a lubricant company on the field, but they were mostly backstage or on the periphery. Scores of these satanic objects were collected early on and tossed into recycling -- I had been harping about these boxes for the previous 24 hours. 

The problem with these boxes are that they are not part of our three stream system. People throw everything into them. And sometimes they aren’t even lined, so you can’t even pull out a bag of trash and sort it. You have to cart around the entire box full of mixed trash.

With these boxes mostly off the field, there were also fewer places for people to throw trash that we had to then sort. This is actually a good thing. When I arrived at 1pm, there was no pile of trash bags at the dumpsters and no one was sorting there. Last year at that point there was already a hopelessly large pile of bags, as volunteers were pulling anything close to a full bag and bringing it to the dumpsters to be sorted. This year, more of our people were sorting on the field and the volunteers were only hauling bags we had pulled and that didn’t need further sorting. The usual system. Yes, it works here too... surprise!

And the post walk entertainment this year was better. As I was walking up to the event, at Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park, I suddenly remembered just how awful the entertainment has been in the past. Usually it’s people who are famous (or wealthy) for something else who also have a cover band in their spare time. Last year, maybe, the lead singer really couldn’t carry a tune. But this year the final acts were people known for their participation on RuPaul’s Drag Race. I didn’t know them, but some were spectacularly good, and they could all carry a tune. For the first time I felt bad for the entertainers because so many walkers don’t hang around for the show. In the past this has been a sign of good taste and self-preservation. Plus the wind was getting fierce.


The main drama of the day had to do with someone hiding the keys to a rental truck in a place that was impossible to get to without having the keys. I had nothing to do with this debacle, so I just ignored it. I was cajoled into driving said truck, once the keys had been expensively retrieved, back to U-haul. I was supposed to put a couple gallons of gas into it before returning the truck, but, for the life of me, I could not get the pump to work. It’s probably been over a decade since I’ve bought gas, but you wouldn’t think the process would have changed so much. I still have no idea what I was doing wrong.