A Minute For Greenpeace

The Greenpeace folks work in pairs. Each pair is assigned a busy street, where the partners stand facing away from each other, a few yards apart. They wear matching green jackets or sometimes matching yellow polo shirts. Each holds a green binder under one arm. And as you walk past, the Greenpeace person who’s facing you makes eye contact and asks, “Do you have a minute for Greenpeace?” This has been the modus operandi since spring.

This afternoon though, they abandoned their usual posts and worked as a group of eight in Westlake Center. They stood in formation, staggered across the park. And they had company – eight kids in red vests, a church youth group. Off to the side, a booth with a sign that read “Prayer Station”.

They stood together, yellow uniforms on one side, red uniforms on the other, with a little intermingling of red and yellow in the middle.

To get from one side to the other, I had to zigzag through this wall of people. “Is there anyone you’d like to pray for?” “Do you have a minute for Greenpeace?”

It was kind of interesting, that’s all.

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One Hand Clapping

There’s a busker perched at the top of a little side set of stairs on the way down to the waterfront, a hippy. She strums her guitar distractedly. When a group of people walks past, when she sits up ridged, picks up the tempo and sings at the sky. No one can hear her; her voice is competing with the sound of traffic swooshing by on the Alaskan Way Viaduct behind her. She relaxes again and lets out a sigh when she’s sure that the last of the tourists have walked by on their way up to Pike Place. She’s feeling dejected. No one has dropped change in the guitar case that sits open beside her – up out of reach of anyone who doesn’t go out of his way to approach the singer that can’t be heard.

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Active

There are three campaigns cycled into service on an irregular schedule. One day the activists hold up signs that say, “Send dentists to jail.” Months later it’s, “Lawyers stink.” They hand out flyers that only repeat the slogans, there’s no explanation.

The third campaign is slightly less ambiguous. The signs read, “Ban these books?” and the flyers explain that school libraries aren’t required to stock a copy of the Revised Code of Washington – a complete list of Washington State’s laws.

The “activists” aren’t especially convincing. They’re aggressive enough, often holding a flyer directly out into your path so that you can’t avoid acknowledging they’re presence. But one can tell from their postures that they’re not into the campaign. They always look like they’re ready to leave. They’re people you see around a lot – on the bus, wandering around on Broadway, occasionally asking for spare change.

These campaigns have proceeded, on-and-off, for years. Recently, after declining a “Send dentists to jail,” flyer, I noticed an older man watching from a careful distance. He wore a baseball cap, oversized headphones, and had tinted glasses. He looked familiar. I made a point of looking for the older man the next several times I came across one of these demonstrations. And it seems that he’s always present, leaning against a newspaper box, hand on a bicycle. My theory is that he rounds up a few people from the street every once in awhile and pays them to pass out these meaningless flyers. It’s either an art project or a cynical, if well intentioned, attempt to generate work for down-and-outs.

I walked up and asked him about it one time. But he ignored me – just pretended I wasn’t there.

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Ace Vogue Wipers

I was typing up some notes for an entry, and they came together as a haiku. I was just about ready to post it until I realized that I’d never before resorted to that here. That would be lazy. I’ll show a little restraint.

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Nighttime

A woman I pass in the crosswalk plucking dollar bills from one hand where they’re wadded together like a used tissue or a head of cabbage.

A Teenager skateboarding shirtless in the dark. Something hurtled in my direction lands far enough away that I’m confident it wasn’t thrown at me. He bends down and as he passes, plucks something else from the ground – an anti-war protest sign – tosses it into the street. More signs scattered on the ground and planted among the shrubs.

A truck parked outside of The Gap, the back door open. A truckload of boxes. A portable conveyor belt leading from the rear of the truck into the store. A dozen small boxes lined up on the conveyor belt from the truck, only as far as the sidewalk. The driver standing in the street, barcode scanner held idle beside him. Another person moving around in the back of the truck. The Gap employees standing inside, staring at each other’s feet.

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The Homeless Guy

The Homeless Guy, a blog written by a man who’s living homeless in Nashville. Often thoughtful and well-written:

I believe some people fear this web page may legitimize homelessness as an acceptable lifestyle, but this is not my intention. Rather, my intention is to legitamize homeless people, to show them as worthy of being treated like human beings, with compassion, acceptance, and assistance.

Link lifted from Boing Boing.

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Drizzle

I’ve been resisting my caffeine addiction for the last few weeks. I cut my tea intake and have even spent a couple of days virtually caffeine-free. I’ve sat outside soaking up sunlight, feeling recharged. A couple of cups of tea will cut through my natural tension and leave an alert but nervous buzz in its place. But five minutes of light and stillness left me feeling good and relaxed, but a little uncomfortable.

The weather today has been cold and grey. There’s been a steady drizzle, interrupted frequently by a barely measurable mist.

In the afternoon I settled into a coffee shop and read over a cup of tea. My socks were damp and my feet were clammy. There was a chill whenever someone opened the door.

Today I understand Seattle a little better than I have before. I understand why the clichéd latte culture is still so conspicuous here; and I understand why we bear the stereotype of being polite yet standoffish.

Summer days in Seattle are beautiful – believe me. It’s sunny and warm. The air is fresh. But I think it’s better in the fall. It’s more comfortable and familiar.

Today was a quintessential Seattle day, all the more striking because it’s the first of its type since spring. The balance of the days in the coming months will be more like today than like yesterday. Hang your head cheerfully, Seattle.

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Go Around

There is much to discuss like, for example, stoplights. Sometimes a stoplight downtown will turn red, but the stoplights in the other direction, the cross-street, fail to change. They stay on red. Everyone at the corner, driver and pedestrian, has a red light. No one has the right of way. All the stoplights stay on red for what seems like three or four minutes – longer than a regular stoplight cycle. I’ve witnessed this four or five times in the last several years. I don’t know what causes it.

Another, quicker, phenomenon may be related. Stoplights downtown sometimes change abruptly when an ambulance or police car comes through an intersection with its siren going. I don’t know if light changes for emergency vehicles are triggered by a remote control in the vehicle, a dispatcher tracking the car back at headquarters, a sound sensor, or something else. But emergency light changes are over with quickly.

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No Context

Scenes from a movie that I only saw a few minutes of:

Various founding father-types are sprawled around a big room. Ben Franklin is leaning against a window frame, staring outside. It’s a meeting of the Continental Congress.

James Adams is arguing that the Constitution should ban slavery. Someone points out that Adams owns slaves himself. “But I’m going to free them,” he explains.

Another founding father stands up and counters in a twisted voice, “Slavery is a matter of commerce, not liberty.”

Adams has plenty to say about this. His opponent, whose name we learn is Rutledge, ups the ante by breaking into song. It turns out that this movie is a musical.

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Eeeeeeeeee

There was a mosquito buzzing around me last night. When its high whine first woke me, the logic of the dream that I was escaping made me certain that I could get rid of it by downloading some new fonts onto my computer. The mosquito kept me up for a few hours. The buzzing would get louder and higher as the mosquito wandered close to my ear. I had to draw my arm out from under the covers before I could take a blind swipe at it. By the time I’d get my arm free, the buzzing would be more distant and I wouldn’t know where to aim my slap. The refrigerator started humming across the apartment and I listened for the mosquito sound through the refrigerator sound. I was scratching at ghost bites before getting in the shower this morning.

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