May Your Fortunes All Be Free

Though it's been around for a couple of months, I thought some of the out of towners might enjoy knowing about Ms. Teriosa has been operating her free fortune shop down the street for a while. You'll always see a number of folks hanging out front to read her words or wisdom or scribbling their own questions.Triple Base Gallery has this to say about it:
Kelly Ording & Jetro Martinez
“Ms. Teriosa”
3135 24th Street

The artist duo has transformed a vacant storefront into a free fortune-telling business. Cards left outside the storefront instruct passersby to ask “Ms. Teriosa” a question about their future and deposit the card inside a mailbox slot. One week later, the questions will be answered and displayed in the window. The installation includes a bright, bold, carnivalesque mural on the facade and hand-painted elements on the storefront windows.
www.kellyording.com, www.jetromartinez.com

As a public service to our readers, we wanted to offer to drop off any questions you might have for Ms. Teriosa. It's free, afterall, and it might be the perfect way to start of the new year.

Festival of Light

Besides being the name of a supposedly "lost" (or unreleased) Beatles song, I love the simple idea of the Festival of Light that I learned about from Susan at Artspark Theatre who learned about it from Totalfeckingeejit) the People's Lost Republic of EEjit. It's a great idea to herald the New Year and remember those lost but still with us. Since I learned about it just in the nick of time to do it, I didn't get the chance to tag others, but I think it wouldn't hurt to still do it.

In Blogger News

The Junk Thief Board of Directors met this afternoon to look at their 10-year strategic plan and outline benchmarks for the teens. Much saki was consumed, and then they spread out on their nap mats.

Junk Thief Sez....

...our country will not find peace until our children stop thinking of peas, ham and milk. Imagine whirled soy. Or at least less pork.

Twelve Years Before I Knew It

Today while breaking for lunch, I stepped into Lucca at 22nd and Valencia, wondering why I go there a few times a year and not weekly. It recalls the types of places in the Mid-Atlantic that make me miss that part of the country so much. The Italian boys in white aprons certainly add to the appeal and are another key part of what I miss about the East. It helped that it was such a crisp and bright fall early afternoon bordering on perfection. I felt a weird wisp of nostalgia, but as I walked by the first place I lived in when I moved here, I suddenly realized today is my 12th anniversary of living in San Francisco.

Retracing the familiar sidewalks of the past dozen years, I thought of the many betrayals, regrets, mutually unreturned phone calls, emails I regret having sent, emotions still lingered but never expressed, passions never explored and other discomforts that linger so many years later.

Returning home and putting away the various jars and cheeses wrapped in butcher paper I was reminded how some of the things that I long for and feel that I am denied may be just down the street.

More the Morning After

One of my hopes in the wake of yesterdays victories (and defeats such as Proposition 8), is that words such as wingnuts, freepers, moonbats and the general meanness on both sides might calm down if not go away.

Though I don't talk about it too much here, I have a number of Republican friends and grew up in Missouri and Oklahoma. I also believe that there are some sane Republicans out there, but most of them are even more appalled by the state of the Republican Party than Democrats are. When he was in office, I had no respect of former Oklahoma Congressman Mickey Edwards. I did meet and interview him a few times, and came to recognize that while I agreed with him on many issues, he was a thoughtful, educated and articulate person with respect of the Constitution.

Much of what he has written and said in interviews lately is incredibly insights. This interview today with Terry Gross on NPR is a reminder that yesterday's victory will be a failure if it is only about squashing the Republican Party. Edwards makes some great points about how the party has gotten so far off track, and though still deeply rooted in Republican values and that he could have lived with a President McCain, he voted for Obama without apology. Perhaps the best moment in the interview is about 2/3rds through when he says that any party that thinks Joe the Plumber is smarter than a Harvard graduate is clearly on the right source. I hope that the battered elephant listens to this Republican and takes some of what he takes to heart instead of thinking that they will rise only by embracing their darkest instincts. From Liddy Dole to Bible Spice Palin, that clearly didn't work, and we can hope they might get back to embracing the core principles of democracy.

Almost

No matter what you think about any religion, say a prayer, light a candle, take a sane old person to the polls, and be prepared to say Bye Bye Bush no matter the outcome.

What's in Store for the Year 2000?

The iTrack is one of several cool inventions predicted for the year 2000 by the site Look Around You. Had the Sharper Image checked these out, they might have had more staying power.
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The i-Trak - by Gordon Taylor. The future is portable, the future is i-Trak. I believe that in the year 2000 people will want to carry their music collection everywhere they go, and the i-Trak is the answer. An 8 Track cassette player that runs off a large square blue 9V torch battery (enough for 30 minutes of continuous playback) with leather carry strap, making this unit truly portable. I also believe that Hi-Fidelity Sound quality won't be as important as creating a 'status symbol' so a round dial and Walnut finish will mean everyone will want one. If you could get ABBA or another big group to endorse this portable player as well as getting it shown on loads of TV programs like Magnum PI and Metal Mickey I think the 'Individuals' of the future will ALL want one.

Dark Spot - The Trilogy of Ds

An asteroid swung by today but didn't stop. Doubt, dread and death -- the constant and certain trilogy -- swing through in orbit, usually so distant but so often distracting my focus. Even when the view is perfectly clear, I manage to miss it by trying to see what is behind it.

A friend, not that close and across the bay, died earlier this month, the news not arriving until yesterday, grinding in the reality of the relative distance. He was one of the first people I met when I moved here. The intent to get to know him better was always there but clearly not the will, always stymied midway between here and wherever he is now.

Lately I've been sweeping out remnants of people long departed from my household. They're so long removed that the ghosts put up no fight to leave, yet I manage to waste too much time wrestling with them in a battle they have no interest in winning but still manage to pin me to the floor.

There is always a dark spot, a straying asteroid to leave a threat or a temporary blemish that will fade and leave the slightest scar, visible only in the most intense light under the gaze of a judgmental star. It seems only my own gaze passes such judgment these days, using eyeglasses that are not even mine.

Now they say the asteroid that hit Siberia a century ago wasn't nearly as large as they once believed, but it proves that even the smallest object can cause great damage. Today's dark spots, large and small, are already spinning away. So why do I dread even the smallest pebble in the darkness, knowing its capacity to pierce and destroy? Having wrestled ghosts and swept them away lately, I can, amazingly, see the horizon that I longed for before they even arrived. None of those brilliant hues have faded, and they feels closer, no pebbles in view for the moment.