Protests, palates and palettes
On Saturday, I decorated my bike helmet, stapled a ‘No Faux-king Way’ sign to my top-tube and pedaled down to City Hall to join nearly 4000 other Alamedans at the local No Kings protest. It was heartening to see the streets full of neighbors of all ages, showing up for each other and our democracy and joining the millions of others across the nation denouncing the current president, ICE and all the other hell breaking loose. There were songs, there were chants, and there was great signage. I rode home with spirits raised, and a sense we’ll have to do more of these, more frequently.1
A week ago Sunday evening, we drove into San Francisco for a family friend’s graduation dinner celebration. We parked downtown, a block of Market St (after reading all the signs about street cleaning and loading zones very carefully and consulting with a local resident) two blocks from the restaurant, and spent the next couple hours enjoying Indian food with a dozen others. Samosa and saag paneer, rice and naan, gobi Manchurian and dal and butter chicken. It was all delicious and the company better: a good third of the table first-generation Americans, the rest of us second or third, making for a wide-ranging conversation about families and family trees — how hard they were to track accurately if you didn’t have a direct source — universities and art, TV shows and, of course, food. Mango season is a thing in India, the Phillipines, Mexico and Brazil and not all mangoes are equal; the meal we were eating was representative of only a small area of India; how colonialism influenced our palates and more. We left feeling full and connected.
As we began our return to the car, we heard some sirens in the distance. As we got closer, we noticed broken glass and freshly sprayed graffiti on the buildings lining Grant. Unbeknownst to us, more than 150 people had been arrested outside while we were enjoying our meal, a 400-person protest against the ICE raids in LA. Peaceable at first, it had evidently grown violent. Our car was unscathed but two spots down, an out-of-commission police car was parked, its windows shattered and hood and doors a dented mess.
It was a sobering coda to a full, colorful weekend and showed, again, how many very different lived experiences can be had all at once.
A few days prior, I met up with Sally in San Francisco for Bouquets to Art, the annual exhibit at the De Young — expanded this year to include the Legion of Honor — where floral designers interpret the artwork in flowers. We started at the Legion of Honor, where a Wayne Theibaud exhibit, ‘Art Comes from Art,’ was also on display. We didn’t plan it, but we ended up starting at this sprawling show, and I’m so glad we did. Focusing on the artist’s belief that all art is part of a continuum, each painting was captioned with a corresponding masterwork that had inspired Theibaud’s composition. The show was the perfect springboard into the more ephemeral bouquet show, equally colorful and demonstrative of the influence of the historical record of art-making.
I’ve attended Bouquets to Art in the past, but this time I got as much joy out of trying to get inside the florists’ perspective, what led them to their choices, as the finished result. Would the floral designer use the painter’s palette or the architectural form as their guide? All natural elements or artificial? Were their chosen flowers holding up? (mostly). Were they using natives or exotics? Natural color or dye? I also noticed how I looked at the artwork differently. In many cases I looked at paintings I might have passed by, the bouquets an invitation to look that much more closely. What would I have done if given the opportunity? A question that immediately made me appreciate the art of floral design itself.
I’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of museum visits this year. Art, science, history; the records of so many humans who’ve grappled with their lives and chose and attempted to make meaning or beauty or both out of it. The conversations between past and present. The awareness of how history informs the moment.
The museum day kicked off a full, colorful weekend. We played a set at SF Porchfest, itself a kaleidoscopic event, the community music festival populating the Mission District with more than 70 musical acts, then headed to Santa Cruz to both enjoy a sliver of the Monterey Bay and guest on KBCZ’s Sunday Morning Live and then onto the city to celebrate a milestone. How fortunate I am. And I don’t take it lightly.
Which is why I joined the No Kings Protest. Before I went, I read up on my Protestors Rights, yet another great resource provided by the ACLU. Civil liberties: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. Racial equity, marriage equality, voting rights. This and more are what’s at stake.
Continuing along in the doing-what-one-can mode, I’ve put together another 19 Voices in Solidarity benefit concert happening at HopMonk Tavern - Sebastopol on June 29. It’s another kick-ass bill performing to again raise funds for the American Civil Liberties Union while having as much fun as we can while doing so. Tickets are $20 in advance; $25 Please buy a ticket, bring your friends, share widely and help us fill the place!