Steven Black (D.S. Black) (sblack@library.berkeley.edu) works in a special collection library in the SF area, provides us with the following:



Subject: A Classic in the Making.....



This assignment was actually turned in by two college English students:


Rebecca and Gary
English 44A
SMU
Creative Writing
Prof Miller



In-class Assignment for Wednesday:


> Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.



> ----------------------------------------------------------------


At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The Camomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked camomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So camomile was out of the question.

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago.

"A.S. Harris to Geostation17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.


He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel." Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth -- when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.


Little did she know, but she has less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-3D secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam,felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow'em out of the sky!"


This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.


Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.


You total Shit.


Stupid Bitch.




CRITICAL MASS: We *Are* Traffic


It's the end of the month, after five on a Friday. Time to grab the old bicycle and beat it down to the foot of Market Street in time for Mass--Critical Mass.

I and a few thousand of my closest friends converge the last Friday of each month on our bikes in Justin Herman Plaza. From there we ride together across the City. The route varies, and is given to spontaneous course correction, much to the displeasure of our police escort. (Who invited them?) In June we usually pedal over the Golden Gate Bridge and end up in Sausalito--an annual odyssey that goes well with the summer solstice.

If you're in the City, you've probably seen or heard of our Mass--and yes, I savor this pun on the sacrament. For although bike riding may seem a worldly pastime, when we ride together we sail on the wings of angels. We could be valkyries in a Wagner opera...but really we're just humble bicyclists who want to ride with each other, and do it en masse once a month.

Look at us, and you will see how varied we are: mostly commuters who have embraced cycling as a preferred means of travel within the City. Look past the costumes, the looming pennyfarthing, the monster boombox and the funny signage and you will see a mass of workers, maybe even a few bike messengers, who have decided to join each other on their homeward commute.

Those who aren't on bikes and, more to the point, who are in cars--motorists--may take a different view of our fun. To some, Critical Mass is a demonstration, a provocation by a few thousand cyclists to disrupt rush hour traffic.

Except that we *are* traffic. Human traffic. Cyclists are people who have meshed with the most elegant and powerful personal transportation system that runs on calories and not petrol. Our bikes run clean without fouling the atmosphere. And, we don't have the killer stats of cars, which take more than 50,000 American lives per year (as many as were lost in 8 years of fighting in Viet Nam). Are there any war memorials to the victims of autogenocide?

This may seem immodest, but you won't find a cyclist in sight who doesn't feel the virtue of not being in a car. "One less car" read t-shirts on many bike riders around the Bay Area, not just at Critical Mass.

Countering this message are the letters to the editor that say: If those anarcho-cyclists want to be treated as traffic, make them pay registration and road taxes; require them to file for a parade permit; and most of all, make them observe traffic laws, like stopping at red lights!

Although red-light running is now virtually a capital crime in the City, cyclists are an incorrigible lot. I know because the flow of the street is different when you're operating under muscular power. You don't want to waste energy by stopping unnecessarily, especially since the key to your safety on a bike is *distancing yourself from cars*. "Death monsters ahead" warns a telling sign on a bicycle path in the Panhandle.

Critical Mass may be homegrown, but it travels well. It started almost five years ago in San Francisco, and has since coalesced in as far-flung locations as Berkeley, Seattle, Toronto, New York, London, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, and a few cities in Poland. Even, it is rumored, in San Luis Obispo and Fairfax.

With bikes and good company, this rolling symposium is spreading. Join us!




AT PLAYA IN THE FIELDS OF FIRE


As summer winds down and the dry season crackles with possibility, a good many of us have plans to make an exquisite and unforgettable fire in Nevada.

Labor Day weekend depopulates The City as effectively as a neutron bomb. But rather than go nuclear, an increasing number of people in this vast adoptive family, or movement--some might call it a cult--go to Nevada for the Burning Man Festival. This year will be the 12th iteration of this incendiary celebration; a far cry from its apocryphal beginnings in 1986 on Baker Beach.

Barred from burning the man in San Francisco by fire authorities since 1990, Burning Man has kept on trucking with a move east of Eden to the desert north of Reno.

A forty foot wooden man limned by a neon skeleton stands for less than a week, then is burned. This year more than 12,000 will trek to the back of beyond and revel in the Temporary Autonomous Zone that is Black Rock City. Most are from California, but participants come from all over--Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, even South Africa. For the few short days of the long weekend, a self-sufficient metropolis will coalesce on the playa (beach) of the ancient lakebed of Lake Lahontan.

Like Essenes who quit Jerusalem in the first century of the Common Era (A.D.), we have rejected the commerce of the Temple for an experiment in intentional--even, *spiritual*--community, however ephemeral it may be. The only commandments are: bring everything that you need to survive--this is a desert!--and leave nothing behind. Do not interfere with anyone else's immediate experience. No spectators--*everyone* is a participant, whether they are drawn to the desert for ascetic reasons, or the bacchanalia.

Everyone comes for their own reason--there is no unifying belief, apart from an active love of freedom and unfettered expression. The desert provides the most perfect blank slate for bringing dreams to life in an otherwise pitiless and unforgiving environment.

Eschewing the passive and mercantile qualities of consumer society, Burning Man enthusiasts have delighted in setting fire to effigies of this modern world--Tinsel Town (Hollywood), a satanic opera stage, mock skyscrapers festooned with wickedly altered corporate logos: Caca Bell, (S)Hell Oil, Starfucks.

Some may be pagans. Some hippies who influxed after the death of Jerry Garcia. Many consider themselves artists--even if by day, they work as lawyers, secretaries, carpenters, tax accountants, librarians, computer programmers, or firemen.

Look for artcars like Ripper the Friendly Shark. Theme camps abound to express elective tribal and artistic affinities, from Alien Abduction Camp, S&Merald City, to a House of Doors (comprised of vintage San Francisco doors, whose "fractured geometry suggests the entrance into *new realities*"). No doubt there will be disgruntled postal workers, as in years past, delivering the daily newspaper, The Black Rock Gazette and several pirate radio stations.

Towering over all is a Man who will be torched Sunday evening in a pyrotechnic frenzy that will burn several thousand points of light against a velvet new moon.

Will success ruin Burning Man? CNN and MTV have sent reporters; Burning Man has graced the cover of Wired Magazine, been the subject of a coffee table book, stories in Life Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and other mass media (you're soaking in it). Viewed as spectacle, this freak-show voyeurism has dragged what was an obscure ritual on a Californian beach into the harsh, image- hungry headlights of the late American Century.
Woodstock or Altamont? was the refrain at last year's festival. Casualties were few, but duly noted: one person died in a head-on collision, and others injured by a drunk driver running over two tents.

This year Burning Man has moved from the 400 square mile Black Rock desert north of Reno to private land nearby, a mini playa on which car traffic will be restricted. In this way, a community which has exiled itself to the desert has brought with it some of the very human and mechanical problems of civilization.

Still, an army of fire-dancing visionaries is a force to be reckoned with. They may be unleashed for only a few days in the desert, joyfully atomizing and recreating the ways of our world. But when they come home, like modern day Prometheus, they will bring some of that mad brilliant energy with them.

(The Burning Man Hotline is 415-985-7471. Tickets at the gate cost $75. The web-site is www.burningman.com.)






or,
What I Learned About Democracy, U.S.-style,
as a New American on Election Day



November 19, 1996


MOURNING AFTER


If my head throbbed the morning after the election, I was feeling blue from being kicked out of the party thrown by the Democrats.

It's true they won the White House, and in California regained control of the State Assembly. Apparently my support counts for little, as Senator Barbara Boxer and her staff had me unceremoniously removed from the Paradise Lounge the evening before where I hoped to join in the celebration.

DECISION 96: I HAVE A DREAM


November 5th began well enough. Left the house at five of seven, and walked the block to the garage of the retirement hacienda where I was first to get a ballot, dot on seven o'clock. As a new American who was voting for the first time to elect a head of state, I took nothing for granted.

Uncertainty snapped at my heels. When I left the house the sun still had yet to show itself. Worse, I did not even know for sure *who* I would choose for President.

To prolong the uncertainty, I voted backward, turning the pages of the ballot guide from left to right instead of right to left, as I poked the stylus into the numbered holes on the card. I deliberately saved for last the choice at the top of the ticket.

Although I previously suggested writing in a candidate for the Executive-in-Chief, I was willing to negotiate. If the race was close, I would stifle my distaste for Clinton's wishy Washington, moving to defeat Dole.

Because Dole was the most self-defeating Republican since Goldwater, Clinton didn't really need my help. Even so, I was planning to vote for him; I had declined to become a citizen under both Reagan and Bush, but could somehow see the way clear under Clinton. For that he had a thank you or two coming. But my support was shaky as Clinton on any number of hot button issues.

Earlier that morning I was in a deep REM state. I dreamt it was evening already and I was making the rounds of election night parties. At a rather sullen Green Party affair, I ran into Ralph Nader. I found myself explaining to him why I had voted for Clinton, and it was not a good feeling.

There wasn't a whole lot to say; I just mumbled something, while Nader politely listened, and it seemed, shared my sorrow at all the unfortunate things we do.

Nader was a childhood hero of mine. When my parents, bless them, still hoped that I would grow up to be a lawyer, they used Ralph as an inducement, knowing that I admired his David & Goliath victory over General Motors.

My father clearly had no use for Nader. Once, in the late 70s, Dad asked what he was trying to "sell" when the consumer advocate appeared on a talk show. For some people, there is no such thing as ideals, just expedience. I never believed that of Nader, even when he appeared on Merv Griffin to publicize his checklist on the candidates in the 1976 election.

I was young and foolish, but loved language too much to go into law. Instinctively, though, I shared Nader's views on the need for accountability and corporate oversight.

In '96 Nader was the anti-candidate. Running for the highest office in the land on a pittance budget of $5,000, he might just as well have campaigned in solitary confinement. Even so, he made a campaign stop in my dream on election morning; and patiently listened as I tried to explain myself.

It was rotten to admit that I'd voted for the SlickMeister when I could have supported a quixotic hero of my pre-American childhood. (I grew up in Canada.)

I thought about this after I left the house, pondering as I walked a block, skirting the crap on Capp St., to cast my vote.

Would I listen to my dream, and do the emotionally right thing? It wouldn't be the most reasonable decision, for I couldn't view Nader as a serious candidate--he hadn't even bothered to *join* the Green Party, or read their platform--despite running as their candidate!

On the other hand, I don't think well of leaders, generally. An *anti*-leader may not be such a bad idea, after all.



PARTY ANIMAL


The plan for election night was simple: party on, and on, and on.

Dressed in media drag (PRESS here), I went with a couple of dozen intrepid celebrants to make the rounds, conduct research, and rate the various election night parties. We were on a gonzo safari through the urban jungle of the San Francisco political establishment.

Not all my press passes were bogus. The ones that I sported clipped to my U.S. Air Force fatigues were, admittedly, not the most current nor the most legitimate in my arsenal. My intention, if scrutinized, was to make people smile.

I had a yellow laminated pass issued by the African National Congress of South Africa, from the momentous '94 election that made Mandela President. On a separate tag, I was identified as Foreign Correspondent for the now moribund Processed World magazine. On a credential supplied by our evening's guide, I was identified as an "Art Fargunkle" attached to the fanciful San Francisco Times.

Just to add a little over-the-edge weirdness, the Fargunkel card was taped to the bottom of a mock immigration green card that was on a yellow string around my neck. The words "Todos Somos Ilegales!" (We Are All Illegal!) were lettered above a postage stamp ET head.

The red turtleneck highlighted the martial effect when combined with military camo fatigues. The patches for the Air Force Space Command, and the 5th Satellite Control Squadron ("Scanning the Globe") were all authentic. Not only do I hunt for aliens, aber, Ich bin ein Auslander...

Since I visited Russia earlier in the year, I've been buying military clothing as though it were going out of style; it doesn't much matter *which* country's service, rank rules. For election night I stuck to a U.S. theme. I was wearing a Reagan badge, in which he looked like a rubber stamp icon with a red down-with line through his head.

We had a schedule of parties, and ballots on which to evaluate the quality of booze, drugs, food, pick-up possibilities and music. Outside each, our guide waited for us with a make-shift moveable ballot box.

The organizer of this escapade, one Dimitri Jeziorski, indicated that the Republican parties were all members-only affairs (no Republicans were with us that evening, so we were out of luck). In San Francisco more than most places, the Republicans have to hang together or they might end up hanging separately.

We went to parties for Supervisor candidates Victor Marquez, Leslie Katz, and Margo St. James. Marquez was at a bar on Mission St.; there was basic chips, salsa, and beans. We lingered, as we saw Bob Dole come on the TV to give his concession speech. Couldn't hear his words, but there was a brief moment of sadness in the bar at the thought that we weren't going to have Bob Dole to kick around any more.

"We have arrived!" we announced modestly to the Castro district, charging into the next party to find exquisite eats. Leslie Katz was the only supe we visited who was elected to the board.

In the Castro, the food had to be good: sauteed mushrooms, with an exquisite, light avocado dip. We tried not to dive in, but party-hopping is a famishing pastime, particularly after we learned that the medicinal marijuana proposition had passed.

I shushed someone who tastelessly introduced himself by the name of Rudolf Hess. The country had said nuts to Perot and Dole, and I would have no truck with a Nazi impersonator in the Castro, or anywhere else for that matter.

The United Taxi Workers (No on J) had a subdued but generally sanguine party at the Maritime Hall. The food was laughable, spindly chips and salsa, but the company was certainly the most sincere we met the entire evening. One 62 year-old former cabbie told of the difficulties he had finding work; "They don't ever say it's your age, but you *know*...."

The best food of the evening was to be found at the party thrown by the Democrats. They were definitely leading the life of Riley in the Paradise Lounge.

"Where's the pork?" I asked, appetite whetted from watching Clinton exulting victorious on TV. "I heard there'd be suckling pig!" But I made do with dim sum, convinced that I had scaled Golden Mountain almost by accident.



QUEST FOR NEWT


I didn't feel out of place among the Democrats, but I didn't feel especially at home, either. It was a pretty mixed, though generally affluent crowd. I had the sense that half the people there were like us--somehow scamming their way through life punctuated by parties.

In a highly disposable age, everything takes on the semblance of a scam. Party life subtly suggests that the key to any success in this world is to show up at the right place at the right time, get in with some in-crowd, and stay there, never breaking ranks.

Besides dim sum, they were serving chile, and some quite excellent Chinese apple pastries and chocolate chip cookies. We stuffed our pockets to ward off the munchies later on.

This being the Paradise Lounge, the crowd was fairly attractive, but of the look-don't-touch-variety. The pick-up pickings were slim, so I didn't even bother; besides, I was on assignment.

There was clearly a party-within-a-party in the adjoining Transmission Theater. Special wristbands were needed to enter, but I found I was able to march on in without any problem. Press has its privileges.

My immediate assignment was to find Newt--not the Republican--but the fellow in my group calling himself the Newt King. I had to find this member so we could move on to the last party on our list.

As I scanned the crowd of celebrants I saw an upstairs mezzanine where the VIPs were presumably toasting each other out of public view. As I got my bearings, I noticed a local newscaster getting in position to file a report on the air of celebration. I breathed that air; I was all set to blow rings around it on camera.

Even better, I saw one of the state's political luminaries descending the stairs from on high to give soundbite for the newshungry public. It was an enchanting sight: Senator Barbara Boxer descending a staircase. My lens on these proceedings was I thought aptly cracked. She wouldn't be up for reelection for another couple of years, but I was glad to have the chance to scope her out in person.

I looked around, and realized that I had only to keep my position and I would most likely be in the television shot immediately behind her. For a veteran media slut, there was no better place to be.



MOVE OR BE REMOVED


"Excuse me, sir. Would you mind stepping back?"

"No, not at all," I said, stepping a few paces back, as requested. I noticed others followed suit; we were a cooperative crowd of onlookers.

"Don't worry," the volunteer said, "I know you're with the media. You *will* be in the picture. But could you do something about the bottle?"

"Oh," I sheepishly started. "Of course." I lowered the Full Sail ale that I'd been holding high as though to urge the Senator *Full Sail ahead!*

Maybe her image makers were put out that it was a beer from Oregon and not a California microbrew. If I'd hoisted an Anchor Steam I perhaps wouldn't have faced the same opprobrium that followed.

Whatever it was--I soon found myself facing a rather angry young man who also asked that I step back. This time I noted that no one else was being asked to move--they wanted *me* out of the picture.

"Wait a minute," I protested. "Would you mind explaining yourself? There are plenty of other people here, but you only ask *me* to move. Why is that? You don't like my face? I'm not in anyone's way. Why interfere with me?"

"You are being asked to move," he continued. "If you do not cooperate, you will be removed."

"Don't I have a *right* to be here?"

In answer to my question, five clones in suits materialized-- all presumably Democratic staff or volunteers--they weren't talking into their pockets, so I presume they weren't professional thugs.

They surrounded me, and took me in a group embrace. It was touching, but not especially heartwarming. I found myself guided to a nearby exit specially greased for my ejection.

One of them snatched the beer out of my hands before I landed on the street.

"Hey, I paid for that," I told him indignantly.

This fellow identified himself as working for the Paradise, and evidently believed that the Democrats were right to have me thrown out.

"They said you were a disturbance," he informed me.

"You know what's wrong with that picture," I told him. "It's that they use people like you to edit people like me out onto the street. It's a form of censorship."

"Yeah, whatever," he said, disappearing back inside.

"Thanks for the lesson in democracy," I called after them.



MELLOW HARSHED


Being 86ed definitely harshed my mellow.

Given my druthers, we would have gone from Paradise Lost to the party at the Cannabis Club. The medicinal marijuana initiative had passed, and presumably they were all celebrating by treating the side-effects of a hard-fought campaign.

But our driver for the evening opted to avoid temptation. We went instead to the party for Supervisor candidate Margo St. James. Her chief notoriety was a stint as a call-girl, later founding the prostitute lobbying group Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE).

This was the only candidate that I had actually met and shaken hands with during the campaign. That's all we did--really. Oh, and yes, there was a picture that she insisted her photographer take of us together. But we were fully clothed, and generally presentable. It was at a Critical Mass bike ride just before Halloween, and I was wearing horns that were lit by penlight batteries.

As she put her arm around me for the "Cheese!" flash of a camera, I told her she had my vote, and money wouldn't even have to change hands. "But if you lose," I warned her, "there will be hell to pay."

"If you're a devil, where's your tail?" she prodded

"Why between my legs, of course," surprised that she didn't already know.

Her party on election night was at Pier 23. It was a rather muted affair, with the waves lapping gently on the Bay. Out of the pool of 6 supes that were elected, she came in seventh.

It was our last party of the evening and of the day. I was sorry I left my horns at home.

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