stone chamber prison magic
Just one social activity to report from my weekend: Alexia walked with me to my office and back after work Friday. Shobhit worked until 8:30 that evening, and Alexia and I left at 5:00, getting back around 7:30 or so.
We walked down Pine Street as we often do, and just as we passed Broadway we were asked to sign petitions for defunding the police—which I actually do support, but was not positioned to stop at that particular moment. If I see such a position again on my own at some point, I may look over the text carefully and still sign it. But, Alexia kind of indicated a point on which I think we will further disagree as time goes on: she pretty adamantly disagrees with defunding the SPD, and she mentioned the property damage and fire that had been caused by protesters Sunday the previous weekend.
Now, just to be clear: I'm never an advocate for damaging property. But, and I have mentioned this to Alexia before, while we were actually walking through Cal Anderson Park when it still had a bunch of tents in it: over-focusing on property damage takes the focus away from Black lives, which are far more important. Soon I may have to find a tactful way to mention to her that her even being able to say that is because she speaks from a point of privilege. And to her credit, even if she doesn't always agree with me, she has noted more than once how she enjoys our conversations, and is always pretty open minded when I challenge anything she says. It doesn't actually have to happen that often.
The thing is, I hadn't even known that particular incident happened on Sunday the 19th. I guess I was too distracted that weekend, which I spent most of working on my tribute video for Mom. (Side note: that file has just yesterday been replaced by an updated version, as while I was looking over footage of my home videos of Heidi—I'll get to that momentarily—I found a clip of Mom that I had missed, from when she had shown up to pick up Christopher and me at Grandma McQuilkin's retirement party at Dad and Sherri's house. Previously, the footage of Mom began in 1993; this is from August 1992, and is actually the earliest home video footage I have of her. It's just over a minute long, and starts at 2:46.)
Anyway. I only discovered when going back to find that Capitol Hill Blog post about the incident two Saturdays ago that there was apparently a similar incident Wednesday night, which I had also somehow spaced and not been aware of. In both these cases, there were no huge loud sounds to catch my attention from three blocks away.
That certainly changed this past Saturday. I was going to say I had been distracted from reading a book, and then I realized: okay fine I'll admit it, I was watching porn. So sue me! In any case, it took me a couple of minutes to realize what I was hearing was police throwing flash-bangs at the crowd. For a minute I thought it might be fireworks, and then when it persisted I started to become convinced it was actually gunfire—and I mean, gunfire like I never heard before, pop-pop-pop!, several times. Bunches of different sirens blared, and I finally fetched the binoculars and looked out the living room window down Pine Street, where I saw several police officers and vehicles congregating at 12th Avenue (which is where the East Precinct is located; when things are normal I can see parts of that building from my condo).
I was mostly confused at this point because I looked at the few pedestrians passing by on the street below, and they were just walking along as if nothing was going on. Why was nobody freaking out?
I finally took to Twitter, and then found the information confirming the many bangs to be flash-bangs, not gunfire. It wasn't until yesterday that I learned of heinous actions on the part of our police, like this guy directly pepper spraying a nurse who had merely been trying to help another guy who had been knocked over. If anyone wants me not to say "Fuck the police," then they need to get the fucking police to stop doing this kind of shit—here in Seattle, or in Portland, or across the country. There is simply no excuse for this behavior, it is horrifying, dispiriting, and paints a truly grim view of our future.
And this is the kind of stuff I think I'm going to have to start repeating to Alexia on our walks, when this shit comes up. When we were walking back up Pine from my office on Friday, there was a small protest in the middle of the intersection at 3rd, quite deliberately disrupting and snarling traffic. We did not stop to listen to the Black woman on the bullhorn, but I probably would have supported whatever she had to say. I am not on board with any arguments for these protests not to be disruptive—that has been tried already, to no effect. Until huge police reforms take place, these disruptions will have to be necessary.
I was rather struck by something Alexia said as we walked past that intersection, though: "I don't care about the protesters anymore. I only care about myself and the people close to me." She's just tired of it all, is basically her message. Well, again: that's something she says from a position of privilege. There aren't any cops brutalizing her or her family or friends. And you know what? I have no patience for these arguments that taking funding away from the police department will put an undue burden on them. What fucking bullshit. If these people have the time to brutalize the people they're supposed to be protecting, then they can afford to lose some funding.
Okay, so let's get to the rest of my weekend.
I started watching the entire Harry Potter film series each night starting on Friday, always waiting until just before Shobhit got home from work to start them as I know he loves them, and he'll watch with rapt attention even though he can practically recite the lines along with them. He's constantly stopping and watching them being aired on the Syfy Channel, but I don't want to watch them there, where there are commercials and, in all likelihood, some amount of editing for cable network airings. Not that these movies have any nudity or profanity, but, still. Shobhit never cares at all about that stuff, but I do.
And I went to watch all these movies on HBO Max because, although they were part of the recent HBO Max rollout, there was recent news that they would be leaving HBO Max in August, so I wanted to get them all watched before they left.
I mentioned this to Shobhit, and he already knew about it: he said they are set to move to Peacock. I can't find any confirmation of this online, so I don't know where he got that information, but even if it's true, I think there's a fair chance that on Peacock (which will be the online streaming app for NBC), they will also be presented with some measure of editing or, barring that, with commercials. At least right now I know they can be streamed on HBO Max with no alterations or interruptions.
So, on Friday night we watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Saturday night we watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets—easily the most bloated and least magical, in execution, of the entire film series—and last night we watched what was easily one of the best, if not the best, film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I had almost forgotten how great that one is, as directed by Alfonso Cuarón, long one of my favorite directors. The next one was always Shobhit's favorite, both book and movie, Goblet of Fire, which we may watch tonight; I always thought that one wasn't the best. But, after that David Yates took over for the latter half of the eight movies, and I was always happy with the job he did as well.
Anyway. I made another video collection over this past weekend, but did not work as hard on it as I did the Mon tribute: Jennifer had asked me last year to find home video footage I had of Heidi, who died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 40 in September. Having already gone through all the videos with Mom in them, and discovering I actually did already have all the videos with Heidi in them digitized from when I made the Grandma McQuilkin tribute video in 2011, all I had to do was put them all together in a project in iMovie and then edit them down to whenever Heidi was visible, audible or present. She's only in two of my videos: the video of camping with her, Jennifer, Tammy and Toni with Grandma and Grandpa in June 1992; and at Grandma McQuilkin's retirement party in August 1992.
This one I was much more easily able to post to YouTube, and then post the link to that on Jennifer's Facebook page just yesterday, because in this case it's all just slightly edited, raw footage. No additions of music tracks that might get it blocked by YouTube. I still got a so-called "copyright claim" marked on it by YouTube, telling me I therefore cannot monetize the video (something I have never done and would not know how to do anyway), which mystifies me. It must be detecting songs we're listening to on the radio in some clips, and it's incredibly stupid that even that triggers the restriction.
So I spent a pretty good amount of Saturday working on that video, and then yesterday, just because I felt like it, I took a walk up 15th Avenue to Volunteer Park and back. I wore my mask the whole way even though I was walking alone and therefore really had the okay not to wear it, so long as I didn't get close to anyone for any period of time. But, I want to lead by example. Well, when walking, anyway. I still don't wear the mask when riding my bike, as it's just too restrictive for how out of breath I get. Gabriel will probably judge me for that; he even jogs in a mask—but, he freely admits to being more paranoid about all this stuff than is necessarily called for, and the data is on my side with this one. Of course, I do see other bicyclists around town with masks on, and one day about a week ago a masked cyclist actually rode past me gesturing at his own face as though to tell me I should have one on too. I just ignored him, and he probably went about the rest of his day thinking I was one of those dipshit mask deniers. Well, whatever. I wear a mask when in a crowd, when out walking, and certainly when inside any public building like a grocery store or my office (unless I happen to be the only one in there). My bases are covered.
I was actually walking in Volunteer Park when I remembered something. Shit! The Dove bar soap was on sale at Costco and I had told Shobhit last time we were there that we didn't need to buy them yet, because the sale was through July 26. Well, now it was July 26, it was Sunday, and Costco closed at 6:00 and Shobhit had the car at work and did not get off work until 6:00.
I considered bussing to Costco. It would involve two busses, and, being both a Sunday and minimized routes in the age of COVID, one way would take something like 41 minutes. Riding my bike would get me there in half an hour, at least if I followed Google Maps's cycling directions (I sure wish the iPhone Maps app had cycling as an option; I prefer listening to the Australian man in my ears). I came back from the park, made myself some lunch and watched part of an episode of I'll Be Gone In the Dark on HBO, then put the airpods in and followed directions to Costco. That was how I discovered a bike path I had never been on, on Beacon Hill, and got this iconic photo of the downtown skyline.
I went into Costco, once I got there, to get just that soap, riding for a full hour round trip just to save four bucks, and got right back out. I had my mask on when inside the store, of course! I then rode back a different way, following Google Maps, which as it happens, was not the flattest route, as I assumed it would take me. Some three blocks or so were insanely steep uphill climbs on which I had no choice but to get off and push my bike walking. It was fucking exhausting. Once I got to Broadway and could get on the bike again, still going uphill I still had to gear all the way down to 1 just to be able to continue pedaling for about three blocks. Sheesh!
I certainly got my fair share of exercise yesterday.
I really thought Shobhit would be pleased that I made certain to take advantage of that sale before it ended. But when I mentioned it to him later last night he just gave me a nonchalant "Good job." Whatever!
[posted 12:38 pm]