Crazy Hippies
Went to the Haight Street Fair on Sunday with K and a few of her friends, though we quickly got separated from her friends once on the street, and it turned into me & K.
Much of what I saw there was within the realm of the expected. A lot of Obama buttons, stickers, and voter registration. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence working on the petition to re-name the sewage treatment plant for W. Attire from goth to hippie to weird. Great T-shirts, one of which illustrated the difference between good bush, and bad Bush.
Also ran into this:
Recognized this group from Burning Man 2006. They're Christians in disguise as spiritual hippies. They do all kinds of "readings". One of the folks in our camp at Burning Man came back from seeing them so enthused, that K and I had to check it out. I knew how this stuff usually works: Folks usually go in looking to hear something, and will give subtle cues to the "reader" to get to hear what they want. So I consciously chose to go in and try to give them little to go on about me, and to try to use an understanding of their methods to intentionally misdirect.
It worked. I got the guy to go from asserting that I was "very outgoing and adventurous" to "quiet and reserved" in about 3 sentences. At the end there was some craptastic pseudo faith healing laying on of hands stuff with him and some other guy that I went along with. The "energy" you're supposed to feel is actually them subtly pushing on you from time to time. I wasn't fooled. I think they knew it, too.
I was amused to see them at Haight Street. I'm actually fine with it. If you want to reach out to the heathens, doing so by approaching them on their level is much better than doing so by picketing with signs telling us all we're going to their imaginary bad place for living contrary to the rules from their imaginary friend.
I was also a bit surprised to see this:
In case you can't read the marker on that box, those are bundles of cookies being sold for $5 each, or 5 for $20. And they were being verbally marketed as "Magic Cookies". And they were slightly green. For sale, on the street, next to the array of "alternative" patches, etc. I was just surprised at how brazen this was, but the proprietor was a verging on toothless 60-something with Jerry Garcia style gray hair and beard, green tinted peace sign glasses, and attire that said "I live on a commune in Humbolt County". So it wasn't a shock.
I suppose pot is effectively legal in SF now.
Much of what I saw there was within the realm of the expected. A lot of Obama buttons, stickers, and voter registration. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence working on the petition to re-name the sewage treatment plant for W. Attire from goth to hippie to weird. Great T-shirts, one of which illustrated the difference between good bush, and bad Bush.
Also ran into this:
Recognized this group from Burning Man 2006. They're Christians in disguise as spiritual hippies. They do all kinds of "readings". One of the folks in our camp at Burning Man came back from seeing them so enthused, that K and I had to check it out. I knew how this stuff usually works: Folks usually go in looking to hear something, and will give subtle cues to the "reader" to get to hear what they want. So I consciously chose to go in and try to give them little to go on about me, and to try to use an understanding of their methods to intentionally misdirect.
It worked. I got the guy to go from asserting that I was "very outgoing and adventurous" to "quiet and reserved" in about 3 sentences. At the end there was some craptastic pseudo faith healing laying on of hands stuff with him and some other guy that I went along with. The "energy" you're supposed to feel is actually them subtly pushing on you from time to time. I wasn't fooled. I think they knew it, too.
I was amused to see them at Haight Street. I'm actually fine with it. If you want to reach out to the heathens, doing so by approaching them on their level is much better than doing so by picketing with signs telling us all we're going to their imaginary bad place for living contrary to the rules from their imaginary friend.
I was also a bit surprised to see this:
In case you can't read the marker on that box, those are bundles of cookies being sold for $5 each, or 5 for $20. And they were being verbally marketed as "Magic Cookies". And they were slightly green. For sale, on the street, next to the array of "alternative" patches, etc. I was just surprised at how brazen this was, but the proprietor was a verging on toothless 60-something with Jerry Garcia style gray hair and beard, green tinted peace sign glasses, and attire that said "I live on a commune in Humbolt County". So it wasn't a shock.
I suppose pot is effectively legal in SF now.
posted by Kenneth at 10:48 AM
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