.
Gibraltar: Charles Pears for the Empire Marketing Board, c. 1930 (National Archives UK)
Any
evening when the sirens are not yet wailing, it may be safely concluded
they are merely waiting to again begin to wail, louder than before.
It is thought to be controlled chaos, by those who hold the power and implement the controls. But the earplugs (made of compacted money) must be ground deeper and deeper into the head, to keep the siren noise out. And chaos too is capable of waiting, to get a better start.
If anything in this is random, surely it is not the larger pattern of events, which now follows a course that should be recognised as completely logical (that is, absolutely insane).
It is thought to be controlled chaos, by those who hold the power and implement the controls. But the earplugs (made of compacted money) must be ground deeper and deeper into the head, to keep the siren noise out. And chaos too is capable of waiting, to get a better start.
If anything in this is random, surely it is not the larger pattern of events, which now follows a course that should be recognised as completely logical (that is, absolutely insane).
Gang tags. 187 over a crossed out XIV indicates the possibility or threat to kill, 187 is the California Penal Code for homicide, XIV is the Norteños symbol for the Nuestra Familia prison gang. Car in driveway is a 1963 Ford Galaxie, 3rd Street, West Oakland: photo by Dave Glass (Dizzy Atmosphere), 15 July 2006
2523 Martin Luther King Way, Oakland: photo by Dave Glass (Dizzy Atmosphere), 18 October 2009
Danny's Liquors, Corner of Peralta, Center and 17th Streets, West Oakland, California: photo by Dave Glass (Dizzy Atmosphere), 10 April 2009
Danny's Liquors, Corner of Peralta, Center and 17th Streets, West Oakland, California: photo by Dave Glass (Dizzy Atmosphere), 10 April 2009
Danny's Liquors, 1624 Peralta, West Oakland, California: photo by Dave Glass (Dizzy Atmosphere), 1989; colorized version posted 28 August 2007
Oakland_iphone: photo by Koci Hernandez, 11 May 2010
Oakland_iphone: photo by Koci Hernandez, 11 May 2010
Lake Merritt BART Station, Oakland: photo by Ann Xiang (dotann), 14 April 2009
Oakland: photo by djpurity, 3 July 2009
Melrose, East Oakland: photo by djpurity, 12 April 2009
East Oakland (North Kennedy Tract): photo by djpurity, 12 April 2009
Oakland Central Station: photo by Sharon Hahn Darlin, 18 August 2010
Oakland Station 0047. The former Southern Pacific train station in Oakland. It's been abandoned since the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. I've been scheming to get in for a few years, and got my chance today. It's a beauty: photo by Christopher Hall (Dead Slow), 8 April 2007
Excel 23rd yard Oak 90's: photo by !@#$%&*!, 23 July 2009
Endure (23rd Street, Oakland): photo by !@#$%&*!, 23 July 2009
Untitled (Schmoe?) (14th and International Boulevard, Oakland): photo by !@#$%&*!, 23 July 2009
Gigs One (Oakland Trax): photo by !@#$%&*!, 7 August 2011
KRASH AMEND Oakland. Konsider Oakland Deadly: photo by !@#$%&*!, 8 November 2000
Oakland Puppies. Saucie and Barbie, Oakland afternoon strolls conversing with the neighbors: photo by Olivia Wright (Perpetually), 19 January 2008
Hanjin Terminal, Port of Oakland: photo by B I R D, 13 October 2005
Port of Oakland: photo by David Bayliss (reflect/refract), 28 May 2012
Man on roof, East Oakland, night: photo by Dennis McGuira, 10 March 2012
Even Oakland: photo by Presley Martin, 12 January 2006
Oakland sunrise. West Oakland BART station: photo by Sergio Ruiz (sirgious), 19 January 2011
for Hazen Robert Walker
View of West Oakland from Daly City-bound BART train, between Oakland West Station and the Trans-Bay tube: 64-second video clip by Dave Glass (Dizzy Atmosphere), 28 September 2008
ReplyDeleteRock solid, steady-as-she-goes, the idylls of a gone world: then boom, a death threat scrawled on your foreclosed house. “It is thought to be controlled chaos . . .” And it bears resemblance to the crisis management so beloved of smallish minds in high places, yanking on the levers of history, manufacturing a landscape for Locos Only. Thanks Tom. You are indeed on a roll. I take this one “real personal.” Keep on rollin’.
ReplyDeleteThe subtle, nearly hidden, graffiti'd "Thanks for being here" is appropriate when in the midst of decay, the body's remembrance of life, or some semblance of it.
ReplyDelete"Generations have trod, have trod, have trod
ReplyDeleteAnd all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil,
And wears man's smudge & shares man's smell, the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod..."
(I'm just now learning this poem, Tom, by heart, having known few in my life up to now (73) and deciding to learn the great ones, and suddenly see these photos and video, of my own birthplace, Oakland, but a very different one in the 1940s and 50s perhaps, or not, and with its own rusted and busted exoticisms... all blessings on thee, Daniel
Those ears stuffed with money and we're rowing as if we had some port to head to.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks friends, this is Old Time now.
ReplyDeleteHazen, personal was how it was and is meant, my brother.
This part of the Hopkins brought by Daniel, the blest native son, brings us back to beginnings, where hope used to lay:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
But now in the hour before the dawn, when things are darkest, where O where has that warm-breasted bird flown, now in the hour of our need, when we call out from the valley of despond and only the spooks seem to be monitoring, from the dread tech corridors of the East, with their cowardly ratfink encrypted searches.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Daniel, I too have been memorizing a poem these past few nights. It has a bronze bell and a black horse in it, and it speaks from the universality of suffering, straight to the shattered heart. More about that soon, insh'Allah.