A brief description of the event from Cate & Mignon’s website :

Dining In Public (DIP) will be a multicourse, free-range event exploring the connection between belly, mind and funny bone. DIP consists of a live event, with invited members of the public reading excerpts from books and articles of their own selection, in combination with a 2-week exhibit.

The exhibit will be driven by a set of painted plates (RIP will supply the 9-inch bamboo veneer plates), each bearing the title and author’s name of a book which has a connection with food. 

Below is my contribution to the exhibit. It was a delight to get re-acquainted with Brautigan, and this work in particular.

Or, we can accept the status quo . . .

October 6, 4011
+++ For Immediate Release +++

NRC Vineyards, Inc is proud to release it’s 2011 Vintage, significantly mellowed from continuous nuclear decomposition in its specially-designed bomb-proof stainless steel casks for over 2000 years, now newly unearthed, and specially-bottled for release to the public!

Pacific Gas, Electric & Transmutation Decontamination will be hosting a pouring of the new release at their Hospitality Suite & Evac Center on Ontario Road, near Avila Monitoring Area 3, San Luis Obispo County, CA. Please wear appropriate protective attire for this special, but still potentially hazardous, event. Souvenir radiation badges will be provided to all guests.

I love numbers. As a carpenter I made a living using them. Adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing them. And losing them. Every carpenter knows how easy it is to lose an inch. It comes with the job.

As it must with petroleum smiths and EPA Administrators. Except their numbers are astronomically large, and exceptionally pliable. Large and pliable. Sounds like a great big bouncy toy. Just like the estimate of the total oil spill/gusher that BP unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico. Up, down, in, out—all around the room.

Now, according to the government’s estimate, over half of the total crude oil has “disappeared!” Oh, that’s great news! I was so concerned about the catastrophic effect of the oil on the Gulf ecosystem, and now we’re told that the effect has apparently been reduced by half!

I would be half-relieved except for the fact that oil doesn’t disappear. Like it doesn’t disappear when you turn it into gasoline. And it doesn’t disappear when you pump that gasoline into your tank and burn it up out on the highway. It just gets converted into some other toxic form.

Fortunately, in the logic of the EPA and most consumers, if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind.

Congratulations, State Senator Sam Blakeslee.

With the recent special election victory (Sam’s second), we can expect the tradition of corporate-sponsored legislation benefitting the few at the expense of the many to be secure. We can expect the tradition of minority-rule-by-Republicans in budgeting matters to also be secure. We can expect that there will always be a vote in the State legislature to expand offshore oil drilling. We can expect that there will also be a voice for nuclear power, as long as the land upon which it is sited is geologically stable. And we can be assured of support for vigorous wrist-slapping of energy monopolies for their environmental destruction.

California State Senator Able Maldonado claimed the catbird’s seat last year when he became the vote to break the stalemate over the long-deadlocked budget vote. He used the opportunity to push for a constitutional amendment to allow for an open primary. While appearing populist on the surface, the open primary in practice virtually eliminates any potential impact of third-party candidates upon the established duopoly. In appreciation for taking the spotlight off Governator Schwarzenegger’s inept negotiating skills, Maldonado was appointed to fill the vacant Junior (Lt.) Governator’s seat. Maldonado must run this November to gain a full term in the seat. Let’s ensure that his business acumen has a chance to gain from a bit more experience, by sending him back to his family’s farming business in Santa Maria this coming November.

Sheriff Hedges has been asleep at the post during most of his reign as San Luis Obispo’s top cop. NEW TIMES has done a good job of covering the innumerable messes of Hedges.

Can we elect a replacement who can bring the department up to professional standards? Can the corruption which has been allowed to fester within the Sheriffs Department be revealed and eliminated? Will the rank & file obstruct reform?

Can the public claim a role in bringing the department back to a place of trust in the community? I certainly hope so.

PRESS RELEASE:
9/11 Truth Billboard in SLO

San Luis Obispo, August 6, 2010:

In what may be the first of it’s kind in the nation, a group of 9/11 Truth activists organized, designed and paid for a commercial billboard in which 1,200 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth invite the public to “Examine the Evidence.”

The 24’ (w) x 12’ (h) billboard was installed sometime Thurs. afternoon, Aug. 5, 2010 on South Higuera, just south of Elks Lane in San Luis Obispo (near the Sutcliffe Cemetery). [MAP: http://tinyurl.com/24jcasv].

The local activists who brought this matter to the people of San Luis Obispo County, and the thousands who will drive by the billboard over the next 8 weeks, recognize that the evidence we are attempting to share is difficult to digest. Many simply cannot bear to question the official version of what happened on 9/11 because the implications are so difficult to face.

In order to understand the unprecedented total collapse of three modern steel high rise buildings, one has to free oneself from preconceived notions. In the face of evidence backed by fact and the laws of physics, such notions do not hold.

The volumes of evidence include a peer reviewed paper published by an international team of scientists in which they describe discovering red chips of unignited thermite in all 4 samples of the World Trade Center dust that they tested. There has been no coverage of this critical paper in any of the mainstream press, including the so-called “Left” media. NIST (The National Institute of Standards and Technology) was tasked with explaining these 3 high rise failures and produced the reports that make the government’s case. But they have not responded to this paper and have remained silent on many other outstanding issues that the 9/11 Truth community has raised.

For more details about this highly charged issue, which has been the basis for two wars in the Middle East and much more, please visit:

http://www.ae911truth.org/

What does your intention look like, re the BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico? Is it hand-wringing despair over the consequences of the worst ever human-induced environmental disaster? Or is it compassion for the creatures great and small directly affected by the toxic mess, and a sincere wish for the healing of their home, their ocean? Some feel that the energy of many intentions, focused in prayer for the healing of the Gulf ecosystem, can produce a positive effect. All it takes is to step outside of our normal self-focused lives long enough to devote a few minutes of un-distracted, positive loving energy towards the Gulf, the creatures who dwell there, down to the smallest of them, down to the individual cell, down to the individual water molecule. Focus there, find peace there, send powerful loving energy there. Miracles may happen!