berkeley sketch #1

Sitting on the grass in front of Sproul Hall, looking out over the plaza; people crossing in the calm before the storm. A man with dark sunglasses is calling out to people, trying to get them to stop to talk with him about his project, give money, for a website to investigate the time when corporations were given legal rights as individuals. He is having little success, and when I talk with him, he seems unclear as to his purpose, curses at my barrage of questions. Homeless, underhomed, unemployed, underemployed, or some combination thereof, pass through in a jolting connect-the-dots between garbage cans set in a grid, reaching in to pull out food remnants, bottles and cans to redeem.

Yesterday, by the berkeley BART, a woman with her cart filled with blankets and topped with a doll sat down to eat a pint of Hagen-Daaz ice cream with a knife, yelling out to passerby she seemed to know, "I'm not going to share any of my double-fudge chocolate ice cream with you!".

Thanks for sharing. Next?

"Hello, my name is David, and I am a graduate student at Berkeley."

(together): "Hi, David."