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August 01, 2005
Festivals Shmestivals
Another reason I love Organic Valley: they ask if I want to table at Reggae on the River, and then decide that they don't actually need me to help, but would I like a couple free tickets anyway? And so I will make a rare non-groupie foray into the world of music, accompanied by Mahea, who has been trying to get me to go for years.
(OK it won't be entirely non-groupie, as a couple of the guys from Vinyl will be working the stage, and so I just may be able to report that the snacks backstage are better/worse than the fare at the North Beach Jazz Fest yesterday.)
Maybe it's because I'm generally cranky at the moment, or maybe it's because I've definitely gotten more boring, but I can't get all that excited about a music festivals. In high school, three days straight of Dead shows at Shoreline and then two or three more at Cal Expo (oh and why don't we throw in a couple days in Eugene for good measure?) didn't phase me at all; now all I can think of is sunburn, trying to avoid getting beer spilled on me by drugged-out, overly-excited, smelly, or all-of-the-above people... and not enough sleep.
I'm thinking of Reggae on the River as a fun excuse to have a Girls' Weekend, Go North, and hang out with some real live people who work for the food companies I seem to spend a lot of time on the phone with. I will bring sunscreen, I will go to bed early, I will bring a gourmet picnic and look forward to dancing and expanding my musical horizons. I will have fun. Really.
***
I've never been to Burning Man, and I'm hoping to be on a farm in Vermont while the festival that scares me the most is underway this year. I did, however, spend a few hours last night with the houseful of designers and engineers who are frantically trying to get Colossus ready in time (see this article from last week's SF Chron). Another guest at the house reported helping a film crew drop more than 40,000 superballs down various steep San Francisco streets last week for a Sony commercial. I can't remember who told me they had once collected a bucketful of golf balls from the Presidio Golf Course and then rolled them down Arguello, but I'm sad that I didn't get to observe either event.
I also met a gal who has been protesting the lack of recycling and/or reusing Burning Man building materials. (Isn't burning everything at the end part of what makes Burning Man so cathartic?) With regard to reducing waste at the design stage, the house of engineers claims that the plastic book on sustainable design I gave them has started to influence their thinking. Go Team!
Posted by Elizabeth at August 1, 2005 11:26 AM