Crafts are my Culture

Edit: This is a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago and couldn't finish for some reason. Maybe it was just too soon to bring up cultural appropriation again, even in a new light. 

My Saturday Market season was launched a week late, and after so many decades, I know what to expect: completely surprising details in a fairly routine pattern. Much had changed over the winter, so there were missing craftspeople, and new ones, recognizable customers and ones from out of town, laughs and hugs and bad jokes and the constant drumbeat interspersed with refrains from the buskers on the corners and wherever they thought they had a space.

It looked like there might be big changes at the Courthouse Plaza as the sellers over there were finally hearing that there is a difference between commerce and free speech, but it looks like nothing will indeed change. Apparently those doing commerce were going to be required to pay for the appropriate permits and insurance requirements that Saturday Market has been paying for for almost five decades, but the prospect of litigation or violence reared up and the pressure went down. It's hard to be against free speech. No one wants to be in that position, certainly not Saturday Market or the City of Eugene.

It's odd to observe them and be taken back to my own early days when I was making anything I could think of that might sell, so that I could live from my own craft. I don't think I was looking for something for nothing but in those days you could sell at Saturday Market for $3.50 a day, so those zero days weren't quite so expensive. But using that structure to grow within was certainly beneficial for me and I don't see how resistance to it makes that much sense, even with our new fee structure and the process it takes to get a really great space. It does make it hard if you aren't handcrafting what you want to sell. We aren't a flea market.

Now that the discussion of cultural appropriation is deepening and people are looking more carefully at how words and images matter and what needs protecting, I'm bringing up the discussion of handcrafting again. (Not that I've dropped it.) If you've been listening to the larger culture you now know that everything from commercial beer to fast-food tacos to kayaking is being described as a craft or hand-crafted. If a person's hands were involved, that designation is being applied. It obscures what I consider the artisanal practices that have been carried from the most ancient times, of some person taking a raw material and making it into something useful and beautiful from the work of their own imagination and skillful application of simple hand tools and techniques.

This definition doesn't include stuffing a taco or patting a burger into a round shape. Those are cooking skills and that's not what handcrafting is. There can be artisanal foods, of course, but unless one person is putting their own creativity into it, those foods aren't qualified for this distinction. For instance, Dana mixes up his cake with his own recipe, takes it out of the oven at the right time and frosts it. I'm sure he makes it look easy and can make a lot of them but he still does it himself, with his hands and because he wants to. So that is a hand-crafted food. If he bought the cake and just frosted it, the significant contribution of his frosting would have to outweigh the commercial material of the cake. Food isn't the best example of this, but it makes the point that we draw some lines that divide the products we sell at Saturday Market from the products for sale everywhere else.

It's easier to see with a product like a wool hat, for instance. The artist selects the wool, creates the pattern of color and design, knits the hat, blocks it, finishes it, displays it and sells it. She stands there and can easily say "I made this," without a shred of ambiguity. Most of our crafts are like this, dishes made from raw clay, paintings made from a blank canvas, prints made from a silkscreen process with the artist holding the squeegee. Not that there aren't some gray areas.

T-shirts and other screenprinted items have always presented a dilemma because they are commonly commercially made items. Saturday Market has dealt with this by calling the t-shirt a blank canvas, and requiring that any commercially made items be simple and generic so that the artistic contribution has outweighed the item. You couldn't sell a white t-shirt without an image, but if you applied the image with a craft technique, you could. You could also dye it, but you couldn't send it out to someone else to be dyed, even in a color you chose, because the requirement is that you have your hands and heart involved right on the piece you are selling. The Maker and the Seller are the same person. It's a narrow definition and many people currently selling things under the mantle of hand-crafted are in zones that are even more gray than the t-shirt one. I do my own screenprinting, but some artists don't, and some send their art to a business that provides them with a digitally printed image made with a printing machine (a fancy copier/computer) that is a step removed from their watercolor painting or original image. This has been allowed, but it pushes over the line and those in the world of Standards and jurying have worked over these lines with questions that are hard to answer. Now that we have 3-D imaging, where does the line get drawn with reproductions? It's a constant discussion in meetings. It's very hard to dial things back.

At Saturday Market, because we sell every week and have meetings every month, a lot of the fine lines get redrawn and adjusted over time, but we can still have an artist who cuts a coin with a little saw selling next to one who cuts a similar image with a computer-controlled laser. It's not ideal, and the technologies keep coming. Invariably the use of technology provides the opportunity to have multiple images or objects made at a lower cost per piece, with less artist labor involved, and thus less of a hand-crafted component. I know over time I stopped being accepted into craft fairs with my screenprinted shirts. They began to require a handcrafted garment as well as a hand-done application technique. We've been slow to make this change at the Saturday Market, because we are also a business incubator and we like to give a person a chance to get started as an artist. If they need someone to print for them until they can get set up to be a screenprinter as well as an artist, we've allowed that, letting them know that we hope that they will work up to being their own screenprinter as well. Sometimes they do, but other times they go in the direction of getting their images reproduced in even less hand-crafted ways, such as the digital prints. We haven't really been able to satisfactorily address the use of technologies within the limits of our non-juried, open entry marketplace. We'll never run out of subjects to discuss. Sometimes things tighten up, and sometimes they loosen.

We considered requiring those people selling digitally reproduced paintings (called giclee prints) to stretch their own prints on the wooden frames, but it was viewed as harsh to ask painters to be woodworkers, even though everyone is not completely comfortable with products that you can just order, unbox and sell. Your artistic contribution stopped at the original painting. We recognized that you had to make a living, and selling the prints and cards of your images allowed you to have a reasonably priced product. But that border needs constant patrolling.

So to cut to the chase, I challenge OCF people to start thinking carefully about what is sold at our Fair/festival. I doubt many festival-goers even remember that we are a top-quality hand-crafted Art Fair. Erosion of this ethic has come from lots of directions and in lots of subtle ways. Many, many things are sold during the Fair and the weeks around it that are not by any definition hand-crafted. Does this matter? Do we care, as a community, that the hand-crafting artisans are becoming a sideline, a misunderstood and rolled-over part of our landscape? Many of us have done this our whole lives, and founded and nurtured the Market and the Fair to protect a place where we could thrive, out of the commercial mainstream. Do factory-made products threaten us? I say they do. Someone asked me yesterday where they could get one of those cool pleated-fabric sets of wings they saw at Fair. I had to say I am pretty sure those are a commercial product you can find online, not a product of a Fair crafter.I hope I'm wrong about that.

I hope I'm wrong that the craft world is being eroded. I think it does still matter to people that things are handmade by artists you can talk to. I think the success of our two events is testimony to that. But I also think that the culture we participate in is in danger of being rolled over by fast food commercials and co-opting. So just listen carefully when you hear the word craft, and do your part to keep it meaning something different. Craft beer should find a new name. I suppose it is a compliment, right?

Free Speech Plaza

Edit: I feel bad, because three times as many people have read this rant as my better-thought-out one that followed shortly. Complaining helps the complainer but solutions would help more. http://divinetension.blogspot.com/2016/04/fsp-but-deeper.html

I've been having trouble writing this blog lately, but yesterday I read an article about the heart connection to the brain and it struck me that when I'm sitting here in this particular space, that connection for me is very open. That's one reason it's hard to write: I want to get the words right, to say what my heart is asking me to say, and not just for me, but for the people who read it. I think that is what they come looking for, and although that's often an oppressive responsibility, it's also compelling. If I can do this, I ought to keep practicing it.

There was a letter in the Weekly asking "what's going on with the people who set up their booths across the street from the Saturday Market in the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza?" I know what I think about it. I've been watching it grow for over a decade. First it was our information booth on the southwest corner, a space we rented from the County so that we could use the Park Blocks spaces for our members. The drum circle settled there after it grew too large and loud for the East Park Block. It's a great space for that, and most of us have some love for the drum circle. We are a community gathering place, after all.  It's convenient that there are seats built there, as if it were the intention that people would gather. And no one opposes free speech. We're proud to be neighbors of a space reserved for that.

Saturday Market is a nonprofit, a membership organization. You don't find many of those anymore, as they can be hard to run "like a business" with hundreds of owners trying to make good decisions together. Saturday Market has for almost fifty years learned to run like an extremely well-managed business. We sign contracts, we get permits, we pay for utilities and insurance and we have employees, health insurance for them, and we perform together all of the duties of a modern business, plus we do it all with our only income coming from our member fees. This is a rather astounding accomplishment that many take for granted as we make it look so fun and easy. Let me repeat, we members pay for it all with our fees. From our sales, that we depend on our customers for. That's why we try to hard to be family friendly, safe, and attractive. And fun! 

As an officer and someone who has been a member for a very long time (since 1975) I've seen times that were much worse and this time is a really good time. We have had some problems. One that has been particularly troublesome is the county property across the street. When our booth was there, we were required to buy $4 million dollars worth of liability insurance for our 10'x10' space. That and the rent we paid to the county bought us approximately nothing, as when a stabbing happened right in front of our info booth, traumatizing our staff, the only solution we could come up with to stop the violence to us was to move our booth to city property on a different corner.

This was after years and years of proposing solutions and promoting discussions with the county and the police and the city and the community leaders on what kind of support we could get for the lawless scene happening under the guise of free speech. We bought $2000 gates that we had to put up and take down every week to keep the upper areas off limits after we had documented prostitution, drug dealing. and many types of abuse and violence in those areas. We kept logs of just how many illegal actions and purchases were made over there every week, using volunteers from our organization to document what the county didn't want to see. We paid our site staff to clean the space every week, even though we didn't rent it, to be good neighbors. We absorbed the costs, spread them over our population of micro-businesses, some of the smallest businesses you can find anywhere. We still have members who drive 30-year-old cars and can't afford computers or health care, but we pitched in to be good citizens in our downtown.

We asked and asked for help from the County. We spoke with countless concerned officials and citizens and no one seemed to care that all of the expense, the bad reputation, the needed services, and the problem-solving fell on our little nonprofit. Even the Farmers Market didn't want to help us. (A quick edit: Actually, we have gotten good support from EPD to help with the law-breaking, and I thank them.) We tried putting our own booths on the block, but none of our members wanted to sell over there. We tried making it clear that it was not part of the Saturday Market, but a brand name like ours means nothing when everyone feels free to use it. It's a day of the week...it's a market. Put a word in the middle and you seem to have something new...or just lump us all together. What's the difference?

The Weekly letter-writer seems to think it is little old ladies selling over there, all innocent. It's true that not everyone can afford a canopy or the fees we pay. You can get a 4x4 space at Saturday Market for $8 plus ten percent, or $13 if you want an 8x8, or you can stroll for $5. You have to pay a membership fee of $50 but you can sell a time or two while you get the money together. You have to get your items screened to see if they are hand crafted. We're not a flea market. You can't sell used things or things you buy at Goodwill and that might seem a little restrictive. And you have to pay your fees so we can rent the 9 or 10 porta potties, pay for the street permits so people are safe, pay for the fire marshal to come and inspect you, pay for the health inspectors to come inspect you, pay the city rent for the space, pay the people to sort the garbage so you can keep tons of waste out of the landfill, buy more forks for the ones that go missing, pay the staff to come at 5:00 in the morning to get the site ready, pay the managers to hire the staff and the security to protect us from thieves, pay for all the paper to register everyone and inform them, pay the musicians, pay for the advertising to attract the customers, and pay for everything that we as members have decided to pay for to make ourselves attractive enough to make our livings doing our art. We govern ourselves (lots of meetings.) We put our money together to make it all happen for all of us. It works very well!

But then, it seems, we have to pitch in more to pay for the people who don't want to pay. They want, for all of their various reasons, to set up over there, bypass laws and ordinances that society requires businesses to follow, but to get all the benefits of membership that we offer, for free. It's a bit hard to watch, I'll admit. It has taken me years of working on my patience to take a charitable view of it all. I see myself when I was just starting out, when it only cost me $3.50 to sell, and I remember having a zero-sales day and trying to get out of my fee. Howard wouldn't let me. I can't believe I thought I should have gotten that day for nothing, when I look at what my $3.50s have built. I've lived from my art for my whole working life now, over forty years. I would not have been able to do it at all without Saturday Market. My membership has given me my life, the wherewithal to buy my home, to pay for my health insurance, and to move somewhat gracefully into what is going to be my semi-retirement, because without the Market I can't really retire. I'm going to have to keep doing it or lose it all. It's a bit odd to be seen as the establishment now, to be seen as the ones trying to force out the innocent people just trying to make it, over there, where they are using what we have built as if it were owed to them.

So when she says that they've never caused a problem, I have to disagree. People who don't want to pay their own way in the world cause thousands of problems. The deeper question, to me, is who should pay for it if they won't? I think Saturday Market has paid and paid, and that is what is wrong with what's happening over there. Free speech isn't free. Selling isn't free. How does it make sense that no one over there has to pay for what they use? If they can't pay, then let's solve that problem. Instead of me handing out ten dollar bills every week, maybe the people who love it so much could pony up some cash. Maybe the people selling there could pay someone to clean it and chip in for a porta potty. Maybe the County could take on the expense of managing what is happening on their property, in front of their courthouse. Or maybe we could go back to having real free speech, and not commerce. The way it is now, you can't really go over there and express yourself, schedule a rally or bring in a speaker. It's dominated by people who are taking advantage of a lot of other people without consent. I call that a problem.

Saturday Market has mostly been trying to be charitable about it, to keep doing what we are doing so well, and to not publicly embarrass Lane County for their lack of concern for our well being as their neighbors. We are now having to endure the criticism of those who see us as opposing free speech and pushing around those less fortunate. There is something really wrong with that picture, and it isn't Saturday Market. We're still working together to create and maintain the best community event, the most accessible business incubator, the greatest gathering of cooks, musicians and artists in the region, and we're doing it with style. What's happening on the Free Speech Plaza is not free speech, and it's not our problem. You fix it. 

The Day After The Show

Stark light of day, the aftermath

The afterglow of the Jell-O Art Show is still fading...I wish it would never be over. The amount of joy packed into three hours after three months is impressive and fulfilling. It well made up for the heartbreak of missing the most exciting Opening Day of Saturday Market in years. Possibly seeing from the outside, unable to be there myself, made it look so much more precious to me. All those moments, without me there to witness them and wipe away a tear, all those people participating in renewal and I was across town celebrating renewal in a smaller circle, another circle that could not quite intersect.

A couple of the Angels did report in after their own days at the Market, but that made me feel worse. If only it had been possible to have twice the energy, twice the moments in each hour. Mentally I was feeling myself running back and forth, knowing the pull of my space at the Market, and my party at Maude Kerns. I'm the Queen, so I had to be there, but then again, I'm some important glue in my Market neighborhood. Oh well, it's all in the past now, and next week I will get my chance to haul stuff downtown and stand next to it all day. The second week could well be fully as exciting as the first, and I really wouldn't have missed the Jell-O Waves for anything.

Before anyone got there

I went early, unloaded my Tacky Food and my costumes and set to work, setting up my table of shirts, laying out my fascinators, and "refreshing" the piece I donated to the gallery in January 2015. It needed some dusting, so I cleaned it up and put it on its pedestal. Before I knew it, it was 3:00 and I had that moment of looking at all the empty pedestals and wondering if anyone would bring Jell-O. Bring it they did! It kept coming until there were some 30 pieces, if you include several fantastic Tacky Food offerings. I tried to take photos of people with their pieces but couldn't get them all. When the public started filing in at 5:00 I cheerfully answered questions and handed out cards until I had to go get made up and dressed for my benediction. As I stood waiting for the Slug Queen to be ready I realized I hadn't practiced a speech. I went to the heart and just thanked the artists, from 8-year-old Maile to Marion with her walker, for making it happen year after year. It's precious, and we have it. The crowd was so amazing...they love Queen Gelatinaceae of the Jell-O Art. I'm her, but the persona they love is more than me. I'm a spokesperson for joy, a deliverer of brilliant transparency. I'm a metaphor for the queen in all of us, the artist, the fool, the sage. I couldn't be happier to represent.

Looking out, ready to Queen

Standing next to Markalo Parkalo, Your Queen and Mine, was equally transformative. There we were, arguably the two most important people in Eugene for those brief moments. He gave a little talk, sang a little song, and I stood awkwardly with my scepter wishing I had prepared to sing with him...we forgot to even talk about which song he was singing. Darn. A missed opportunity. Yet a few minutes and one costume change later, I was singing my heart out with the rest of the Angels and we had launched our performance. It went well, very well, with only one part where we miscommunicated and I didn't cue the musicians at the right time. The audience helped us as we stumbled through some time-filling silliness and it all resumed, thanks to Larry across the stage telling me "Say regular surfers, say regular surfers." I said it.The music started and the tube queens emerged. It was over too fast. My best line "Jell-O Wave Comin'!" a la the B-52s line "Tin roof, rusted", got stepped on in the enthusiasm to get to the last fantabulous song.

The music was memorable and so well done. We heard from our friends that possibly our equipment was not transmitting our wonderfulness quite as well as we were imagining it, but no matter. I can't wait to see the video. It was impossible to see all the costumes and silly acting people were doing behind me, and I can't wait to see the whole picture. When it feels that good it has to transmit, and everyone did seem to be enjoying it. It was hard to let go.

For me the very most magical time was the cast party, though, not to make you jealous, but just to share that after all that work together, with so many rehearsals for so long, the love in the room when it got to be a small and intimate group, was massive. The rightness of the feelings and the glorious singing we did with everyone singing a different part, a dozen parts, and the way we went from song to song merging the music with other tunes from our past and our practices, was brilliant and way beyond inspiring. That's what I want to hold onto the most, the depth of friendship and love that we shared by doing that together, throwing it out there, giving it away. Those moments made up for missing out on standing on the Park Blocks, feeling the same connectedness, the same vitality of the work, essential nature and endless love, as I feel every Saturday when a wave of appreciation washes over me. It's as good as it gets. It's better than I ever imagined, the peak moments that come so infrequently, but that are so rich they make up for any drudgery or complicated drama that came before.

One funny story, just to get it recorded: I had just changed into my official Queen costume with my crown and all, and was waiting impatiently for the bathroom. I said loudly, "Do you think I should say it's the Queen waiting?" The door then opened to someone I knew, lamenting the fact that the toilet was clogged and filled to the brim. I remember that helpless feeling when the water is rising, about to flood, and you desperately don't want your hostess to have to clean up your mess, when all you did was try to flush in the normal way but unexpected things happened. I brushed past her in my taffeta, said, "Well, isn't there a plunger?" and proceeded to plunge the toilet. In my gown and crown, in my full makeup. It must have been quite the sight.
Taking care of business, that's what the Queens do. Whether it is out-trumping Trump, which is what the Slug Queen got to challenge people to do on Friday, or working on the plumbing, we can bring the tools and apply them to the world with our perspective and personality making all the difference. What a great life. Amplify your joy and remember to appreciate it when you have the chance.

Calling Bullshit

'Tis the season. I love the way the internet makes it so easy to get a wide audience when you have a cause to mount...and it is a sacred duty to call it when you see it, I feel. I am almost always proud of people who can see through the fog and go for the truth even when it causes people to squirm uncomfortably and issue their denials and rationalizations. And I can say that I welcome it when it happens to me, but that's a bit more complicated. Nobody likes to be called a liar, however gently, and when you apply some compassion you can usually see how they got to their false assumption or why they are interested in spreading the faulty information.

There is so much of this going around my world right now! I do welcome the discussions of white privilege and white fragility and feminism and how it works in politics and our personal lives. I have about as many prejudices and misconceptions as the average TV-raised white American, well, not average, because average is dumb, (I think George Carlin gets the credit for that) but I do fall into the pits of not-knowing fairly regularly. It can be embarrassing, but actually I struggle a lot more with stopping myself from the calling of the bullshit.

I want to do it right. The bullshit usually hurt someone, and I don't want to hurt someone else in exchange, and there is also the self-protection piece. I'm vulnerable, and can have plenty to lose by standing up in certain ways, because the world is not fair, and the standard-bearers get shot down as quickly as those who are less righteous and willing to carry that particular flag. And sometimes I am complicit in the benefits gained from the spreading of the bullshit...except that I don't stomach that well. Moral ambiguity is a land where maybe no one should be too comfortable.

My latest gut-churner is the continuing repeat of the lie that Lane County Farmers' Market is 100 years old. Why do they keep doing that? I get that they want to strengthen their brand and not keep depending on Saturday Market to define the corner with our giant advertising budget (that's sarcasm), I get that they have been working on their own identity. That's not a bad thing in itself. There's a lot to celebrate in 30 years of bringing farmers to downtown. But the fact is that without Saturday Market they would not exist. It's printed right there on our website in our history, so except for maybe their new Director, they can't say they don't know it isn't true. Even she ought to have read every word on that website since we are such tight neighbors and have been so for so long. So there's that aspect, and one reason I haven't gone public really, because it makes SM look kind of petty if we bring it up. We know who we are, and what we did.

But every time they say it on TV or in the newspaper I just cringe and get angry. Why not mention us? Why not celebrate that synergy that we all benefit from, why not show how far they have come from those hippie roots like we do? There's something dark in them trying to dismiss us. It's kind of revisionist. I'm an amateur Eugene historian, and I don't see the purpose or benefit of rewriting history from a community perspective. Why can't we all work together for mutual benefit? We always have all this time. The relationships across the street are strong on both sides. Everyone with any observations skills can see how it all works for all of us.
But I try to keep quiet. I want them to be successful and stay over there on that block. I want all that to continue for my own benefit. I've been welcomed to sell at the Tuesday Market for many years and I don't want to feel unwelcome.

There was a time when I tried to call bullshit on them when I was taking minutes at their meetings, and when the 8th St. closure was a quietly fought issue in the city, and I know I made some enemies over there. I was defending my life and it's viability, I thought, so I tried to keep my head with so much at stake, and it seemed that we all managed to grow past that and be friends again. I have to admit that I still am wary, though, of just what might happen in their drive to grow that might hurt me. I liked it better when I knew they would never do anything to compromise my own organization. That trust needs to be fostered and tended. So I'm still trying to do that on my own part, trust that indeed whatever happens will also benefit me and my own organization and all of it's 600 plus members. We matter a lot, and surely that is understood by the farmers, the city, and the county.

But I have to call bullshit on Mike Clark, too, when I watch him in action on the City Council. I don't think he cares a bit what might happen to Saturday Market, or even the farmers, when he brings remodeling the Park Blocks to the agenda. I think he wants to promote himself as a great mayoral candidate. I think he would be a disaster for me, quite possibly, because I heard him say his model and vision for the Park Blocks is Oakway Mall. I guess maybe he has never been to Saturday Market.

I could go on, but I'm supposed to be working. I just had to get this off my chest so I could go earn some more money with my honest work of making things from nothing. I'm proud of my right livelihood, as all of us should be who weathered recessions by creating jobs for ourselves and have continued to make our priceless contributions to the culture of Eugene and Lane County and to improve the lives of all of our visitors from all over the world. We have so much to be proud of! We should be honored and have other organizations and businesses downtown fighting for space to be next to us. Talk about downtown revitalization...what else happens on Saturdays down there? A lot these days, but go back to the 70's and 80's and even the 90's. All this shiny new stuff is here because we have stuck with our little 8x8s and made this work.

All of our fees are the only income Saturday Market has ever had to do all of the things we have ever done. We pay rent to the City, and we used to pay it to the County until they kind of threw us under the bus with what's happening over at the FSP. We ought to feel that honoring once in awhile, of creating all of that through our common effort. I call bullshit on everyone who criticizes us by saying we are boring old hippies who never change. Come down and see what is new every week. Bring money. Build community in a place where people like to be honest and forthright and independent and put their hands and hearts together to create something wonderfully new and precious. Every week.

And after you go to Saturday Market, come to the Jell-O Art Show. See something that has happened for 28 years that is unlike anything else in the whole damn world. See me and my friends produce an event that is pure delight and no bullshit. You know you need to see it for yourself once in awhile, or you might just start believing the PR too. Come and check out the real thing. You are so lucky that you can.

Representing the Real Story

Here it is Saturday night and my emotions are all over the range. Somebody should clean off that range as well as the rest of my kitchen, ha ha. I'm feeling that almost all of the organizations I am involved in are stumbling around in muddy flood waters these days. I know that this is just a feeling because I am seeing upset people, hurt people, struggling for understanding and feeling betrayed, pushed, or just confused. There is a lot in play. I probably see too much, because it's my job to sit in meetings and write down what is said and done. I have to pay close attention.

I don't get to space out or make jokes or laugh things off, I have to decide if they are important, and if they are, how to state them in a neutral way that will neither alarm nor hide the truth, and I have to spell it right as well. I think I'm pretty good at it in a long-winded fashion, although writing sentences in the passive voice is probably doing permanent damage to the fiction-writing part of my brain. I know I am dedicated to it, and mostly I enjoy it as a way to make sense and put an order to things that are seldom completely orderly.

Both of the main organizations I'm talking about here are member organizations. That's a special kind of club that not everyone gets to engage in. I have multiple roles in both, the two economic ones of being a boothholder and an independent service provider, plus as I have been there a long time I have a nuanced emotional role of being an elder who has seen the patterns and worst and best times. It's not like I've seen it all, just like I don't hear or see all in the meetings as I focus on my notes and listen and transcribe the recording. It's limited by who I am and how I do things, so it's a way of participation that is as limited as anyone else's, in a way, and keeps it in my mind that even I do not have the whole picture, even when I am looking and listening so closely.

Everybody has a piece of the truth, we like to say in group participation activities, but no one has the full truth. I don't know what full truth is. Reality is shifty. Time makes it elusive, and all of the structure we try to impose on our reality is colored by our perspective and our emotional construction that we see as our operating reality. We all operate as if we agree on it, while at the same time knowing that we certainly can't be in agreement when it isn't even the same color. That blue dress/white dress thing pointed that out so clearly on computers, and it is pointed out clearly in our meetings and personal interactions because they don't flow as smoothly as we might wish.

Of course there are people who don't try to make things be smooth for reasons of their own, be they conscious or sub-. There's an attraction to "juice" both fun and negative. Some people thrive on drama. Some avoid it and shut down when it appears. Personally, I guess I am fascinated by it, but don't want to get any of it on me. I like to read the long posts and see what people are saying on Facebook, but I don't have the fortitude to really take a stand and be assailed for it, very often.

But recently I have found myself giving impassioned defenses of a certain man in my large local family who is the target of a lot of negative talk. I've known him for over 40 years but I would not presume to say I know him as I do my own self. Yet I know what most of his core character traits are, and I know him to be a man who has spent his whole life serving others, bringing others in whether or not they could return anything to him in the way he gives. I've heard him say a cynical thing now and then, but always with humor, and underlying that is a giant amount of compassion and respect for all of his fellow beings.

He's almost died a couple of times. One time he came out of his tent to find a large branch nearly on his tent. One time he had a failing organ and it was only the pleas of others that got him to accept one from a donor. He is one of the most humble men I know, while at the same time being a powerful, magnetic person. Our birthdays are six months apart: I am a Taurus, and he is a Scorpio. We have a connection that we have only explored a little in the past, which my damage did not allow to flourish on the intimate level, but this man is a consummate art patron, and he has nurtured my artistic self in a beautiful way over time.

I was his go-to screenprinter for most of these 40 years. I printed for his wrestlers and his businesses and painted signs too. One autumn I got the most wonderful job of painting and stenciling on a treehouse he put up at his home for his young daughter. This was a huge project, and like all of his projects he allowed a lot of latitude in how it was done. I covered the panels and borders of the structure with gold paint in exquisite, graceful designs with a general theme and origin of what is known as the Gypsy wagon. Gypsy wagons Of course today we wouldn't call it that...I guess something like Romanian style art on a caravan is better.
It was and I assume still is incredibly beautiful. I'm not the only artist who worked on it, but this man treats all of his artists with a great deal of respect, and they are truly a collaboration using his money. As I recall on that one I spent over 100 hours but really couldn't bear to charge him for all of my work. I knew at the time I would probably never again get to work on such a cool project.

And all of this man's projects, that he pays for, are like that. The coolest, the most elaborate, the like-nothing-else, over-the-top projects. Usually they have a practical aspect as well, like the dwelling I worked on, the t-shirts, or the signs. He also walks around the Market and the Fair and buys art from a lot of people. I don't know anyone else who is so much of an art supporter. This man is not rich. He doesn't live in a shiny house or drive a new car. He grows his own food and feeds a lot of people. He supports a lot of people, when they need it, or because they are part of his tribe, his clan. His family.

Most of his work for pay has been to create living spaces for people with disabilities so that they can maximize their independence. I know he was a wrestling coach for many years, as well as a wrestler. I think of that as such a primal and intimate contact contest, practically naked men applying strength and leverage and mental power to each other's bodies in a simple and complex way. Of course, like me, he is now an oldish person. We don't have a lot of years left, but we have in common that we have dedicated much of them to using our particular gifts and talents to serve others and create beauty. I remember when he made a casket for Jed Kesey he said he thought if the powerful people in that circle knew him, they probably wouldn't like him, but I didn't know what he meant. I think now he meant because he took life really seriously and they were all up in their pranks and their highs and he was down on the earth, working. He loves wood, and joinery, and fine work and craftsmanship of any kind. He really admires other people's ability to express themselves with their hands. He always wants to make things that haven't been made before, especially if they bring people together in a special way. They made the coins so that there would be a special way to participate, as well as a special thing to collect. Nobody needs half of the stuff he has had made, but lots of people want it and treasure it.

His legacy at the Fair is astounding in its scope and complexity. I can see why people would feel jealous of him, as he can  motivate a lot of people to carry out his visions and they do it willingly and with joy. He can always get more workers who want to be a part of what he creates. It isn't because of anything like money. He inspires people to do their best work, and to put their hearts into it. He inspires service given from the heart. He shares his great love for the beautiful world with anyone who wants a piece of it. Making a place for people to get clean is such a pure, giving thing for the family. We've been saved from so many epidemics and so much happiness has been shared by all of those clean folks.

How anyone can accuse this person of thoughtlessness or any negative intentions is way beyond me. I'm ashamed of my community when they say his life's work should be appropriated by the Fair and destroyed. I don't care about the story pole, per se. I don't actually like it as an art piece, and I do think there are cultural appropriation issues with some of the art styles used in his domain. But I know that when you approach this man with respect, he is the most reasonable person there is. He is evolved, and he isn't finished evolving. He has a clear heart and mind and loves very deeply. He has no intention to hurt anyone, and I have never known him to do a mean or thoughtless thing. So if only the controversy would have started there, with a gentle inquiry, with a soulful discussion, with a request for understanding. And if nobody would be saying that he is greedy, that his service is for his own profit, that he grabs land and does things without permission, that would be good. Have you noticed that the land he uses is for seating and music, showers and the drain fields to keep people healthy? He rents land for his family to park in. Do you? Do you give back what you take from Fair? Do you support the craftspeople and food booths, the Board members and the people who do all the hard work? Or do you just come on the Facebook site and rave about how fun it is to get high and hear music and wear costumes? Or do you just not work on your own evolution so that you can clearly see when a person has heart and when he is being misrepresented.

Because this man could probably still pin you to the mat, but he wouldn't. I'm guessing he is listening to everything people are saying, and when someone comes from a heart like his, he hears it. I'm guessing he wants to do the best for the community he has been a part of his whole adult life. He has not picked up his art pieces and walked away, has he? He has not piled it in a bonfire to spite anyone, has he? As far as I know he hasn't even made a public statement yet. But when he does feel ready to speak to this issue and to act on it, you will cry. When I saw him speak so tenderly in that Path Planning video, he was nothing but sweet. I love the man. He isn't going to be here forever. He deserves the honor of being treated like the man he has grown to be. I challenge all his detractors to step back and see the man. I feel sad as can be that people don't even know to do this. I hope that I do not ever suffer this type of betrayal by the people who are so quick to call themselves Fair Family. Because I doubt I will be as patient and kind as this man will be throughout this. I trust this to be true, and I hope with all my heart that I am right. I have faith in him, and I am loyal to him as he has been to all of his artists and workers.

We'll all see how this heartbreaking situation is resolved. I hope that it is well done. I agree that we all need to learn about this and make this right, but it should be at no one's expense. We all need to rise to our better selves. Our best selves. Honor the honorable. It's not a simple thing with simple answers. It's not a passive sentence that will put the minutes in order to frame the meeting in a businesslike way. It's our messy selves being messy and trying to love and be loved. Don't think it is about anything simple. This time, right now, is not a time of simple answers. Something big is happening here, kind of an emotional tsunami. Let's weather it, and not let everything wash out to sea that we have so lovingly built.

Farmers' Survey

People of Saturday Market have been wondering how to respond to the survey about a possible year-round, indoor farmers' market (YRIM). I'm afraid right now to even go look at the survey, but I will absolutely participate, and be as strong as I can be about any parts where I can provide my perspective.

If you haven't read the book Market Days, about farmers' market history, it's well worth a couple of hours of your day. There is a copy in the library and I think one in the SM office as well. Read again our own SM history on the website, and give yourself a hug for being one of the members of a very thoughtful membership organization, the Saturday Market. If the only point you get from this post is that, get it, because we are surviving and thriving because we have held so tightly to our traditional structure and values, and that is what will take us through this new situation. Our membership gives us a collective voice that is as strong as we want it to be. Together we have all the skills we need to make the most of whatever happens.

In name, the LCFM is still a membership organization, but they have morphed a bit in the last decade, according to how they perceive their different needs. Organic, farm-sourced produce, meats, and prepared products are booming. The industry is popular, and attracting investors. The City and County have noticed and listened to the PR and they want a piece of it. Developers and business people want the FM to succeed so that they can get a piece. It's as simple as that. SM is not getting that action because we are not for sale. We don't want any investors right now with their complications of profit motives and self-interest.  We just want to keep doing what we are doing, what is working well for us. Not that we are closed to improvements, but will they really be improvements?

We do want to continue to sell at low cost on our public land, which does give us a landlord who has some power over us. We rent from the City, and we also have great relationships of offering services to the City (we manage activity permits, food carts, and other services for the city.) It seems a solid and mutually beneficial relationship, but there are no guarantees that the city will always let us use the Park Blocks. We've been there for 34 years, but still, city councilors can change their minds. The farmers rent from the County. The County owns both of the north blocks. They have said they need more room. They have enlisted help in making the site improvements or location changes that will give them more room. Both the City and the County are sympathetic, as are we. The last thing we want is a fight with the farmers.

We all know how important our co-location is to us. Both organizations benefit greatly from the exciting, weekly outdoor seasonal market. We've worked together for all of these years and more for our mutual benefit. That said, many farmers now don't feel that this meets their needs. Many of them sell at lots of markets, every day of the week, all year round, and although the Saturday LCFM is the biggest, they have a lot of other choices. They believe that they are the draw, and SM is less essential, and they don't really feel a responsibility for our success. If they decide it's better for business to move to 5th St, or anywhere else, they will.

They do not speak with one voice, though, and we know that many of their members do think they need us, and would be resistant to moving away from us, and they do care about us. Still, if push came to shove, and they could gain the consensus of their members, they could move. Maybe, if it were to EWEB Plaza or someplace that we were interested in, we would consider going too. Since there is no location for this proposed Y-R-I-market, getting worried or excited about it is premature. If it were built where the Butterfly is, that might be fantastic for us. If it had a space we could use for Holiday Market, I would love it. But if it were too far or too different, my opinion would change. I think everyone is worried about all of the unknowns.

But let's stay in the knowns. We know we need produce, and we are committed to always having it. If the FM moved, we would endeavor to have one of our own in some form. We know we want to stay the way we are. Our membership organization, with enough participation from our members, is the strongest kind of business association ever. We can have resources to share that none of us would be able to afford on our own. We are so solid in this that I take great strength from it. I don't really feel threatened by anything the farmers do, as I know we are loved in our own right and that will not stop. People need us. So we can relax about our own future. We will manage and we will thrive.

I said in an earlier blog that the farmers are not 100 year old on the PB, that that was pure PR. They sold on the PB for fourteen years, and in 1929, despite 50% of their farmers being opposed to it, their management accepted a land donation on Broadway and Charnelton and built a building. Lots of civic leaders came to a dinner meeting and sold the reluctant farmers and they all signed off on it. Prices were still kept low, and there were lots of producers, and several problems were solved. Then the stock market failed and the Depression hit. For the next two decades everyone struggled, but there were some significant things that killed off the FM. The Grange formed a different Market Board that did not have to have the approval of all of the grange members to make decisions. They opened to greater participation in their decision-making by all kinds of other businessmen and local entities, like the County Agent. They thought they all had the same goals, but gradually the little farmers had less and less power to even make their concerns heard.

They held on until 1959. There were lots of reasons why they failed. The war effort siphoned off a lot of food and farm products, and bigger producers got the contracts with their lower prices, and when another landowner sold the land they had been using for parking and outdoor spaces for firewood sales, etc, they had no parking. Gradually more shops were brought in to fill the space, who didn't sell farm products. Supermarkets (cough cough Whole Foods) opened and people preferred shopping there. The indoor space held onto the lively and friendly atmosphere of the outdoor market for a time, but it just wasn't the same.

They had sold bonds to finance the building and the property taxes rose. All of their resources went to debt service and taxes. The finally got out of debt but there just wasn't the income for enough management, much less promotions and marketing, and finally they got a big offer for the building through a management company with a name that is still active locally. They hoped to still continue in the building and did for a couple of years, but then the SF company that had bought it decided to put in a Rite Aid. and it was over.

By then the membership organization did not have the will or means to reorganize, and it was not until the 70's when farmers were again able to sell in a group setting, with Saturday Market. That's what started up this present incarnation, and when you read the history, it's pretty concerning to see them head down that same road.

That was then and this is now. The people on the LCFM Board who are pushing for this building are farmers, for the most part, or are doing it through farmers, and they may have learned from history to not extend a controlling interest to a profit-making entity. Unfortunately city and county government are no longer much different from profit-making entities, as we can see from the closing of the Jacobs Gallery and the  current selling off of Kesey. We don't know what the farmers are planning, as a whole, but we can guess that they are not all on the same page. We don't know what the City or County are planning. We have some voice in the discussions, which are in the early stages. They are trying to figure out if the project is feasible, if it will pencil out to be a money-maker and not a drain on already drained public coffers. It will need to make money. Never mind the building costs, just consider the operational costs.

My feeling is that it will not make money if spaces are rented for $10 plus 10% or even the $40 the farmers pay now for a 10x10. There will have to be either subsidy by local governments, or higher payments by participants. If there aren't enough producers, it would seem natural to let in others who are less invested. We have already seen that many farmers don't do the selling, or even show up at the booths sometimes. They don't have the strict Maker is the Seller ethic we are so focused on, though they haven't strayed far yet. But what they offer now is that direct connection, still intact, that the shoppers want.

We all know we can't sell every day all year round, and most of us don't want to. I like our Market the way it is, and although I wouldn't block someone's plans to participate on some level in that building, it isn't for me. I probably wouldn't even spend my considerable organic food dollars there, preferring to support the farmers I already support. I saw what happened at 5th St when people went indoors, to later be kicked out by Obie when other more profitable shops were preferred. They were used. I do not want my organization to be used. I'm not against the project, and like you, I want more information, but I'm not wild about the feasibility of it. I hope I can communicate that in the survey but I am guessing it won't be easy. I'm not going to think that the one step of filling it out will replace my thoughtfulness and watchfulness about what is really going to involve me. I will continue to increase my involvement in my membership organization as I feel the increased need to guide us and make good decisions for our collective futures. I hope many of us feel the same. Show up, sell at Market, and keep us strong and vital. Promote us well to the outside world. Don't be too worried, just keep working.

But by all means, please fill out the survey as I am about to go do, and let our voices be heard. Mine is not the only opinion. If even a hundred of our members chime in, that is more than any other interest group. Our interest is in keeping what we have built. We can do it without the farmers, but we'd rather do it with them. And there is no way, ever, that I want to see my organization sell out. Not even a little. I believe in learning from history to move slowly and keep our goals and prime directives in mind. That's why we are still here, still relevant, and still the BEST!

Fear is How We Get to Love

Yes, writing that post about my young radical days got me upset...but I gained some needed insight of course. It was the photo of Hillary Clinton next to Kissinger that got to me the most this week. It led to an article about the politics of Vietnam and all of the rage and despair came back. That part was maybe missing from the last post. Rage. Then despair. Fear, rage, despair, an unending cycle that gets me at three in the morning once in awhile, like last night.

I don't think every generation has that happen when
they are in their twenties. Maybe it is just masked and drugged into compliance. I would guess someone graduating with a degree in massive debt accumulation feels it when they have to move back into Mom's house and work at Target. Still, we Americans are infused with hope and aspiration. We are sure that at some point we will get everything we have been taught to desire. We think it might even be easy, because most of us are sure we are privileged.

In light of the cultural appropriation discussions I thought about a spreadsheet of my privilege. I am, of course, in an oppressed minority, women, but I've been able to set that aside by creating my own job, building my own house, integrating myself with a supportive community. This has been relatively easy for me because I am white, smart and not unattractive by common standards, so those go in the privilege column. I'm poor, but that's by choice, to avoid contributing to the destructive war machine. I've gotten food stamps and food boxes in the deep past, when I really needed them, and I've always had my Mom to help me here and there. She paid for my braces in my thirties (privilege) and when I got stuck a few times she paid for plane tickets home or some bill or other. She paid for a lot of my therapy. All privilege. Not much oppression there, except if I wanted to compete in the "man's world" I would fail, and I am not equal in the eyes of the law or the economy and all women still suffer from the oppression built by men. It hasn't really gotten better, but it will. Powerful women are more powerful now than ever, and more respected. We've taken some ground.

As a hippie I have been oppressed, I'd say, but again, that was my choice as an identification. As a Saturday Market member I have been looked down upon, but not by anyone who really matters to me. As a boothperson at OCF, there are ways I'm oppressed,  for instance by the fee structure, but it's balanced by my success there and that I am a grandfathered booth rep with a prime space. That counts as mostly privilege. Now that I am a volunteer too, it's working as privilege, because my skills are gaining me respect and I am making a valuable contribution in several ways, so privilege, but earned. Somewhat limited. I don't get anything for free, not even a cup of coffee at Main Camp. But I know people, and I can get free coffee now and then. On balance, I'm entitled.

 As a traumatized person, I've been distanced-from and pushed aside, but as is typical in mental health oppression, I figured I deserved it in some perverse way, for not being in control of my emotions. I've been taken advantage of and manipulated, but not so much the victim of violence. Two break-ins when I lost some treasured items and some security, one legal situation that could have been so much worse, a few situations I'm not willing to think about when I made some choices that were probably caused by my lack of coping skills as a traumatized person. So I would count those in the oppressed column, and they seem huge sometimes, and not so bad other times. On the scale of mental health oppression, I am safe and warm and can get the help when I need it, so nowhere near the oppression many suffer, but not privilege, except for the compassion gain which I count as a gift.

As an old person, oppression. A teense of privilege from Medicare, though it isn't an easy system to navigate. The oppression works in a way because if I run up against something impossible, I sometimes get excused because elderly people aren't expected to be able to understand things. We sometimes get a pass on things younger people would not. Of course I an new to being old, only 65, so the marginalization has not really set in. I'm ignored, but I like that, generally. I don't want sexual attention and don't mind not being hustled. I'd just as soon go about my business without being observed. But the increased level of concern people have for me is oppressive. My neighbors interfere when I climb ladders and trees...out of their concern for my safety. I did make a mistake and broke my heel that time, so some of that is deserved. I do take physical risks sometimes to get my work done. I suppose it could be seen as privilege that my neighbors even care what I do. But on the whole, age is oppression, and I know that will get way worse the longer I live. I have some deep fear for how I will manage when I can't work and if serious physical illness develops. I do have some trusted caretakers, but soon they will all be retired so that's an issue. I'm tough, but age does not work as privilege for me.

As a single parent, oppressed, though I had the advantage of liking that I didn't have to negotiate with a dad-person. It would not have worked well for me. There were times I was oppressed by my teenager, but he gets excused for just trying to get his needs met. He was of a very oppressed class at the time, children and adolescents. He is still in the oppressed class I would say, as a young married person, in this economy. But he has his own spreadsheet and it probably balances toward privilege. He'd have to decide that.

So it's an interesting exercise to evaluate my own life. It's hard to shake that instilled privilege of the way I grew up, notwithstanding the status as child and traumatized child and person who thought they were poor. My privilege was all in place in many ways, and I've carried it with me. Lots of things were easy for me, and lots of things still are. I was not owning class, but not exactly working class. That's what middle class is, the aspiring working class that thinks it is owning class. Americans don't talk about class, but that doesn't mean it isn't operating.

So then the question turns to what do I do with my heritage of status. I've done a little, nothing to brag about. I'm helpful and dependable and I do a lot of volunteering for my organizations and groups, but those all involve some self-interest, and I always feel that I could do more. I've given, but could give more. I've listened, but could hear more and respond more. I've mostly been selfish about creating my own safety, seclusion, and space so that I can feel healthy in my bubble. That's doing everyone a favor, but it isn't nearly as helpful as my privilege would indicate that I could be.

Most of the times I have really tried to be generous with more oppressed people, it has ended badly. I'm thinking about some of my jobs at 4J, being a one-on-one with a child with disabilities, and working in the Community Resource Center. I was not really suited for those jobs, and made some huge (to my retrospect) mistakes. Before I had a child of my own I failed a few children who needed more. What can you do? You do the best with the tools you have, and try to maintain and improve your tools, or step aside and let someone else do the work. I stepped aside when it was obvious I was about to do harm. I let the bottomless pool of need be filled by others with more resources.

Politically, I'm still a hardcore radical and my cynicism sometimes lifts briefly so I can engage. I made a lot of political t-shirts at times, helping to spread my leftist thoughts. I still have a few hats that speak to this. I listened avidly to the GAs and all the coverage of the Occupy movement but it was way too hard for me to do it in person down on the Park Blocks. I was too afraid. I still am. I took my son to a few demonstrations, but he didn't like it, and when I cried my eyes out at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC he was embarrassed, probably deeply so. What teenager wants to see their Mom cry in public in front of a lot of strangers? He hasn't responded to my previous post, though I expect he reads my stuff and processes it in his own way. I am giving him all the space he wants when it comes to my self-exploration. He has had to put up with it his whole life as I dragged him to NVC presentations and went to RC classes and Market and always worked so much when he would have rather had me play with him. I probably told him way too much about things in which he had no interest. Like most kids there are probably things he admires about my life and ways he shakes his head in his own fear and despair. I hope he doesn't have much rage. I know I tried to give him a non-traumatic life and I think he got that. My creating of safety worked for him too.

This was meant to be ironic

I suppose he learned about my radicalism by my reactions to culture and my choices, like the getting rid of my clothes dryer (hated that) and my making him bike and walk places I didn't want to drive (pretty inconvenient and sometimes rather disastrous.) I didn't make it possible for him to go to MIT like I should have, though that wasn't really possible anyway. I should've sent him to Japan though. Oh hindsight, so useless and so rich. Let's just let him be in his own life now, doing his own exploration, calling his own dance. I'm trying to do that. Most parents probably have years of misgivings about not doing better until their kids let them know they are forgiven, which probably comes at about age 75 or so. If they should live so long!

I feel good about my life here, and the rage and despair episodes are brief. I am able to talk myself through them, with the evidence that I have been able to live all these decades quite joyfully with that still inside me. I know I won't fall off the cliff. I know I have what it takes to navigate the rest of my life with grace and style, and the strength to hold onto my compassion for my self and others.

I did even buy into the hopey changey thing and respect the Obamas terrifically for bringing our country to a better place, much better. But I read enough to know Obama sold us out in many ways because he had to. He probably listens to Kissinger too, because the ones who own our country have always owned it and will continue to own it. I will not be surprised if

Bernie fails to advance past a certain point. I love what he is saying and I love that people are energized and hopeful. I don't want to dampen that at all, but I can't quite get there. I'm even going to vote for Hillary if it comes down to that, because a democrat is better, so much better, even if they are a bought democrat. I would love to vote for a Sanders/Warren ticket and hope that is the result of all this crapola and obsession. If all that happens is that people read about history and analyze politics and culture and learn some useful lessons, I am down for it. I hope it isn't too painful for our young ones. We don't need more cynical, escapist citizens who won't participate, because there are, without a doubt, many, many caring and compassionate people inspired to do wonderful things in the outside world. The Obamas gave us a ton of that and put many people in powerful positions to make real change, at least at the levels where we will feel it, if not so much on the global stage. They got us our respect back, the respect that evaporates as soon as a Republican opens his or her mouth. That's super valuable, and the world is a magnitude better than it was eight years ago. Hope and change did a lot. I'm glad I went along with it as far as I did, and I will try to go along with it now. I will try to remember that cynicism does not protect me.

Fear, rage and despair are only countered by giant quantities of love and care. However we can find that, even if it has to take the form of chocolates and diamond rings, we really have to create that love. All the time. Every way we get the chance to. Listening to Bernie, even though it takes me through my memories in an unpleasant way, makes me love him and love this time and this life. I don't care if these young feminists are stepping all over all that hard work we did and leaving us in the sidelines. That is what we wanted, to make them powerful. We did all that we did for the children we didn't even have at the time, the children inside us and in everyone, the tender hearts that don't need more fear and despair. The rage built a more beautiful world. It is worth it. It is honest and true. That's all I was fighting for: the truth. Keep telling it like it really is, Bernie, our activists, our Kesey-savers, our kids, our writers and our cartoonists. The truth is indeed setting us free, free from our gilded chains. We have scars and bruises, but it is a beautiful day when we hear the ring of truth.