Carnaval SF 2007

Breaking my disappointment streak was Carnaval. San Francisco's one non-tedious parade, Carnaval is generally held at the end of May (26th this year) on the theory that it will avoid the rain and cold of March. Typically, and this year was no exception, this turns out to be a little late, and the brief warm of late spring has been replaced by chill, gray San Francisco summer. I started out at 17th and Mission (where the route turns back towards South Van Ness), but later wandered down past 18th for a better view. One positive of parades in the Mission is that even when the crowd is already four or five people deep, it's never too hard to find a place with a clear view. Alas that probably won't be true in another generation...

The participating groups range from all over Latin America from Aztec-themed Mexican dancers to more standard Brazilian Samba and Capoeira schools. The costumes are uniformly dramatic, and the performers uniformly energetic, and to whatever extent tradition trumps creativity, at least it's a good show. Even the obligatory pirate-themed float was handled with the sort of panache sadly missing from Bay to Breakers.

I missed getting video of some of the better acrobatics, unfortunately, but it's just as well, as I came close to maxing out my card as it was. Always carry extras!

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Bay to Breakers 2007

A second recent disappointment was this year's Bay to Breakers, which was on Sunday, May 20th. It used to be sponsored by the Examiner, back when that was a second-rate newspaper and not a 5th rate conservative tabloid. Now it's sponsored by ING.

Although a small core of actual runners compete in the race, as well as teams ("centipedes", linked together by a costume, or increasingly a lame set of nylon straps) of runners, most participants are there for fun. Typically this involves either dressing up in a costume, or not dressing at all, or something in between. And while nudity seemed to be up this year (despite the now annual promises by the sponsors of a crackdown) unfortunately creativity was way down. Halloween in the Castro has certainly suffered a similar fate, but in a large part because of an influx of tube-and-tunnel brats, whereas while many half-assed frat groups show up at Bay to Breakers, there seems little reason for people to actively avoid it.

I wandered down to Van Ness and Hayes early enough to see at least one pack of Kenyans (pretty much all the serious runners are Kenyan), and I stayed long enough to see police and fire "sweeping up", although I may have missed some late stragglers. Also, it may be that some groups "start" the race further up, but I still get the feeling that there was not much going on. I remember the first year I went there was a full-sized moving Tiki bar, a full-sized Jabba the Hutt on a rolling "throne", and a two or three three-person MUNI buses, who would stop at every other intersection and turn at right angles, forcing everyone behind them to stop. Nothing even remotely that cool this year. Nothing political, nothing even topical, unless one guy dressed as Spiderman counts.

My feeling is further reinforced by the Chronicle's photos, which seem equally sad. The best group was the Salmon (they run the whole race backwards), but they've been doing that for at least as long as I have been here. there were a couple of Pamplona groups (with a keg or a bunch of a cases in a shopping cart dressed up as a bull), which were clever, but I first saw that last year.

Grumble, grumble. I must be getting old.

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Maker Faire 2007

Make Magazine sponsored the 2nd annual Maker Faire May 19th-20th at the San Mateo Fairgrounds (directly adjacent to the soon-to-be-defunct Bay Meadows; Hillsdale Caltrain station). I made it down Saturday afternoon and snapped a few shots. I was painfully underwhelmed for the most part, honestly, although perhaps I don't have much of an appreciation for the finer points of "making". Many of the creations seemed to be someone taping old computer parts onto something in order to make it "computery". Other things, like fire sculptures, held my attention for a minute or so, but pyromaniac that I am (or is that pyrophile?) there wasn't enough of that to keep me busy for more than a couple of hours.

Some of the exhibits dealt with fabrication, but as I'm not much of a fabricator, I probably didn't appreciate those properly. The Power Tool Drag Races were holding "heats" sort of. My problem with that and a few of the other events/exhibits was that they seemed to have real barkers with microphones standing in front of them. Basically guys whose purpose was to babble constantly and pointlessly. Maybe I was just getting too much vitamin D from all the sun, but they really, really annoyed me.

I happened to be there at the time Uke-y Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was playing, but having seen the show before I continued wandering, only catching a few songs, such as "Starman" rendered on the kazoo.

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