Communication

I woke up this morning with a bit of a headache altho there seems to be some disagreement about whether I actually partied significantly or not. People who stayed out later than I say that they did not, while others have observed that I did. This is the problem with trying to categorize anything or really communicate with other people.

I missed the first round of talks this morning. It was a workshop day which means that it was supposed to be collaborative rather than instructive. The one I did attend was called "Communicating your message to the public" which was really about managing the press and public opinion about Critical Mass (CM). One of the organizers of CM in Budapest talked for a very long time about their efforts. Their mass is much more organized than the others I know. They even provide the press with photo ops that will look good bc they know the route they will take. Brian talked about CM and the conflicts in 1997 with Mayor Brown, and how they managed it, and people talked about Masses in Georgia, US and Barcelona.

In Georgia, they changed the name to courteous mass and followed all the rules of traffic. This made the event much more mainstream than other masses, which is appropriate considering the conservative politics of the south. Children and Republicans rode regularly.

What I particularly love about Mass in SF is the way we respond to anger. When an angry driver yells at us, the self-posessed masser smiles and waves back; "hurray!" she calls. How can you remain angry with cute girls on bicycles celebrating in your general direction. Of course, these massers also leave quickly bc no one wants to be around angry people, just in case.

In the afternoon we took a tram to a park and road bicycles designed to look like cars around. Think about it: a bunch of anti-car activists riding around a carfree areas in pretend cars. Hilarious. The park was very pretty, and afterwards we sat in a cafe for a bit as the sun filtered thru the nearby trees. A Turkish city planning prof complimented me on my talk and then told me about her new research project on visual language and how it can be applied to planning. I want to learn more about that!

Dinner was actually good, that german pasta stuff with cream and a mystery meat (we are used to mystery meat by now) cucumber salad and an apple. I took my apple for later.