Greg Burton’s San Francisco Blog

And so much has happened….. let’s see….

We raised $50,000 for Unitas and microfinance loans at WIME, and are planning a whole bunch of launches over the next 6 months. Our company is virtual, continuous conversations with people in England, Miami, El Salvador, SoCal and the Midwest. We create buzz. I strategize and recognize patterns, indulge my apophenia.

I’ve gone to the Golden Gate renfaire, and the 40th anniversary of the summer of love (Taj Mahal, Moby Grape, and the Starship), gallery openings, and a variety of live music events. Moved from the (very tacky) furnished room in the Tenderloin to a (much better) furnished room in Nob Hill. Went back to ABQ and consolidated my stored things, and brought back the electric guitar and art supplies. Hanging out with Goths and Indonesians and jazz musicians. Talking about Chip Delany’s criticism with aging gay men. Seeing my daughter on her way from Burning Man to Seattle. In the coffeeshop, a young man Skypes in German next to me. I watch the counter when the owner shows apartments in the building looming over our heads.

I look around my furnished room, with it’s private bathroom. Unlike the other place, this window opens onto the street. On O’Farrell, it was an airshaft across from a room with young Asian women. They spread their makeup out on the floor as they sat crosslegged, surrounded by product.

Small bookcase (business, tarot, voudoun, i ching, fiction, pastel instruction, two zippered binders, two sketch pads, a portfolio and a daytimer (my least favorite one,at that)), a small altar (mala, Yab Yum, ceramic incense burner, crystal ball) on the top. Wisdom and Compassion. On the dresser a notebook computer leeching wireless from an unknown person. It’s unreliable. Sunburst Washburn guitar plugged into a scarlet POD modeling box with grey Sennheiser headphones, no amp to disturb the neighbors. Microwave on a coffeetable, with magazines underneath - Strategy+Business, Business 2.0, Wired. Buried under them the current issue of The Economist picked up in Albuquerque’s airport, along with Blink and a novel. Television, fridge, bed with a floral bedspread. Pastels and paper in the base of one nightstand, drawers full of filing and papers and misc electronics and toys in the other. I suddenly feel strongly like I’m in a William Gibson novel. Wendy points out that 40 years ago, it was a Delany novel.

I only read The Economist on airplanes.Glancing at the night stand, I notice again that I’m reading Spook Country. Call me Inchmale. It’s not deja vu, or the literary equivalent of “I have read this before”. I am reading it now, sans the geospatial tagging. Maybe. Chombo = “tool” or “implement” in Swahili. El Chombo is real. CHOMBO modeling is real. Milgrim…. are we to read this as a reference to Stanley Milgrim’s experiments in obedience and the infliction of pain? Or perhaps as Robert Milgrim of “Milgrim on Trade Secrets”? As always, Gibson encourages the reader to treat apophenia as a subtle archaeological technique of text and consciousness, brushing the dust lightly away to reveal deeper mysteries. Big End… the connection between the CONrod and the CRANKshaft in an internal combustion engine….. the connection between con and crank, the huckster and the loon….
We change with the times. I wear Etz Chaim, the sephirot in gems. Chochma and Binah, Chesed and Gevurah. It’s almost Erev Yom Kippur - may you be sealed in the book of life.