photos posted live from the field with a mobile phone camera
Finally... I made it to a Clarion Alley street party. I just happened upon it on the way home Sunday night. Two band stages, one dj setup and about 150 wonderful people reclaiming the street on a beautiful mild, clear night. Even San Francisco underground heroes Frank Chu and the Tamale Lady were there. (Better shots of Clarion Alley's murals here).
Rev. Billy and his New York City-based Church are touring the country, spreading the gospel of hope for escape from extreme consumerism. Here they are in San Francisco's Castro Theatre performing for a full house.
The good Reverend cancels a credit card.
When I entered the theater I looked at the guy in the hat two seats behind me and thought: "He looks a lot like [Burning Man founder] Larry Harvey."
He -was- Larry Harvey. Turns out Harvey's the Pope of the Church of Stop Shopping. I hadn't realized how strongly the Rev. had been influenced by Burning Man, but now it all makes sense.
Here's Larry Harvey, in hat and suit before the choir.
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I finally took the Edward Tufte information visualization course today. It was a fun overview, even though it was presented during finals week.
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Early this morning, the Edinburgh Castle pub was a David Lynch movie come to life.
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You can learn all about the SEEMEN at their site, seemen.org.
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This is a shot of Mie of taking a shot of me; both shots were simultaneously uploaded to our respective web logs. She happens to have the same phonecam that I do.
(Why are we both so red?)
Mie is a Tokyo blog celebrity who recently moved to San Francisco. Her site http://kokochi.com is definitely worth a look.
I give you Ouchy the Clown.
In most towns, merely being a clown DJ will make you stand out. And in most towns, merely being an exhibitionist bondage performer will make you stand out.
In San Francisco, you'll need to combine the two. Then you might stand out from all the other freaks, on a slow night. If you're lucky.
By the way, Ouchy is a trained corporate meeting facilitator.
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Daniela's one cool Czech. And one cool chick.
I met her in Paris in 1999 when she worked at my favorite hostel there (the "Young and Happy" on Rue Mouffetard). She gave me and everyone else fantastic underground tips about things to see and do in Paris. Now she's moved to San Francisco so I have a chance to return the favor.
We met for coffee at Cafe Abir in SF. Within five minutes Eric, another San Franciscan who once stayed at the hostel, recognized her as he walked by... It turns out that a friend of Eric's designed the camera in my Nokia cel phone. (That's the same phone that I take these photos on, and the same phone that I'm developing software and metadata structures for in my class at Berkeley.)
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This is the soap dispenser in the bathroom at Muddy Waters Cafe on Valencia near 17th in the Mission, San Francisco.
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I finally joined the 21st Century and set up this live photoblog.
Technically my phonecam belongs to its manufacturer, Nokia. But it's mine for the semester.
(Definitions: A phonecam is a mobile phone with a camera built in. A live photoblog, also called a "moblog," is a site where snapshots from a phonecam appear live as they're taken in the field; the photographer can update the site using nothing but a phonecam.)
The phonecam I'm babysitting is a Nokia 3650; it can capture still photos, audio and short video segments, and it can send this content to any e-mail address. With a little messing around, you can use this to build a photoblog.
I'm working on a project for Nokia at Berkeley; we're developing applications for these phonecams and creating metadata frameworks that we hope will make it easier for regular people to create, annotate, retrieve, share and work with photos and video. Here are details of the project.
Stay tuned...