Tag Archives | berkeley

“Shark Legacy In The Berkeley Shark Van”

Shark Legacy In The Berkeley Shark Van

Berkeley is a city many people associate with weirdness. Good or bad, the weirdness is usually a result of people wanting to be different or themselves without the pressures of the society. These pressures are usually slopes that tend to roll down people into a pile of red tape, in case someone wants to do something that puts a bad name to the reputation of that society. While Berkeley tends to call itself a hippie or a trendy culture, it can in fact, when observed, can be seen as a city that takes many qualities of San Francisco and applies them to a quieter, less hyper and in many cases a safer area called Berkeley.

Shark van, shark van, who are you?
Shark van, shark van, what are you?
Shark van, shark van, who drives you?
Shark van, shark van, where are you?

Berkeley houses many different types of visual differences compared to many of the neighboring cities. Even San Francisco, which exceeds Berkeley in many levels, has random exhibits of emotions and ideas in people and the artifacts that are visible to both the people and the cameras. Whether one is on Facebook or on MySpace, people in Berkeley can walk around with almost any attire in many of the different areas around the UC Berkeley campus. This Shark Van in Berkeley is one of such artifacts in Berkeley which differs than many, if not most, of the vehicles in San Francisco. While it is unknown whether the Shark Van can conquer the heights of the hilly roads in San Francisco, it is very clear that the Shark Van exists to conquer the curiosity, or visual satisfaction, of many observers.

Who drives the Shark Van? What is is used for? I am not sure. I would love to find out. I have seen the Shark Van drive by me more than once when I used to live in Berkeley. Then, the thoughts of where to eat the next Thai food or which movie to watch that night immediately followed the happy face that came around after seeing the Shark Van. Now, I have to think about the Shark Van and wonder about the reasons behind and around it, and the reasons it creates for other things.

Shark van, shark van, can I ride with you?
Shark van, shark van, I am scared if you carry candy with you?
Shark van, shark van, who was it that made you?
Shark van driver, shark van driver, do you eat vegetables, or do you eat shark and tofu?

So here is the Shark Van. Found in Berkeley in this picture. The actual shark, or the driver, may live nearby.


Meeting Elmo On The Train

Meeting Elmo on the train

What is it about Elmo that excites you? Nothing. In my case at least. It is probably SpongeBob that excites me more. Way more. That is like saying exciting excites me. The trains also excite me. I think. BART excites me. Except when I feel I am about to be eaten by creepy people.

So here I met Elmo. Hi Elmo! On the Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] train to San Francisco. What a happy personality he has! This is the Bay Area, so the destinations are aplenty. Or more than the turns on Sesame Street. The Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] will take you to San Francisco. And to Richmond. And to Berkeley. And also back to where I boarded this train: Pleasant Hill.

Where is Elmo going? Oh who knows. Or who cares. In an area where many things happen, Elmo could be going to eat Thai food. Or meet his gay lover. Or become the new spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. Or he may be on the train simply to meet me and be featured on my site. Not sure. Many people react differently to the strange things happening on trains. I wonder if I was being ignored by others on this day, because of taking pictures of a red creature who needed to hold onto the seat in order to look at me sitting in the seat behind him.

Maybe they were scared of being eaten by the creepy Elmo and his photographer.

When? Taken July 6th, 2009, at 4:20pm. Somewhere between Pleasant Hill and San Francisco on BART, probably around Orinda. I don’t remember: I was busy thinking of more pictures.

Also on BrightKite, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitpic & Twitter.


The Lone Stand Light

The Long Stand Light picture by Bes Z

Full version. Also on Flickr.

The existence of contrasting elements in the universe, and things outside of the universe, result in more disagreements than the creation of the feelings of awe and interest, and the feeling that maybe contrasting elements are at the same time related directly and similar, among observers of different kinds. One of such contrasting elements is the idea of minimalism. In simple terms, it is the idea of something existing in a minimal form where external elements, like backgrounds or different characters in a picture, do not confuse an observer when it comes to observing a single specific theme in a picture. Minimalism can be in many things including pictures. Me talking about minimalism in such confusing terms can be considered both a minimalistic form of confusing myself, and also a contrast to the very idea of minimalism.

On a very beautiful, cold and foggy day in Berkeley, I ran across this light. A stand, to be more precise. Or maybe a light stand. This light shines at night, to try to show the way to anyone who approaches it from near or from far, directly or indirectly. This very stand, not seen at all from a 60 second walking distance, suddenly unveiled itself in front of me when I was walking to the nearby hill edge stop sign. The fog made it hard to clearly look at the inner details of this stop light sign. Maybe that is what I needed to discover, for the stand light had very impressively shown how it compares against the background with its firm stand. I did, however, notice that as I came closer, the actual image that I had from the far was still there, while I also saw finer details, like rusting off the stand in one spots, 2 light bulb spot reflection dots, and a reddish sticker sticking near the top, which you can see on the stand in the full larger picture.

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The ending fields, the departing sun, the observing child

It was around sunset, in the corners of the unsunk lands of Berkeley in California. No motor cars. No bikes. No cell phones. No technology, other than the fabrics on the bodies and the thoughts in the mind. I could see a father laying down for rest all the way to the left, the mother sitting to the right, and the child standing all the way to the right. Or were they simply a male, female and a child? Was I even right about the genders? I am not sure. The man was looking up straight to the sky. The female in the middle was looking straight while sitting down on the grass.

It was the child that caught my attention. There was nothing special about the child. I did not even see to make sure if it was a short person who was a child from within, or someone who was a child. This child, as I should call this being, stood a bit diagonal to the other male and female, facing an angle from the front that crossed paths as an intersection and an angle with what the female was looking at straight, and with what the male was looking at above him. Maybe the child was a robot. Maybe the child was a zombie. Maybe the child was everything in a being that enchanted and amazed the mind into standing in such a situation and wondering how glorifying such a situation may be. (more…)


Public Laundry Machines

Public Laundry Machines

Public laundry machines in Berkeley. Take on December 29th, 2006.

You can see a bit different and a larger version of this picture on my flickr photostream.


Snowman and Santa watching ACE Hardware sign

Snowman and Santa watching ACE Hardware sign

A picture of a Snow Man and a Santa above the sign of a ACE Hardware store on University Avenue. This was taken on January 15th, 2005 in Berkeley, California.

Christmas is a time when most businesses in the country actually start doing some major decorations. This ACE Hardware store was no exception to this fact in 2005; the entire focus of the store during that time period was on the decoration, and not the lighting of the name itself.

I do not remember if the light of the words “Hardware” was not working or if it came on periodically as part of the decoration.