I’ve been sliding backwards, but looking forward to that day: the day of my release, when the wind, unleashed, will blow the grey away.

Enough about the weather. I went briefly to the manif against the war in Afghanistan, and was quickly discouraged by the rain. But then, at the "Block the Empire" part of the rally, I was rallied by a marching band. They had some other interesting art performance things happening involving clowns. Looks like an interesting thing to be a part of.

I've sometimes been put off by Block the Empire's self-consciously "radical" rhetoric- but the spirit of playful creativity will transcend such limitations. The chants, which were not infused with such spirit, did not. To my mind, the point of a chant at a march is to concisely and (and, even better, memorably) convey what the march is about. I think that what a chant like "Le capital fait la guerre- la guerre au capital!" (Capital makes war. Make war on capital!) conveys to most people is "Here is a bunch of communists." I don't believe that was, or should have been, the point. Not that I'm a great fan of capitalism myself, but I don't find mere "anti-capitalism" to be very inspiring either.

Soon enough my aversion to continous cold rain under a grey sky won out over the activist spark in me. (The weather keeps creeping back into this) Maybe it's making me crabby and conservative.

But enough about the weather.