Day of the Dead

So, it's a week late, but what are you going to do.

Last week I drove from my office in Oakland over to Laurel's place to go march in the Day of the Dead procession with her and friends. Of course no one was leaving the apartment without the requisite decoration. Even I, your fearful scribe, partook of the facepaint and did my best to represent the face of death.

The procession was awesome. There were thousands of people walking down the streets. About 10-20% were dressed up in some way. Horns, drums and flutes played like a New Orleans Funereal march mixed up with NorCal drum circle. Sage smoke wafted over the crowds and people were lit by the flickering of candles.

After some detours and shortcuts which led us to a little party at a former art studio down a really cool alley, and some confused running around we ran into the head of the march where some Incan(?) dancers performed a insanely energetic tribal dance thing. The amount of flash photography was staggering, so much so that I stopped using my own flash and just relied on the professionals to light the scene for me.

Eventually we made our way over to Garfield park and Laurel and Andy laid there cards and candles at an altar (I had left my card to Michael back in there apartment). Then we wandered around looking for our fellow skeletons and headed for home, with a brief stop at McDonalds for some life afirming dead-cow.

I didn't wash my make-up until got home, which made from some awesome double-takes from the drivers around me.