For weeks Sue had been posting messages to Facebook about the upcoming Peak Oil Art Show in Ross Mirkarimi's office. The first reaction I had was "I want to go to that." My second was "I bet I could make something that would fit in there." To make a long story short, I figured something out and submitted. Then I went to the event. It was a large crowd for Ross's office. Even the hall outside was crowded. I spent most of my time there schmoozing and looking at art, but I did take some pictures.

  

That Oil Age poster behind Marc is very famous among peak oil activists. Variations on it have been around for many years, but that poster is the most authoritative and complete version of the thing I know about. It's so good that when I first saw the thing I spent something like an hour looking at the thing. Those dense text blocks are well written. Then I got two copies, one to post on my wall and one to give away if I ever found a good home for it. If you really want it, email me with an address and what you'll do with it. Best story wins!

     

What I remember of Ross's speech boiled down to "thanks for coming, and thanks for watching the dancers." Then he gave the dancers tokens of his appreciation. I missed the dancing and most of his talk because I was in the other room talking to somebody when it started, and the crowd was way too thick to go through quickly.

     

        

The woman from SF Environment was giving out these great shopping bags. The only catch was that to get one you had to promise to use it at least 120 times. That was the "break even point" for the city between the investment to make the bags (using scrap cloth and legal San Francisco labor) and the investment they would have had to make in disposing of your trashed bags. So far I've used mine once (as of Thursday Dec. 16th) and it worked great. Because of that, if you want to talk me out of it you only have to promise to use it 119 times. Gotta make good on the promise somehow!

Sue (blue sweater) was the curator of the art show on this page. Jean (holding red coat) is the leader of the Peak Oil Task Force. It turned out that the Peak Oil Task Force final report was due to be presented to the Supervisors the following Monday, which made having the peak oil art show now a good way to get the discussion moving in the corridors of City Hall.

     

The guy with the camera strap said his pictures of the event would be on Flickr under "Idea Man".

I remember when Erica and Jean-Marc were dating. Now they have two kids that are growing up fast!

  

  

There were some other pieces of art, but they were in spots that were hard for me to get near so I didn't capture them. Things like the sinister blue and grey one by the Gay Abstract Artist behind the woman who was pouring wine. We kept her busy!

  

I took this picture of city hall on my way home. It's amazing how much Christmas a few red and green filters add to the look.