the noise of a helicopter policing the skies, sounds as if it keeps on making circles above our house, as if it were that damned mosquito one doesn’t manage to shake off. sirenes of police cars. halloween 2006 in Santa Cruz. because last year hell broke loose and downtown Santa Cruz was the scene of riots unseen in this small town, this year the police made sure that everybody knew last year’s gig was not to be repeated. warning adds in the local newspapers, massive law enforcement troops all around, extra lights on Pacific Avenue and a helicopter.<\/p>\n
tonight was my cooking night, so i do a pumpkin and butter squash (from our garden still!) risotto to stay in the orange tune. we didn’t really plan on disguising, but as the trick-or-treaters come and the excitement in our kitchen grows, i all of a sudden see a black cat where mar\u00c3\u00ada stood just a second ago. after dinner, we go all together to stroll down Pacific Avenue. thousands and thousands of people. (and massive police forces.) walking up and down Pacific Avenue to show themselves, to look at others.<\/p>\n
i had thought that i wouldn’t like it at all. downtown on an average friday or saturday night, when the streets are full of loud drunk (and puking) kids usually gets me depressed. but this is different. this is not usual santa cruz – people come from all over the valley and the hills. never seen santa cruz so brown, so latino. the air, the glances are filled with tension. the night is still young and we don’t stay long, yet we witness one arrest. i imagine how another set of riots this year might crack open the nicely cultivated weirdness of santa cruz. forget weirdness, this is real, albeit “pre-political” as the arrogant and annoying comrades would say… earlier tonight on the corner of our street, mar\u00c3\u00ada saw a group of latino kids disguised as a gang, looking for action. ah, i feel that i long for it… let this break open, at least for tonight, at least on halloween, when ghostly presences come to haunt… that politics comes to town in the guise of a ghost, seems more than appropriate. but police is everywhere, it’s scary (oh, this could have been made in a game, if the whisper would have spread: let everybody dress up like a police officer…). i want to sleep now, but i can’t escape the sound of this helicopter that keeps on circling around our house…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
the noise of a helicopter policing the skies, sounds as if it keeps on making circles above our house, as if it were that damned mosquito one doesn’t manage to shake off. sirenes of police cars. halloween 2006 in Santa Cruz. because last year hell broke loose and downtown Santa Cruz was the scene of … Continue reading “halloween”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,34,30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}