Exquisite Dérive by Juliette, Supine ⠮⡽⣪Rocket
July 6th, 2011 9:41 PMThe words I (Juliette) am about to type are completely fictionalized, but generally summarize how the conversation went.
Juliette: Hey, wanna go eating/wandering this Saturday?
Mitchell: Um... not really...
Juliette: Aww. You suck.
Mitchell: Oh, wait, we could do an Exquisite Dérive! That's wandering!
Juliette: ... That's exactly what I just suggested, just with chalk.
Mitchell: Yes! It's great!
Juliette: I have no idea why simply adding chalk makes you okay with this idea, but I'll take it.
So then we did eventually it.
Today, in fact.
It starts in front of the Arboretum, right inside the park at 9th and Lincoln (San Francisco), and ends on 8th Avenue between Irving and Judah. The first section goes around Golden Gate Park and the second goes down
Along the way we stopped at Holy Gelato for some delicious and unusual flavors. While they were out of their goat cheese flavor (Juliette: I nearly shanked the guy who walked out before us when the counterperson said he'd taken the last bit of it), we enjoyed other flavors: peach champagne and vanilla for Juliette, honey lavender and blackberry cabernet for Mitchell.
We also pointed some arrows into stores we didn't actually visit, to spice up the journey for any followers. One led into Arizmendi Bakery, another into Great Stuff (looking back, we probably should have visited that one, but the allure of gelato was strong). We also gave followers a choice of gelato at Holy Gelato or a massive, delicious, and cheap apple fritter at Donut World. They're the size of my hand outstretched and only $1.75. Yum!
This praxis will grow later, but we wanted to post it ASAP so it can be continued before the chalk gets taken, or the arrows get walked/rained off. You can see the pictures below for a glimpse at the trail. (they are being uploaded as I type) Also, we'll add a google map of the route later on. If you add another leg to the trail, message one of us and we'll add you to the praxis. The bigger the dérive, the better!
Go forth and continue it!
In the beginning...
START HERE ↑
A few arrows later
We didn't tell them to cross the street...
KEEP ON GRASS
...just to walk on the grass.
Writing stuff
It says "CROSS STREET"
The best kind of arrow
D'awwwww
The Serendipitous Arrow
In the course of our Dérive, Juliette's clothes had numerous encounters with chalk. Completely by accident, one of them created an arrow on her! I (Supine) decided not to secure her to the ground and use her as part of the route, as that sort of thing is generally frowned on in polite society.
Shakespeare Garden
One of the stops along the Great Chalk Railway (ok, now I'm just making things up...). The Shakespeare Garden was also location of the finish line and afterparty for the Journey to the End of the Night on Halloween in SF.
Sunburst Label
See the next picture...
Sunburst
It's an oft-cited fact that most people don't look up. Most don't look down either. Some people don't look at much of anything. But that's not the point. The point is that the ground has a sunburst pattern of paint on it and that's odd enough to deserve some notice, even if it is "down" from the average passerby's perspective.
THE END :(
but...
Huuuungryyyy! Huuuungryyyy! (the wire)
"Add your own path!" But first you have to grab the chalk out of the mouth of a very angry person with very sharp teeth! Hopefully this won't drive people away.
