Honestly, my phone rang off the hook yesterday, and every reporter who called me began the call by laughing hysterically. As civic marketing strategies go this ‘make-yourself-look-petty and incapable-of-learning-gracefully’ campaign is certainly paying off. I should really send the darlings at Mainstreet Martinez a thankyou note, because the beavers haven’t got a story in the SF Chronicle since 2009, and we didn’t even have to throw a festival or take anyone to court for this!
Let’s be reasonable. I wasn’t crazy about the beaver on the mural in the first place and I’ll tell you wby. It makes the city look to REASONABLE – as if they eventually saw the light and recognized the beaver as an asset to the community. It erases the gasping struggle that left claw marks down the length of Castro street where we had to drag them kicking and screaming every inch of the way to even approach doing the right thing. The mural inclusion of the beaver was a beautiful, responsive, act of ultimately false advertising right in the middle of town. It made our leaders look GOOD and even though we ultimately depend on them and want them to BE good, we don’t want them to get away with appearing to be good when they haven’t earned it.
So, in retrospect, this bit of participatory theater beaver cover-up is a more honest, community minded depiction of our history than anything the artist could have painted. And once again, Martinez shows to the world that its community heart is in the right place but its civic head is too busy (cutting off its nose to spite its face) to pay attention.
Which I’m never happy about, but as a piece of beaver attention-getting drama, works for me.
Meanwhile in the actual beaver world, Sherri Tippie and Mike Callahan are delivering their speeches today at the Living with Wildlife Agenda Conference. Their presentations are in the afternoon, and they met last night for dinner with the Canadian Documentary filmmakers who are interested in changing the story about beavers in the country. The entire venue got twice as big as it was planned and had to be move to a new setting. You can imagine how jealous I am that I can’t be there. I expect reports back from them and from Adrian Nelson who is kicking off the beaver discussion and I’ll let you know what I hear.
In the meantime guess what arrived at my house yesterday? I’ll give you a hint. The last word is Manifesto and the first word ain’t communist! I’ll be pouring through the pages post haste, and make sure I let you know when I get to the good parts.
As if that wasn’t enough good news, I just received Ian’s 7th beaver creek Episode. Enjoy!
