i like weekends that i can't even hope to condense down into a concise story or list. being in nyc is always such an interesting feeling, it's easy to convince myself that it's the center of the world (though it might just be all the people who have convinced themselves that they are the center of the world crowding the sidewalks and messing with the gravity—though that might just be a few people with a lot of negative energy to throw around). there's just a certain atmosphere, a unique quality to even simple things like the facades of buildings that intrigues and inspires. the last time i was there was the end of the summer and i can't honestly say that anything really felt different this time, besides things that feel different everywhere or in boston/other places as well (american flags ev-er-y-where) and besides the way places subtly change constantly and the way we change within and around them.

of course things were a little weird because of the world economic forum meeting. the whole weekend there was an unsettling police presence everywhere, friday night the streets surrounding washington square park were lined with police vans in response to a vigil being held there, and police were stationed outside of starbucks, gaps, mcdonalds, etc. for most of the weekend.

saturday the el's and i (-eanor & -issa) went to check out the anti-wef march. i haven't taken part in very many demonstrations, partially because i've never felt entirely right in those situations, and i'm not sure why except that there is a certain idea of "what activism looks like" and i never felt like i fit in with it or i never really wanted to fit in with it (because of what it often does "look like"). in any case, it was good to actually go to something instead of reading about it later, experiencing a demonstration on that level firsthand was important if only for the reminder that our "rights" aren't always played out as advertised (it is debatable as to whether we have any rights left after the passing of the us patriot act).

at the march, it seemed that there might be as many cops as protestors and many times i felt like we were rather uncomfortably surrounded by them. oftentimes key parts of the route (i.e., groups of people who looked like the black bloc) were lined with cops standing shoulder-to-shoulder, police vans would drive across the march route with sirens wailing and lights on. there were a few "moments" before the march started where it appeared that the police were entirely provoking the crowd, later it was described as "shoving matches" somewhere, but it seemed much more like the police pushing into the crowd and then grabbing anyone who fought back. we never saw anyone doing anything that would constitute anything but "peaceful," but yet people were pepper sprayed and dragged off. i think i read somewhere that around 150 people were arrested? it was really shocking to see how law enforcement approaches legally permitted assemblies, namely by intimidating people to hopefully make them go home.

on the way back to boston, our bus driver kept updating us on the score for the superbowl, since the patriots (boston's "home team") were the underdogs in the match. we got to hear the last minute of play over the intercom, though understandably most of the bus was only mildly amused (why would they have taken a bus that left nyc at the beginning of the game and arrived in boston after it was over otherwise?). i didn't really think much about it until we got to harvard square and part of the road was closed off. coming around the detour, i could see that the center part of harvard square was full of people but i couldn't tell what was going on. there were police cars blocking off the road to divert cars and i saw one ambulance; there were maybe a few cops standing around at a distance, but a most likely drunken crowd was basically taking over the street for no apparent purpose. i started walking home since i didn't really want to find out what was going on there firsthand, and even though it was after midnight at this point, there were still people driving up and down massachusetts ave with their car horns blaring.

on the radio the next day i hear about how crowds of people with questionable sobriety congregated in a few places around town; in downtown boston cars were vandalized (in one report a car was flipped over), and all the while the police kept their distance. it's such a marked contrast to what i saw in nyc, at a legally permitted protest where i didn't witness anyone being aggressive or threatening the safety of others (admittedly, this doesn't mean that it didn't happen, it was hard to know what was going on during the march, especially since it kept growing).

i can't help but question what this country could be like if people cared that much about their civil rights.