Today I’m watching (on television) this year’s San Francisco Pride Parade (which was supposed to kick off with Dykes on Bikes at 10 a.m., but it’s already 10:15 — hey, we’re on Gay Standard Time!). This year the parade aligns beautifully with Stonewall Day, the 28th; the Stonewall Inn riots in NYC took place 45 years ago, in 1969, providing impetus for the growing movement towards gay liberation on many fronts.
The 28th was also, alas, Sarajevo Day, the anniversary of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, an event that, improbably, set off the extraordinary tragedy that was the Great War (World War I, as it later came to be known). One hundred years ago yesterday, a dreadful monument to human folly.
Ah, 10:30, and the dykes are off. For the moment, things are good.
(Linguistic note from one of the parade’s announcers: “I hardly ever use the word dyke, but at the Pride Parade it’s DYKE DYKE DYKE!” Fashion note: there are Dykes on Bikes proudly wearing tiaras.)
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