I receive on average half a dozen e-mails from Bay Area activists* daily. Almost all of these unsolicited notices are for vigils held at various locations in Berkeley, Oakland, or San Francisco. In addition to the daily notices, I receive occasional urgent alerts on matters of utmost importance--generally one or two a week.

Being a middle age man, it's difficult for me to imagine the considerable energy expended by regular attendees of these emotional events, but perhaps piety activates some energy-supplying glandular secretion I'm unaware of, or maybe the drive to acquire status within the moral milieu is something akin to cornering energy markets or establishing religious missions in the Fourth World; once you're on the treadmill, it's hard to get off.

As hobbies go, I suppose, vigil mania does little harm, although I suspect that after several years of this frantic activity, the pointlessness of it all might drive some to depression or violence. Still, as an experience of social interaction, it's possible that some participants will eventually recognize the recurrent theatrics as ineffective role-playing ascribed to concerned but confused citizens. If this is true, then as an inadvertent contributor to subverting spectacle, it is a welcome addition to modern madness.