DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR BY THE BAY: The San Francisco Standard has some handy Winter Solstitial Holiday Shopping Tips: “Black Market, Black Friday: What $20 gets you at the 16th Street BART plaza. Granted, much of it might be stolen, but it is possible to start your holiday shopping on the sidewalk.” (Emphasis mine.)

Black Friday seems to have become a ghost of its former self. The orgy of Walmart tramplings and riot-adjacent runs on major appliances appear to have gone the way of the plasma TV, amid a wave of big box bankruptcies and a growing distaste for aggressive crowds swiping KitchenAids from each other’s carts.

Retail may be struggling, but the thirst for deals is eternal — especially at BART plazas in the Mission, where unlicensed vendors sell all manner of stuff for cheap. It’s not always pretty: While some folks sell homemade handicrafts and enterprising home cooks hawk empanadas, it’s likely the vast majority of what you’ll find at the plaza is stolen. But many of the people there — buyers and sellers alike — struggle to make ends meet, facing city crackdowns, threats and exploitation. So I spent Black Friday outside the 16th Street station, buying from vendors and getting to know their stories.

In Accordance with the Prophecy:

And in accordance with NPR’s infamous 2020 promotion of the author of a book entitled In Defense of Looting.

Also, keep plenty of eye bleach on hand if you click on the author’s profile. As a commentator at Hot Air noted, “Between the tales of theft and the unapologetic creation of demand for said stolen goods, homelessness and drug abuse and the profile and pic of the she/ they/it reporter/editor, virtually everything wrong with SF is distilled and encapsulated in a single article.”