Hey folks, sorry for the signal loss! It’s been mad busy around here, partly because of the following little experiment I’m planning, with the help of some good friends. In short, for one afternoon I’m going to try to translate the blog “in real life” (IRL).
The only the IRL ‘blogger’ (or blogger-heavy) gatherings I’ve attended myself have been conferences. Media conferences; technology conferences; things like that. In this type of scene, bloggers from across the country (or among many countries) not only get to expound their theories before a live, half-listening-half-Tweeting audience, but can also lock screen-addled eyes with many writers theretofore befriended — or offended — exclusively online. I’ve seen drama erupt at these idea emporiums, but I’ve also witnessed cyberdenizens leap over tables to greet each other, practically converging midair in an embrace of mutual affection, admiration, and I-can’t-believe-it’s-really-you.
For my own shindig, though, I want to go in a different direction. Very chill, more like a housewarming or offbeat birthday party than a serious networking meet-and-greet. Although there are plentyofonlinewriters and creators I’d love to meet in person someday (and many wonderful ones I’ve already had the fortune to know), most everyone invited to Kloncke IRL are people I’ve known offline for a while. Here’s the email I sent out about it (well, a slightly less colorful version) to my local peeps. Faraway compas, I love you and wish you could be here! My address has been changed for this version because, well, I don’t want it circling around, you feel me? But I’m posting it here because I occasionally meet people in the Bay who’ve read Kloncke but don’t know me personally (yet). If that’s you, shoot me an email, and come on out next Saturday! Love to have you.
dear amazing wonderful human friends.
as most of you know, i make a blog called Kloncke.
i know you know about this blog because many of you have left rad, sweet, insightful, and sometimes hilarious comments there.
i appreciate this a whole lot. i appreciate YOU a whole lot!
and so, as a small means of saying thanks for reading, sharing, linking, and just being your fabulous selves, i want to warmly e-vite you to a gathering in my home, In Real Life (IRL).
what can you expect at such an event?
live incarnates of the cyber version; including:
vegetarian and vegan homemade treats
photographs, available by donation
group meditation
a reading of my recent guest column in make/shift magazine, on buddhism, feminism, and resistance
a “blogroll” table featuring your political, artistic, and spiritual lit to share or display (bring some!)
the colorful walls of our apartment
chillin and building with other lovely folks
Kloncke IRL
Saturday, October 15th 3–5pm (Reading at 4pm) 555 33rd Street, Oakland * * *
this event will be free (of course!) but please bring your own mug or thermos (for tea) and, if you can, a cushion to sit on. (we’ll also have a handful of chairs.) unfortunately our apartment is up one flight of stairs with no elevator or ramp; please let me know if this will be a problem for you, and we can try to work something out.
also, please arrive scent-free so my peeps with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities can come and enjoy themselves without getting sick!
finally, Our place has limited space! Please RSVP so we can have a sense of numbers, and calculate how many walls to knock down.(j/k :) feel free to RSVP-plus-one or two, but don’t roll through with a whole posse. our kitten Eloise will be acting as bouncer, keeping careful track of the guest list.
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thanks, love, take care, see you soon, be well, and call or e-mail me with any questions,
katie loncke
More to come this week online: the next Newsies post on how the courts are stacked against us, inspired by a frustrating but illuminating experience this morning before a judge. Stay tuned. :)
I hear that in Narcotics Anonymous, they advise people starting or re-starting recovery to avoid taking a lover. Human relationships are complicated and fraught. First, start with a plant. If you can keep a plant alive and healthy, then you might be ready to adopt an animal. If you can care for the animal for a good while, then you might open to the possibility of a romantic partner.
In some ways, companions are mirrors for our own behavior. Can we water a plant faithfully? Can we walk a dog consistently, and clean out a cat litter box regularly? Can we respond reliably to the needs of another being?
And in other ways, companions remain true to their own nature. For instance, if a cactus plant needs to be constantly avalanched with sunlight, it might just go ahead and die in our small dark Seattle apartment. No matter how tender our plantly serenades, or how perfectly calibrated our soil-dampening schedule, this thing needs sun, and sun we ain’t got.
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Last week I brought home three Haworthia plants, of a genus native to Southern Africa. I’m not sure how well they’ll do in our house: one on the kitchen windowsill, one on the dining table, and one in our bedroom, brightening our meditation space (which I’ve temporarily surrendered to a small but persistent faction of the invasive Argentine ant supercolony that has overtaken the West Coast).
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On Thursday, Ryan and I went to the Berkeley city animal shelter with our friends Kate and Rane, and after hours of tough deliberation (so many cats to love = virtually impossible to select just one), signed the paperwork for a semi-feral black kitten, two months old. She’ll be spayed Monday morning and then come home with us, sequestered in the bathroom until she gets comfortable enough with us, her bed, litter box, etc., to finally roam the apartment. I hope she likes it here.
So yeah, co-adopting an animal. How adult-like. It’s nearly two years that Ryan and I have been together, including nine months in this apartment. He’s lived with a partner before. First time for me. I watch myself adjusting to coupledom.
Polaroid by Anastasia. More than 20 people came out to flyer under hot Oakland sun.
In a crucial step for Mel’s fight to win back his job and improve conditions at the site where he had been working as a security guard, over 20 people from the still-fledgling East Bay Solidarity Network staged an all-day fact-finding and outreaching session at the entrance to the offices of ABC Security: Mel’s former (and hopefully future) employer. Today was payday, and workers were coming to get their checks. As they entered and exited the long driveway leading to the private-property offices, we distributed our flyers explaining Mel’s fight. In a few hurried words, we tried to agitate* ABC guards by asking them how they felt about their job (most: from so-so to shitty) and what ever happened to that raise they’d been promised (three years and no sign of it). Some of the guards were hella down for what we’re doing (quote: “Yeah, the company doesn’t care if people die”), and their ire toward ABC’s owner only increased when we showed them photos of her mansion in the Oakland hills.
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Most importantly, though, the workers aided us by providing names of sites that employ ABC guards. Now that we’ve collected this client list (ranging from apartment complexes to warehouses and a golf course), we can use it to apply economic pressure to the company, escalating the fight to serious levels.
One of the highlights of the day, for me, was seeing Mel stand up to the supervisor who got him fired, with ten of us standing there to support him. Bolsters my hope that our group is helping shift the balance of power further toward the lowest-paid workers, and away from managers and millionaire CEOs.
Waiting for workers to pass through the driveway afforded us time to connect with each other, too. These are some lovely, vibrant people with great visions of building solidarity in the East Bay and beyond. (Earlier morning conversations focused around movements in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, and how we might ally with / extend them here in Oakland.)
Anyway, I’ll keep you posted if/when we post an official account on the EastBaySol blog, but just wanted to share some of the joy of the day! Hope you’re well, friends.
Spent today shopping for an East Bay Solidarity Network sign-making party, agonizing for an embarrassingly long time over what color (and heft) of banner fabric to get, and what color felt for the letters, and later (with William) what font to use. But now it’s finished — grommets and all — and looks F%*@IN’ SICK, if I do say so myself. :)
Between printing the letters, cutting them out, tracing them onto the white felt, and then cutting out the felt and gluing the letters onto the banner, our core organizers also called all the people on our phone tree to mobilize for the next action, coming up on Wednesday. Cooperating on mini-projects over weeks and months is cultivating a beautiful ease among us. We crack each other up; we respect each others’ opinions. We brew each other tea. (Louise, if you’re reading this: we will miss you!)
Next week, after the action, I’ll share photos of the fight-specific signs we made. Right now it’s time to sleep the deep, delicious sleep of the DIY-satisfied.
Friends, I’m going through a down time, and I think it shows on the blog. Offline, I’m having various conversations, and even thoughts, which, for various reasons, I’m choosing not to share in this space — at least not yet.
Part of the issue, I think, is that I’m starting to develop a nagging sense of what I should be posting. More political writing, essays, analysis, etc. The sense of play I brought here, especially in the beginning when I was specifically trying to avoid political blogging, is evaporating.
So for a time, I’m gonna give myself a break and just post little things that make me smile.
Like this light in the sky, which literally stopped me in my tracks as my friend Sierra and I passed the SF main library at Civic Center, on our way to a show unknown to me at the time. (Sierra was surprising me for my birthday.)
Feeling a bit sick today, but wanted to share a few fotos from this weekend’s meeting-slash-potluck. Originally conceived as a mini reportback and collaborative skillshare between San Francisco Solidarity Network and East Bay Solidarity Network, only one SF member was able to show, so we pumped her for a lot of info. :) And sat around eating homemade vegan cornbread, spicy green bean and potato salad with caramelized-onion-mustard dressing, vegan mango lassi, risotto, brownies, and Mel’s sweet potato pie that will “make your arms go up in the air.”
Still tongue-tied for the moment (though I did give a radio interview today, for the community station, on my blogging art practice and its connection to social justice). Click the photos to enlarge; they’re better that way. Especially that phenomenal fern.
My fellow student Doug — a film, photography, and lighting teacher — showed us some incredibly beautiful images today where he made photographs of the ocean look like abstract paintings. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to fool around with my camera, trying to teach myself this new way of looking at things.
My images didn’t quite achieve abstraction, but ‘messing up’ on purpose — “making the familiar strange” — is a not-too-boring and awfully enjoyable way to spend an hour.
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The Practice of Contemplative Photography, a book by Buddhist meditators Andy Karr and Michael Wood, who themselves were inspired by some of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s photographs, has been calling my name for over a year now. Time to finally check it out of the library and practice some of its exercises. (They used to have a web site with exercises and example submissions, but I can’t find it anymore . . .)
Kloncke 