MAKE TOTAL MULATTRESS
Fotos
Latest East Bay Sol Action: Sorority Info Picket
Check the latest at the EastBaySol blog — we had a fun, spirited picket that brought together militant workers from domestics to teachers to students to hotel and warehouse workers. I don’t have a photo of the flyer we used but I’ll try to get one and add it soon.
PICKETING AOII
Monday afternoon Bay Sol East kept up the fight in solidarity with former sorority “houseboy” William over in Berkeley, staging an informational picket at Alpha Omicron Pi’s weekly meeting. With handmade signs, a bullhorn, and half-sheet flyers for the sorority sisters, our group of a dozen or so created quite a spectacle on the quiet hillside street. Chants called for “Justice For Domestic Workers!” and urged AO∏ to “Exceed the Expectation” (their motto) and “Cease the Exploitation!”
To cap off the action, we collectively delivered a petition signed by 82 neighbors who support our fight. We’re grateful to local student co-ops for their enthusiasm!
In an extra-special demonstration of solidarity, we were joined on the line by a leader from the ongoing boycott at the Hotel Frank in San Francisco, as well as two visiting members of ¡Ella Pelea!, an Austin-based organization of “students and community members, both queer and straight, multi-gendered and multi-racial” who are fighting for democratic control over the University of Texas Austin. All told, our group included warehouse workers, teachers, students, hotel workers, grocery workers, mothers, writers, and more — demonstrating the diversity of labor that’s possible with a solidarity network model.
If you didn’t get an email or phone call about this action and wanted to receive one, our bad! We’re working hard to get our phone tree to reliably bear fruit. Feel free to send us a strongly worded email demanding that we hit you up next time.
Filler Post
It’s been a rough few days, folks. A really rough few days. No running water in the apartment — and that’s the least of it.
Despite the plumbing obstacles, I managed to whip up a batch of cookies for a cookbook signing -slash- potluck by my culinary crush Heidi Swanson. Her new book, Super Natural Every Day, has already made the NYT Bestseller list after like a week on the market. I didn’t even have time to let the hot cookies cool down before popping two dozen of them into two empty egg cartons (an impromptu innovation in pastry transport) and hopping on my bike to dash across the border to Berkeley.
Those that didn’t make the carton cut found their way over to my friend Noa’s place, with its lovely succulents.
When things fall apart, I’m grateful for generous, loving, and and precious friends, and for cooking. At times when I’m feeling down, or, even more precisely, when I’m focusing very intently on uncomfortable and difficult emotions and experiences, my appetite plummets and gets very particular. I crave fruit and whole-milk yogurt, water, leafy greens, things like that. (Again, this is when I’m bringing mindfulness and patience to the difficulties. When I’m flat-out stressed, and especially rushed, it’s a whole ‘nother matter, and that’s when I turn to the sugar, the French fries, the “numbing” foods, as Noa calls them — not pejoratively, but descriptively.) I feel lucky and privileged that I’m able to feed my healthier, deeper cravings as they arise. So in this case, with little appetite for anything that wasn’t recently growing on a tree, I wasn’t as keen to devour these delightfully tart versions of my favorite jam thumbprint cookies. But the act of creating food for others is grounding and healing, too.
On The Fence
There are always kids playing in our street. Very big difference from living in the Tenderloin, where children are caged up in fenced urban playgrounds. Today I was taking my camera out for a spin before sunset and these guys were all like, “IT’S PICTURE DAY!!!!” I obligingly took some photos and tried to display them on my tiny screen (this bored them almost instantly), and then felt awkward when they resumed their (very normal) punching games. Do I tell them to stop, or just let them do what kids do? I’m telling you, the pressures of social construction in childrearing are way too much for me. (And I’m only half joking.)
Political Choreography
Being sick for over a week means I’m way behind on work, so today’s post is just a tiny glimmer of an idea. Lately I’ve been thinking about choreography as it relates to political action. Now that EBSol is underway, I’ll be participating in the planning of collective direct actions — hopefully for the next year or two. Thinking about this planning as choreography is helping to uplift and inspire me to think creatively.
How can we employ different sounds, smells, textures, and movements into our actions? How can we use space creatively? How can we create productive tension among multiple people in a space?
Not all actions will involve explicit audiences to choreograph for: we’ll be doing our share of postering, flyering, and letter delivery. But even in these simpler actions, are there ways we can bring color and intentional physical movement?
I’m reminded of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s advice about the garb of a warrior:
For the warrior, clothing actually provides an armor of discipline, which wards off attacks from the setting-sun world. It is not that you hide behind your clothes because you are afraid to manifest yourself as a good warrior, but rather that when you wear good, well-fit clothes, your clothing can both ward off casualness and invite tremendous dignity.
Sometimes if your clothes fit you well, you feel that they are too tight. If you dress up, you may feel constricted by wearing a necktie or a suit or a tight fitting skirt or dress. The idea of invoking internal drala [energy beyond aggression inside oneself] is not to give in to the allure of casualness. The occasional irritation coming from your neck, the crotch of your pants, or your waist is usually a good sign. It means that your clothes fit you well, but your neurosis doesn’t fit your clothes. The modern approach is often free and casual. That is the attraction of polyester leisure suits. You feel stiff if you are dressed up. You are tempted to take off your tie or your jacket or your shoes. Then you can hang out and put your feet up on the table and act freely, hoping that your mind will act freely at the same time. But at that point your mind begins to dribble. It begins to leak, and garbage of all kinds comes out of your mind. That version of relaxation does not provide real freedom at all. Therefore, for the warrior, wearing well-fit clothing is regarded as wearing a suit of armor. How you dress can actually invoke upliftedness and grace.
I also remember reading, somewhere, from someone, an invitation to move through the world as though we were exploring a spectacular golden palace. This sense of awe and decorum, of self-awareness that helps us relate to the external world, rather than getting caught up in our own worries. Golden palaces may not exactly be my thing, but I know what they’re getting at. Bringing some air of ceremony, some sense of choreography, can help us engage more deeply with our everyday actions — with people, places, beings, and inanimate objects.
Just thoughts. I’m a believer that political action should be fun and mindful, you know? So we’ll see.
Meanwhile, the weather outside is blowing my mind. Didn’t think they made days like this anymore. Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Happy Pi Day From North Oakland
Do any of y’all celebrate Pi day? π = 3.14 = March 14th! My high school math teachers were the first to introduce me to the holiday, which is honored by eating pie. Sign me up!
This morning I headed down the block to Lois The Pie Queen’s place and picked up a couple slices from the wonderfully warm folks there. Having just read my friend ChakaZ’s thoughtful, incisive piece touching on gentrification in Oakland (a process that often leads to the overthrow of pie queens, and the replacement of barbecue shacks with fancy coffeeshops), it was even more gratifying to support a Black-owned, Black-cultural business that’s been in the neighborhood — and in their family — for 50 years. And clearly not, might I add, as a gimmicky “exotic Southern food for upscale whites” kind of establishment, but as a low-key, proud-yet-humble, neighborly sort of place.
In addition to the beauty above, I also got a piece of banana cream, but a bumpy ride on the bus left it unfit for open-casket photos.
Later in the day, being unable to finish both slices by myself, I would leave the leftover banana cream in its takeout pod in a big paper bag, hidden conspicuously behind a bush in Berkeley. Fortunately, my hopes were realized: a man named Terry found and enjoyed what remained of the treat. Unfortunately, I know that Terry found and enjoyed it because Terry also found my cell phone, which I forgot inside the paper bag.
I must have had some good karma on my side, though, because Terry seems like a really nice guy. Tomorrow we’ve arranged a hand-off for the mobile. I think I’ll bring him another slice from Lois’. He was really wild about that banana cream.
Picket and Protest
Hey friends — sorry for such a late post today! It’s been a whirlwind. Morning tea with a dharma/movement kindred spirit (a revival of Radical Sangha is in the works!); a super-intense two-and-a-half-hour group session with a generative somatics facilitator/counselor/consultant/rad person at the Faithful Fools; being interviewed by someone who’s making a video documentary about the Fools; and now off to prep some work with the Marxist feminist group in honor of International Women’s Day tomorrow.
Life: it’s full sometimes! And I was in a similar gear last Friday when, among other things, I showed up to join a crew of about 20 supporters of a rank-and-file picket of health care workers (above) who were illegally fired for going on strike. More on their inspiring (and victorious!) battle, including videos of Friday’s picket, here. Then, most of us supporters rolled out to a downtown Oakland rally against the gang injunctions. Here are some photos of each; sorry for the lack of commentary, but hopefully tomorrow I’ll have time to add a little more.
hugs,
katie
Snow Again Today
Three words: art school overload.
Residency is Thing after thing after thing after thing. Intense and ephemeral, like summer camp.
And so I’m grateful for anchors: daily sitting (yay!), checking in with Ryan most nights, and the endless variety of snowscapes.
Good Goddard
Hey friends,
I don’t know if you remember, but I started going to art school. Yeah, like a year ago. I haven’t talked much about it, partly because I took a semester off in order to stay on at the Fools. Now I’m back for my second residency in Vermont. Residency is sort of a week-long, intensive, participatory, interdisciplinary art festival -slash- collaborative curriculum planning workshop. It’s wonderful in all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons: including the absurdly beautiful setting.
I say “absurdly beautiful,” and I guess there really is this in-credible dimension, for me, being on campus — almost like being in a lucid dream. Running late for a secret book-making meeting earlier today, I decided to leave the plowed path and take a shortcut over a hill, to the front entrance of one of the little dorm buildings. Somehow I assumed that I would simply walk over the snow. Like it would mostly compress under my boots or something.
Instead, of course, I end up thigh high in powder (not saying much since my legs are short — but still). Do I stop and go back? No. Just kept sloshing through, like, Oh well, guess this is just part of walking in snowy places: stumble-hop-crashing around and getting all soaked in the legs.
My “snow-pas” (oh god, i know) happened to occur just outside the picture-window of the room where my friends were making books. I loved the jolly way they laughed.
Snowed In (By Choice)
Boston. (Roughly.) Glued to the radio for both weather and Egypt. Watching movies; bundling up. Making food; eating food. Lovin’ on a kitt’en. Drinking tea. Sleeping a LOT. And catching up with this one.
Kloncke 