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.”
Friends, as many of you know, yesterday was my birthday. (Thanks for all the Facebook love!) Is a links list the geekiest self-gift of all time? Possibly. And here we go.
Crazy Wisdom (“A film about the life and times of Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche”). I can already tell I’ll have issues with this film (the trailer shows Pema Chödron justifying Chögyam Trungpa’s sexual affairs with students by saying “he never hid them” — and I’m like, OK, and how did his wife feel about them? And how did it affect the students?), but he’s one of those figures I can’t write off, emotionally. Messy.
Twenty-five feels a bit hazy so far, but I’m pluggin’ away. To all you incredible beings, past and present, who continue to bless me with honesty, support, quotidian hangouts (love those), compassion, food, wisdom, class-struggle education, patience, quirks, meditation, music, and humor . . . thank you.
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 . . .)
The following is from a friend and neighbor of mine. Not sure yet how the resistance and response (alongside healing) will unfold, but I wanted to, first and least of all, amplify their story.
Last night my friend and I were physically assaulted by the security guards at the Q-Bar.
They busted my shoulder and elbow. They damaged my iPod. They called us bitches and laughed at our faces after they slammed me to the ground and dragged me out of the bar.
I am 5’2″ and 115 lbs. The two male security guards were around 6′ tall and 200 lbs. I was sober, no one was drunk or wasted. We were not threatening and we were leaving the bar because the bartenders were calling us bitches and refusing to serve us. DURING DYKE MARCH OF ALL NIGHTS!
Ryan got two consecutive days off (hooray!), so we’re heading south tomorrow to camp in the forest. Before I go, I wanted to quickly post some images of a park in San Francisco. No better, no worse than the “natural” environments we’re about to enjoy? I don’t know for sure, but the camera helps remind me to pay close attention, regardless of preference.
Final zine, y'all! This one arrived to me in the mail as a gift (among many!), along with the usual scholarly correspondence, from my amazingly heartful, talented, and fly poet / professor / academic advisor / friend, Gale P. Jackson.
I love it because
Its content is both instructive and creative, showing “Techniques, materials, How to / Where to [of] Banners, Signs, Floats, theater, Music, songs, chants, puppets, etc.”
It was published in 1985, making it one year older than me
The illustrations and layout are incredible
Some content is time-specific and local, making it political propaganda as well as a DIY manual.
I’ll try to let this one speak for itself. With deep gratitude and appreciation to Gale! Hopefully some of the specific contents will infuse themselves into my organizing, and be reflected there.
What, you thought Zine Week would adhere to linear time?
Just kidding; sorry for the lapse! Today’s zine, from a member of Austin-based group ¡ella pelea!, is especially exciting for its application of class consciousness theory from Advance the Struggle’s Oscar Grant pamphlet (featured on Zine Week Day 2) to the Animal Rights Movement (ARM) in the U.S.
Last month I talked a little bit about transformative justice and the dope workshop that folks from the Philly Stands UP collective offered here in Oakland. This zine is one I picked up at that workshop: kind of like a primer for the PSU model.
There’s a lot I like about this zine. Its unpretentious candor. The ways it contextualizes itself, pointing to overlapping work that others are doing. (The final chapter is an excerpt from Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology.) The way it foregrounds survivor support in its Points of Unity:
We are a group that survivors can come to for help and support. We will always support survivors and ensure survivor autonomy, where they will always be in control of how a situation is dealt with.
. . .
We do not support the prison system as a viable means of rehabilitation for perpetrators, but we will always support a survivor’s wishes and engage the legal system on any level necessary.
Sorry for the late post again! Today’s zine is already a Bay Area radical classic, examining the politics around the recent wave of struggle following a caught-on-tape police murder. A white cop shot a young Black Oakland resident in the back, while the young man was lying face-down on a subway platform. (This officer, by the way, may be released from prison next month, having served less than a year of his 2-year sentence.)
Published in its original version back in mid-July of 2009, the new updated edition contains the same dope analysis of the role of nonprofits, histories of rioting, racist policing and more, plus a new preface, more art, and a supplementary article: “Moving Beyond Violence vs. Nonviolence.”
In my forthcoming guest column in make / shift magazine, I draw on A/S’s analysis of the Oscar Grant movement to illustrate my own alternatives to liberal, relativist interpretations of Buddhist teachings. You’ll have to wait til the magazine comes out to read my application of their deft explications, but in the meantime why not throw down a few dollars for a copy (just click the Donate button on the Advance the Struggle blog) and print the primary source material yourself? :)
Ink drought in your printer? No worries; you can read the web version, too. Still donate, though!
Kloncke 