action figures sold separately

NSA_3

Originally uploaded by Billboard Liberation Front.

oh. the blf is one of the things i miss so about the bay area.

it is indeed one of the coolest pieces of guerrilla street performance art i’ve seen in a while. can’t find the link(s) (see below) but this stuff has been happening in other places. the best place for 207 people to freeze in place, however, is of course, grand central station in new york. check it and be amused and inspired:

update: organized by improv everywhere and they have a page with all their videos collected.

update 2: thanks sr/bj for this other great one from manchester
update 3: this youtube page has about 30 others.

i’m too swamped to blog original content at the moment, but have a look at this amazing art (via the wooster collective).

just finished working on the website for my pal Sarah, the amazing artist and printmaker whose shows have wowed us at local galleries and who we are so honored to know.

not sure where to put this where i will remember, so here it is:

i thought i was pretty much certifiable nutso when it came to joss’ amazing creation, and i knew there were others out there who took it way more seriously, obsessed you might say. but i had no idea folks spent this kind of time and energy on these videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 - and i keeps going! woah.

Max Roach died today at age 83.

we are really loving Captain Bogg & Salty’s new album, and it was so fun to see them recently.

“Hey Sol, what do the pirates say?”
“YAR!!”

and the video they made for “pieces of 8ight” has been on their site for a while, but if you’ve not see it, GO NOW!

EAT A LIME!!

not quite sure what this is about, the votergate “about” page seems to be busted. i recall in the 80’s the sidwalk graffiti near the polling places that said, “if voting changed anything, it’d be illegal.” speaking of the bay area, i know i’ve linked to this before, but i always like checking back in on the list. some of my current faves:

• 16 bitch pileup
• brain police
• dreadful children
• go kart mozart
• maylene and the sons of disaster
• space monkey ganstas

i love the bay area and miss it sometimes for sure, but i’m so happy i now live in this crazy f’ing town. [update: and while we are (trying to get off) the subject of electoral politics, we can agree that “Fox is not a credible news outlet and needs to be stopped.” I’d say duh, but Foxattacks.com has some good stuff there for media activists.

so many folks have sent me the link to this woman’s cool timelapse film, i had to post it here. i’ve dreamed up a few different ideas of timelapse projects it would be great to do someday soon: the building of our chicken coop, a well-managed gourmet restaurant kitchen from open to close, a couple having a fight, and a picture a week for a kid growing to adulthood. feel free to comment with links to other cool timelapse stuff.

not only because he wrote and self-publishes these cool books and dvds, not only cuz he did this amazingly inspiring and funny animation called time management for anarchists, not only cuz he organizes these roadshows with poets and performers, but because his video on the similarities between yoga and deathmatch is so funny and poingnant. and i’m not a gamer or a yogi. but i’m inspired. file this under d-i-freakin-y. yay.

kaki king would kick her ass. we saw her a while back, and i didn’t blog about it. but it was incredible. she is a creative force unlike any other i’ve had the privilege to see and hear. if she comes to your town you have to go see her play. punto.

recently we read Barbara Kingsolver’s amazing The Poisonwood Bible aloud to each other. if you have not yet read it, i highly recommend. here’s a bit in the voice of the second oldest daughter, the not-quite-as-smart twin, Leah:

“Where we are headed, there will be no buyers and sellers at all,” my father corrected. His tone implied that Mother failed to grasp our mission, and that her concern with Betty Crocker confederated her with the coin-jingling sinners who vexed Jesus till he pitched a fit and threw them out of church. “Where we are headed,” he said, to make things perfectly clear, “not so much as a Piggly Wiggly.” Evidently Father saw this as a point in the Congo’s favor. I got the most spectacular chills, just from trying to imagine.

of course besides being rich writing and an engaging story, it’s a compelling way to tell the history of the civil war and CIA coup. Kingsolver guides us, using the lenses of the wife and daughters of an extremely uptight Baptist preacher, through the history of the Congo and Zaire of the 1960’s and 70’s.

the day we finished the book, i got wind of this news regarding the millions that have died in the war since 1998. as the author says, the conflict serves the economic interests of the west, so the suffering goes on.

i was also totally fascinated with one of the books more tangential, but quite meaningful characters: the driver ants.

• the university of exeter bug club points out that they can eat up to 100,000 animals a day.
• antcolony.org says that “driver ants of the Savanna consume more animal matter than all of the larger super predators combined!” and has a piece on them by the dude who wrote the book on driver ants.
• Science Frontiers looks at their collective intelligence
• an american museum of natural history entomologist has this detailed page, with photos.

the other night we watched the collection of very cool experimental films by Matt McCormick. trippy. thought provoking. not snooty.

if you are in the Bay Area, check it out! tiffany will be exhibiting with other artists at the Backroom Gallery at Adobe Books, 3166 16th street, (between Valencia and Guerrero). the show is open until the end of May and there’s a reception on March 28, 7-11pm. update: tiffany’s poem is also now up.

i’ve posted recently about poets and poetry writing in the face of war. add these irrepressible voices to the mix: Rob Brezsny’s Painful Blessings (also see his “War is Obsolete” links in the sidebar), the folks collected at PeaceLines, and a new one which i’ll post later today by our pal Tiffany.

i’m not really sure where we are at, in our efforts to thwart bushco. from the escalation of this war already in progress. i know there are many daily efforts, some of which i’m involved in, and there is the big stuff happening march 15. but i’ve had a gnawing feeling that we are floundering. i think that feeling goes away when i get on my bike.

i’m not a very prayerful person, but after reading the poem by Ellen Bass, i’m reminding myself that in addition to all that other stuff, i can make every sentence i type, every fold i make in this rebate form, every kibble of dog food i scoop, and every wire i connect a prayer for peace.

if you are in the LA area, mark you calendar. go. get inspired. my old pal Stanya is doing a new show called downdiverdown at diverseworks (scroll down for show description). critic F. Lennox Campello once described Stanya’s work, saying

Once again I must admit that I went into San Diego’s famed “Sushi” performance space with a bit of a prejudiced mind. After all, I’ve been to so many vapid “performance art” wastes-of-time, that I’ve pretty much decided that most of this genre is neither (a) art nor (b) performance. Leave it to energetic, funny, loud, sexy, slightly mad and hugely talented Stanya Kahn to change my mind in one brilliant swoop! Kahn, who writes her own scripts for these demented performances, is an interdisciplinary performer and writer from San Francisco whose work/performance Delirium has played in front of sold out audiences in San Francisco, New York and Dallas.