With the slogan We Are The Crisis, California’s public and private universities, college and community college campuses are experiencing a mass wave of radicalism and revolutionary heat unseen in like forever. With whole academic departments and unions acting in solidarity with occupiers and strikers, the planned actions for tomorrow (March 4th) are gonna be interesting to say the least.
Get hip to the goings on in your area, how you can support the struggle, and the underlying issues at stake here.
In the Golden State with massive public sector cutbacks all ready in effect and more looming, with privatization schemes afoot in many cities and municipalities, with contract labor unemployment and under-employment the norm, with incessant rise in fees and costs, with stagnation and cons in Washington and Sacramento, the future has all ready slipped away. Now’s the time to act.
The Llano Del Rio working group’s “Map For An Other LA” (pictured above) is now available free.
The full-color, two-sided map sites and describes locations that support, dream, act and aid in the creation of an other Los Angeles. Beekeepers, greywater operators, hacker spaces, cooperatives, collectives, art spaces, radical places, gardens, swimming holes, cooking collectives, think tanks etc….
Two ways to get the map:
1) If you live in LA County simply email us your postal address and we’ll drop one in the mail for you free (till postage $ runs out)
Contact llanodelrio(at)gmail.com
2) Maps have been delivered to the following and ever-expanding distribution nodes. Pick up a copy or two at these locations around town:
Machine Project
Farmlab
TOW
Bicycle Kitchen
Bike Oven
Echo Park Film Center
Sea and Space
Materials and Applications
Barf Space
We’ll be expanding our distribution universe (to the valley and Westside especially) so keep an eye out.
Ghosts are unwieldy subjects to contend with. It’s as if their ephemeral nature predisposes them to be barely tangible topics of research. The vast majority of evidence used to support the existence of ghosts is subjective: first-hand reports and eyewitness accounts. Despite the fact that forensic science, cultural geography, physics, and parapsychology all suggest that any given area is inscribed with the residue of that area’s history, the hard data on hauntings remains inconclusive.
To make matters hazier, the definitions of ghosts often swirl together with religious beliefs and philosophical assumptions. For example, if we define ghosts as being the spirits of the departed, we are stating clearly that we believe in life-after-death and some notion that separates body and spirit. Whether this notion is Cartesian dualism, Egyptian ka, Polynesian mana, or the yin-world spirits of Taoism, the assertion is that the individual is not indivisible. At the very least we are forced to accept the idea that the self is multiplicitous.
This shouldn’t be such a leap. At any given moment a person can be characterized by many different activities that s/he engages in: mechanic, musician, anarchist, lover, gardener, cyclist, etc. A person doesn’t think of him/herself as a mechanic when s/he’s in the garden, although s/he also doesn’t stop being a mechanic. We are many things to many people in many spheres of activity – simultaneously. But still we remain ourselves. On the most basic level, we live multiplicitous lives every day.
And when we go to sleep at night, it doesn’t end there. Our dreams continue to embroil us in action-adventures that would surely leave us breathless and exhausted if it weren’t for the simple fact that our bodies barely participate in all of the fun. If there is any sort of universal logic that can be applied as a subjective proof for the insubstantiation of the self, it is the simple fact that we all dream, whether we remember it in the morning or not.
To be clear, dreams don’t prove that ghosts are real. Nor does it prove that ghosts are the spirits of dead people. Rather, the travels we undertake when our eyes are closed simply suggest that a meaningful disembodied existence can occur. Even if we dismiss dreams (and ghosts) as immaterial and inconsequential, anyone who has ever experienced a nightmare won’t deny the fact that these visions can cause acute physical and psychological sensations in our waking lives.
But what are ghosts exactly? The incorporeal dead hanging out amongst the living? Reflected light? Psychosis? Atmospheric anomalies? Holographic messages from the future? Alien lifeforms? Osama’s latest WMD (Weapon of Mental Distortion)? Whatever they are, ghosts, like magic(k), pop up, in one form or another, in nearly every culture on the planet, and have been described in legends, myths, and stories throughout history. A popular Chinese attitude towards ghosts is voiced in the age-old expression, “If you believe it, there will be, but if you don’t, there will not.” According to legend, the saying was penned by a scholar named Zhuxi (Song Dynasty, 960 – 1279). Now Zhuxi was such a strict non-believer that he decided to write an essay about the non-existence of ghosts. But, lo and behold!—a ghost showed up to convince him otherwise. The ghost made such a lucid argument, that Zhuxi was forced to reconsider his thesis. In fact, it’s actually the ghost that is credited with authoring the aforementioned expression, and Zhuxi merely wrote it down.
Whether we believe in ghosts as actual paranormal phenomena, or as manifestations of mass cultural imagination, we can agree on some fundamental characteristics of ghosts. For starters, it’s significant to note that many such manifestations consistently take the form of people, or exhibit seemingly conscious behaviors. This could be similar to looking skyward and seeing faces in the clouds; however, there’s one major exception. When we let our minds drift in the cumulo-nimbus we also tend to see things like bears in bathtubs, and inverted Lay-Z-Boys. And we don’t hear ghastly tales of glowing gaseous forms resembling anything quite so banal, or cute and cartoony. Instead, we are most often presented with accounts of haunting encounters that evoke horror, sorrow, fear, anger, remorse, passion, and purpose. Ghosts emerge from the shadows; from dark corners; from forgotten and abandoned recesses. Regardless of whether or not these phantoms are psychological projections or external paranormal phenomena, it’s clear that our collective response to these apparitions is apprehension, angst, and anxiety.
Generally speaking, there are two dominant types of ghost stories: lost love, and grave injustices. The “lost love” category encompasses all of those apparitions who wait endlessly for lovers to return, or visit their living loved ones for comfort, counsel, and last condolences. In the second category, the vast majority of ghost stories hover around a central theme of grave injustices yet to be rectified. Murder. Torture. Betrayal. The plight of this sort of phantom is one of paradox; it seeks to rest in peace, yet refuses to quit the struggle until things have been set right. While the crimes of the past still linger at the site of a haunting, the ghost’s job is to make sure we, the living, don’t ignore it. Their refusal to let injustices be forgotten manifests in a form of spiritual civil disobedience. From silent vigils to shrieks and moans to outright property destruction, these ghosts are paranormal protestors bearing witness to a world gone woefully awry. In their quest for peace, the phantoms that haunt us defy the laws of the material world in acts of otherworldly anarchism. Offering spiritual resistance to the complicit affairs of everyday life, these insurgent souls have little regard for the rules and boundaries that restrict the world of the living.
They defy even gravity itself. Moving through gates and walls, no barrier restricts their attempts to resolve the inequities that torment them—and consequently us. After all, it is the apathy of the living that drives them to disturb the peace, because they cannot rest until the conflict is, once-and-for-all, addressed and resolved. There is no moving on. Not until unsavory events are properly put to rest.
It’s this kind of dissenting spirit that needs to be channeled today. Even Senator Specter (R-PA), whose position on most policies is rather ghoulish, could not sit idly by when faced with the recent legislation surrounding Guantanamo Bay detainees. Like all hauntings, the degree of uncanniness is quite remarkable. It’s only too fitting that the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee be named Specter. And perhaps even more appropriate that he should take issue with the United States’ recent dissolution of habeas corpus (meaning quite literally “(You should) have the body”). Dating back as far as 1305, and included in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, habeas corpus is one of the oldest and most celebrated guarantees of personal liberty. It grants individuals the right to question their detainment and challenge the government on the legality of their imprisonment. By killing habeas corpus, the clock on civil liberties is set back more than seven centuries to a time when judicial courts were simply a king and his dungeons. No wonder Mr. Specter is voicing his disapproval.
The haunting of society by the ghosts of our collective past resonates within a present that continues to manifest grave injustices. Generation after generation, the abuse of power materializes in a reoccurring nightmare, claiming countless victims—collateral damage in a battle to maintain hegemony. Doomed to repeat the tragedies of the ages, these lost souls insinuate their desires and anxieties into the world of the living. Each step of the way, these energies inform our thoughts, our dreams, our actions—indeed, every aspect of our existence. Ghosts are an unsettling reminder that the crimes of the past have not yet been resolved. Refusing to quietly fade from consciousness, they demand that their howls be heeded. The residues of injustice permeate the physical, psychological, and parapsychological landscape, inscribing the present with desperate warnings and demands for reconciliation.
Perhaps it’s time for the living to start paying attention to the stirring in the shadows. These aberrations in space, time, and freedom remain inscribed in mind, spirit, and social body, awaiting their release through the discovery and recovery of our own self-determining forces. Can the righteous spirits of the past truly join forces with the living to achieve peace and justice? If you believe it, there will be, but if you don’t, there will not.
EXERCISES
Through methods of divination, channeling, investigation, experimentation, and active engagement, we can invoke those that seem most experienced in dealing with past inequities—ghosts. Here are a few experiments in magic(k) to get you started. As always, please let us know how it goes by emailing to: goodluck at tacticalmagic dot org
1. Summoning ancestral spirits for guidance and inspiration is an age-old practice re-popularized in the ’70s through Milton Bradley’s mass production of the Ouija board. But you don’t need to jump on eBay to get a piece of the action. Make your own walkie-talkie to the spirit world by covering any smooth surface with the letters of the alphabet, numbers 0-10, and the words, “yes,” “no,” “unclear” and “goodbye.” Use another object that glides easily over the surface as your planchette, or pointer. A shot glass, serving spoon, or cell phone will work okay. A generic board will likely attract a general audience. For the best results, craft your set-up with a righteous spirit in mind using items and symbols that the spirit might find appealing. If, for example, you wanted the counsel of Nathan Hale, draw the board on a copy of the Patriot Act. For Harriet Tubman, try replacing the planchette with a broken handcuff. Grab a few friends, dim the lights, and place your fingertips lightly on the planchette. Then, invite the spirits, and begin your supernatural conspiring.
2. The problem with ghosts is not that they won’t shut up, but rather that it took death to get them to speak up in the first place. Is it fear of death that keeps us from voicing our dissatisfaction with the world of the living? Or fear of life? Fortunately, there’s no need to wait for that last breath to start haunting places. Form your own ghost mob and venture out to haunt sites of known social injustices. Banks, police stations, recruitment centers, and chain stores are but a few potential targets. From large-scale occupations by friends in Halloween gore to quiet insertions of tape recorded whispers and groans, a ghost mob can embody suppressed fears and desires whilst banishing the specters of social control.
3. Encounters with ghosts are said to increase during times of social crises and the post-trauma periods immediately following. Most notably, research suggests that more people see ghosts (or at least report them) in wartime and during post-war transitions. If this assessment is accurate, we should expect a barrage of ghost sightings related to Katrina, Afghanistan and Iraq. We are sincerely interested in studying this trend. If you have had paranormal experiences that you feel are related to social crises, please let us know by emailing us at: socialhauntings at tacticalmagic dot org
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The Center for Tactical Magic is a moderate international think tank dedicated to the research, development and deployment of all types of magic in the service of positive social transformation. To find out more, check out tacticalmagic.org
The Miss Rockaway Armada is both a collection of individuals and an idea. At its most basic, the idea is this: we’re going to float down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans on rafts that we built ourselves. The crew can be called many things: artists, musicians, builders, travelers, organizers, dreamers. Ask one of the people who help build and move these crafts for the purpose, though, and you’ll get many answers. But there are some things that we all agree on. We want to create: to invent a new sustainable way to travel, to demonstrate different ways of living and moving that are friendlier to the environment and to each other, to indulge in that essential urge to make something out of nothing. We want to meet people: to learn from new folks along the way, to teach what we know, to share our art, our music and our performance, and to make new friends. Finally, for adventure: to reclaim and reinvent the old American urge to strike out and discover the vast, mysterious land we inhabit and see it for ourselves.
We are floating down the Mississippi River on a raft we built from trash. The catch is that we don’t know much about boats or rivers, and we don’t have any money. We know we are blowing crazy hot air, but if the idea makes your eyes glow like coals then you understand what we’re doing. For the last year we’ve been meeting, making phone calls, holding benefits, drawing blueprints and building like crazy. We collected scrap wood from all over the city and hammered it together piece by piece. We had benefit parties and socked away brown rice and dented cans. We organized mostly out of New York and New Orleans because that’s where we live, but we have folks from the West coast as well as the Midwest.
Here’s the plan: Last year we met in Minneapolis in late July with sections of our raft in tow. We pieced together our pontoons and filled them with salvaged blocks of foam. We made it beautiful and tied on anything that would float, adding it to our junk armada, our anarchist county fair, our fools ark. Our precious cargo is everything we hold dear: pieces and parts of the culture we are already creating. Our zines and puppets, sewing projects and poster campaigns, mutant bicycles and punk rock marching bands. Plus our thoughts and dreams and irrepressible energy.
In the winter of 2007 a nice bar called Ducky’s Lagoon in Illinois took Miss Rockaway in and dry docked our giant raft. We love them for that. Recently, we plopped Miss Rockaway back in the water with a crane and we’re getting back on the river soon with a bigger and better show, more rafts & boats, more workshops and a good helping of face painting or the kids.
Together we’re floating down the Mississippi river, as far as we can, anchoring here and there to perform, give workshops, and create the big huge stinking spectacle we wished would have stopped in our hometowns. And at each place we’re inviting anyone to contribute performances or workshops of their own.
Our flotilla is built green with precycled materials, rainwater collection, wind and solar power, biodiesel, and dumpstered dinners. If we make it right, everything will run on sunshine and french fry grease. However, we are NOT hippies.
We are a small group of people with extensive experience making big insane projects. In the past we have taken 20-person bands to Mexico, pulled off town square-sized guerrilla theater in Berlin, and fed hundreds of people with garbage and love. We know this idea is ridiculous and impossible. That’s why we’re obsessed with it.
New York Times
By COREY KILGANNON
November 29, 2007 thanks Steve Anderson for the link
A new biker gang is roaming the streets of Richmond Hill, Queens. This crew of mostly teenagers can be seen riding along 103rd Avenue just west of the Van Wyck Expressway. The bikes roar, but the booming sound has nothing to do with engines — because there are no engines. They are ordinary bicycles, not motorcycles, although these contraptions look and sound more like rolling D.J. booths. They are outfitted with elaborate stereo systems installed by the youths.
“This one puts out 5,000 watts and cost about $4,000,” said Nick Ragbir, 18, tinkering with his two-wheeled sound system, with its powerful amplifier, two 15-inch bass woofers and four midrange speakers. It plays music from his iPod and is powered by car batteries mounted on a sturdy motocross bike.
The riders are of Guyanese and Trinidadian background. In those countries, turning bicycles into rolling outdoor sound systems is a popular hobby.
“It’s really big where I come from in Trinidad,” Mr. Ragbir said. “When I first came to New York, I started with two little speakers. People here thought I was crazy because no one here has really ever seen it, except maybe for some Spanish dudes with a radio strapped to their handlebars.”
He added: “People say, ‘It’s the next best thing to having a system in a car.’ But it’s better because you don’t even have to roll down the windows.”
Hands down the funnest march I ever marched happened 8 years ago today. It was a polyamorous procession of the entire “Seattle Coalliton” (busty steel men, enviros, indigenous folks, dreamers and korean unionists) down some broad shoppers avenue on Capital Hill. Some where along the way the whole sh’bang (at least a thousand of us) fueled by the weight of our innevitablity, wandered off the street, onto the sidewalk and straight through the doors of one of those urban malls into a navy blue Gap. Through the atrium we brought our rummble of chants and slogans and drums, transformed it to an echo chamber- the mannequins in the store bopping to the drone of something louder than the big Taiko drums of the Koreans.
Later that evening my brother, this playful dude from Katuah Earth First! and I cruised Seattle in my ‘89 Civic, playing rewinding and then playing again Garry Glitter’s stadium anthem Rock and Roll: Parts One & Two, all the while trying to top it with our own broadcasts of “General Strike Tommorow, Don’t Go To Work”, screamed out the window to any one we drove by. Next day was the blockade that closed down the city for the rest of the week.
Times have changed in the past but we won’t forget
Though the age has passed they’ll be rockin’ yet
Rock and ro-o-oll, rock and roll
Rock and ro-o-oll, rock and roll
Rock and ro-o-oll, rock and roll
Rock and ro-o-oll, rock and roll
Rock and ro-o-oll, rock and roll
Rock and ro-o-oll, rock and roll
Rock and ro-o-oll, rock and roll
(flyer and arm band scavenged from the Denny St. convergence center 11/99)
The growing port militarization resistance movement in Olympia, WA. This footage is only from Saturday, Nov.10th. Actions at the Port of Olympia have been taking place all week.
39 women blockaded the port of olympia, a soldier from ft. lewis approached the gate and asked the protesters if one of them could give him a ride home since he was refusing to drive the military vehicles out of the port. He said “fuck this, I’m not going to kill anybody anymore.” and got a ride back to the Fort. Check www.tacomasds.org for updates.
“Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas traces the searing graphic art made by Emory Douglas (b. 1943) while he worked as Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 until its discontinuation in the early 1980s. The Black Panthers cultivated a strong graphic identity for their group and their politics during this period, bringing their concerns to the public through newspapers, posters, and pamphlets that can often be described as angry, militant, and incendiary.
“The graphic production of Douglas reveals an unmistakable humanism, representing a populace that had been denied access to the American dream but who were emerging from segregation and proudly fighting to assert their rights to the American dream of equality for all. Douglas’s work gave potent visual form to the plight of urban mothers and to the humanitarian work undertaken by the Black Panthers to bring social services to their communities.
“The graphic work that Douglas created for print can also be seen within the context of Bay Area visual production from this period, revealing a kinship at times to work by artists such as Peter Saul or R. Crumb, while also serving as a stark antidote to the hedonism embodied in the posters promoting psychedelic rock across the Bay….
“Organized by artist and MOCA Ahmanson Curatorial Fellow Sam Durant with MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel, this compelling exhibition presents approximately 150 of Emory Douglas’s most influential works. In place of a catalogue, the exhibition will be accompanied by a monographic book on the work of Emory Douglas, edited by Sam Durant and published in February 2007 by Rizzoli.”
Sunday, Oct 21 3pm:
“Emory Douglas will discuss the graphic art that he created for the Black Panther Party during the late 1960s through the early ’80s. Following his talk, Douglas will sign copies of the exhibition’s accompanying publication at MOCA Pacific Design Center.”
Los Angeles
Exhibition at the MOCA Pacific Design Center
10.21.07 – 01.20.08
A part of the underground press movement Rags was published for a year, 1970-71. It covered the worlds of counter-culture fashion with street fashion reports, groovy adverts and a very liberated sense of style. As far as I can tell its print run was all b/w on rag paper.
The December 1970 issue includes “Revolution” (with models acting out scenes from peoples history),”Life Amongst the Amazon Today” (on body modification in Amazonian tribes), “If God Hadn’t Wanted You To Wear a Bra He Wouldn’t Have Invented the Contour Council” (all about “the bra” with super hip writing!!) and “Raggedy Robin Raggedy Jane” (a profile of a Haight Ashbury clown couple).
The SF Diggers went to bat against the hip capitalists in SF but the innocence, creativity and DIY styles displayed in this publication, which seems to have been distributed primarily in underground boutiques, is charming nonetheless. A mystery in its masthead is the listing of “commidify your dissent” artist Barbara Kruger. That name appears as one of two art directors.
Cassandro Tondro has a blog uploading pdf’s of her collection of Rags. Check it out!
You know these guys… they’re the ones responsponsible for “Patriotism!” Anyone watch Transformers or play America’s Army or go to some military sponsored event? Well the flacks responsible for foisting this garbage on your imagination have offices too, and they’re willing to work with you if you have got the right stuff.
On the West Coast you can find all of the armed forces public affairs liasons and propagandists (including army outreach who proudly serves as a center of influence on the West coast with direct links to the motion picture entertainment industry ) convieniently located in one building in the heart of Westwood at 10880 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 1250 Los Angeles, California 90024-4101.
Stop by for a visit to see what kind of magic you can make.
