Saturday, February 4, 2006, 05:13 PM - Travels
So I did a whirlwind trip to Boston this week to participate in a planning meeting for the next stage of MoveOn's Operation Democracy and 2006 field campaign. I spent as much time on a plane as I did in Boston. Last Sunday I went up to the mountains, and probably was in the car for as much time as I was on the snow. But all that time in transit I think helped me be fully on board with my transition into campaign mode for the next 8 months. It should be an intereting adventure...Saturday, February 4, 2006, 05:06 PM - Politics
So yesterday Angela and I were waxing nostalgic about the days when we thought the Super Bowl was just another good reason to have a feminist protest (still believe that domestic violence is worse on Super Bowl Sunday? Well that's why we have Snopes. Not that we shouldn't be raising awareness about domestic violence every damn day.) This year the strangest protest idea I found was a group of street preachers going to Detroit to condemn Super Bowl idolatry. I have to admit to being morbidly fascinated by these guys - they're this freaky blend of populist economic analysis (it's obscene to have the Super Bowl in steadily declining Detroit, the homeless have been swept behind the Potemkin village, etc.) and religious insanity - God will not forgive porn star parties and abortions. Why can't we get some decent religious people to raise hard economic questions, without going off the deep end into hellfire? It does seem like our national amnesia has kicked in full bore...I mean, what would it be like to watch the game if you had been one of the people trapped in the Superdome in New Orleans? Should we really be able to have an uncomplicated relationship with a football stadium so soon?Friday, January 27, 2006, 03:28 PM - Politics, Technology
I am tossing around in my head the different methods and technologies we can use to support nontraditional collaboration for social change. Much of my recent extracurricular interest has been in how to make new technology work for this process (dotOrganize and its goal of threading together the best of the new technologies in an accessible package for social change organizations, Net Squared, etc.). Today I was on a conference call with some powerful women, participating in the formation of a new collaborative. I enjoyed the atmosphere of openness to new ideas, although some people were holding firm to their usual strategies. I think the project may be an opportunity to build a technological framework (or at least an opening)(damn, now I'm getting all feminist/essentialist) within which to encourage new kinds of collaboration - sharing resources without diminishing individual agendas. That has to be some of the benefit of working on women's issues, right? I'm certainly ready to abandon the territoriality and turf wars that come with old school organizing. And I think that the ever-burgeoning number of women online allows us to operate outside of the limited-resource, constituent-hoarding model that's developed already in the online org world. I'd definitely like to use my list development expertise to start a chain of engaged women, participating in whatever way they find most appealing. The process of the call was relatively unstructured, but we emerged with some ideas for how outcomes could drive the next steps of determining how to work together.... exciting and I hope fruitful work. Like looking over a hill and seeing a (limitless?) ocean of possibilities.Thursday, January 26, 2006, 02:41 PM - Books
Is one of my favorite novels. And I have to admit that I'm feeling like I was so ahead of the curve....one of my two favorite undergraduate products was "Why Tristram Shandy is a Postmodern Novel". Who wants to go see the new flick with me? Thursday, January 26, 2006, 02:17 PM - Dancing
Fayard Nicholas died a couple of days ago - he and his brother were some of the greatest tap dancers, especially in their dancing together. Within the swing scene, there's been some resurgence and interest in the last few years in tap - really one of the great american art innovations, and sadly underappreciated by most. There's a too sweet clip of the young brothers here. Tuesday, January 24, 2006, 05:41 PM - Friends, Books
My dear friend Eric Martin is reading Thursday, February 2nd at The Lab - he kicks things kick off at 7:00. He'll be reading from his book-in-progress Little Miss Zapata (or whatever he ends up calling it). I've heard him read from this one before, and it's delectable stuff. You may remember him from such wonderful novels as Luck (recently out in paperback) and Winners (for when you want to get your Foreign Cinema dot-com nostalgia on). He tells me: "I don't know what I'll read from yet but you might
get a glimpse at the lost tribes hiding out in 400-year old sewers, a teenage girl in drag chased through Mexico City's rock n' roll market, or a Texas cowboy fighting a peyote lord of the north."
Other folks reading include Juvenal Acosta (who just finished a book about the last Mexican vampire), Stephen Beachy (who broke the J.T. Leroy story), Marianna Cherry (whose name is never far from the word "erotica") and Charlie Girl Anders.
Monday, January 23, 2006, 06:13 PM - Politics, Friends
If you can stand it, take a look at the MSF list of some of the horrendous things going on in the world that are being ignored:list of the 10 most underreported humanitarian crises.. My friend Jane Coyne has been working with MSF for the last year or so, doing post-tsunami relief in Sri Lanka and working with malnourished children in a couple of places in Africa. I have huge respect for her work, and for this organization - they seem a little less strangled by bureaucracy than many aid groups, and their quick response to crises like the Pakistan/ Kashmir earthquake is impressive. Monday, January 23, 2006, 03:10 PM - Travels, Technology, Art
Despite my best efforts to begin transforming into a Silverlake post-urban LA denizen, the most interesting event I attended this weekend was a small Saturday night SF-proud SRL performance in the parking lot at the end of the row of Chinatown galleries. There's something about the immolation of a vomiting dragon/dinosaur head backed by the roar of an airhorn hovercraft that's just sublime. Makes me think that maybe I'll fit right in in LA, after all. Picture is taken from our latecomers' perch in the garage across the street- perhaps a lifetime of parking structure art spectation awaits me in the Southland?
Wednesday, January 18, 2006, 04:57 PM - Food
It's been a good week for home cooking. Sadly the moussaka portrait I took last night with my new birthday toy was too dark, but you'll have to trust me that it was delicious. I was the lucky first dinner guest at my little league-era friend Augi's new apartment downtown, and she and Nick went old country with a wonderful Greek dinner (and lecture on 20th-century Hellenic history for dessert). Monday night I was treated to Phoebe Weaver's red blood cell-restoring oxtail stew, which I very much appreciated. I'm a lucky lucky girl.Tuesday, January 17, 2006, 03:20 PM - Politics, Books
Larry Bogad (friend of Andrew Boyd's who I met last summer) wants to tell you why 38,000 fed-up Amsterdammers did, when given the option in 1970. He's reading from his new book Electoral Guerilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements on Wednesday evening at Modern Times (1/18) and Monday 1/30 at Black Oak in Berkeley, both at 7:30 PM. I'm going to go on Wednesday, but I'll probably be late. More on the book:
Across the globe, in liberal democracies where the right to vote is framed as both civil right and civic duty, disillusioned creative activists run for public office on sarcastic, ironic and outrageous platforms. With little intention of winning in the usual sense, they use drag, camp, and stand-up comedy to undermine the legitimacy of their opponents, and call into question the fairness of the electoral system itself. Bogad looks at satirical campaigns around the world, including the GNOMES, who won 5 seats on the Amsterdam City Council, much to their own surprise. then the real pranks began...
Buy the book here. And in case you were thinking that I'm an out-of-touch idealist, Thursday night it looks like I'm going to a book party for this: Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences. Don't ever try and tell me I'm not multifaceted. Good thing one of my academic friends recently sent me a hypergeek journal article on the futility of the search for individual fulfillment through consumption, so I'll be ready.
Back Next
