by DeusXFlorida

by dbarronoss

I dunno, monkeys just seemed appropriate.

A friend posted today that 1 in 4 mammals are endangered. Think about that.

Things I want to read:

Art & Social Change, A Critical Reader by Charles Esche & Will Bradley

Participation, Documents of Contemporary Art by Claire Bishop

Reenchantment of Art by Suzi Gablik

Dream: Re-Imaging Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy by Stephen Duncombe

Conversation Pieces by Grant Kester

Mapping the Terrain: New Genres in Public Art by Suzanne Lacy

RenGen by Patricia Martin

Anyone want to do a bookswap?

Sorry I missed Thursday daily blip – I can’t figure out how to work it into the day – I leave early in the morning and am out of touch all day. Also – does anyone have opinions on the daily posting?

Since I am hoping the new plan up for a vote is the New New Deal:

“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”

–Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I have to thank my friend, Steve Lambert for introducing me to this interesting person (and I mean interesting in the good way!)

Steve is working on a book with Stephen Duncombe about artists measuring the impact of their work when they are taking on an activist role. (Is that proprietary info Steve? Let me know). Anyway, he and Stephen interviewed me and then I had a chance to wlk and talk with Stephen on the way back to the subway.

He is an activist, teacher, thinker and author. His most recent book is Dream: Re-Imaging Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy (its on the upcoming, books I want to read list). He’s been recognized (well, his group the Lower East Side Collective) for creative activism by the Abbie Hoffman Foundation and was a key organizer with Reclaim the Streets.

And yet, when seen in another light, there is plenty wrong with the American backyard Bar-B-Que. Public resources were channeled from healthcare, education and urban development to–quite literally–pave the way to individual home purchases in the suburbs. Burger smoke wafting into the air from a million backyards, each separated from theother by a picket fence, symbolized the atomization of the public, as around each grill a nuclear family–perhaps joined by a few close friends–acted out the bourgeois fantasy of self-sufficiency. And the Bar-B-Que does not stand alone, it is but one component in a an array of leisure activities that gobble up resources and pollute the planet; each hamburger flipped and chicken thigh basted makes an implicit argument in favor of an ecologically unsustainable lifestyle. Then there is sartorial travesty of leisure wear: grown men and women wearing clothes best suited for children at the playground: t-shirts, sneakers, and shorts or worse: track suits whose elastic waistbandexpands effortlessly to accommodate the ever-growing American girth.

…Yet the Bar-B-Que can also be recognized as an organic vision of Utopia lovingly created, or perhaps dreamed, from below. The dreams of the ideal Bar-B-Que – seemingly alone among modern Utopias – has never lead to the gulag or a death camp. There has not been, nor do we believe there ever will be, a totalitarian state of Bar-B-Que. Abstract Man may want to collectivize farms or subject their will to the Fuhrer, but everyday people want to grill.

And excerpt from Stephen Duncombe’s blog on Reality Sandwich.

Yeh, you got off lightly this week – two of the daily blips went missing, one due to an early morning trip to Philly and the next day due to the cold I am fighting off. Today I am conquering the cold by attempting to ignore it (mostly).

So I have some really amazing people that I have met over the years. One of the great thinkers that I have had the pleasure to (too briefly) speak with and more recently hear him speak is Bruce Cahan.

I recently heard Mr. Cahan speak as part of a panel at Conflux (yes I love them too). He spoke a little about the maps that he created for the city of New York (he wondered why there were no comprehensive maps of NYC which mapped everything above & below the streets and all of the services in between – so he made them), and about the ethical bank that he is starting.

He is one of those amazing people who instead of asking “Why?” asks “Why not?”

Thanks for the inspiration Bruce. And if you have any need for a creative person just to hang out with you and learn from you, let me know, I’ll send over my CV!

More at Urban Logic.

Many of you know that I admire Wangari Maathai greatly. Here is a quote that I use at the bottom of my signature:

“You must not deal only with the symptoms. You have to get to the root causes by promoting environmental rehabilitation and empowering people to do things for themselves. What is done for the people without involving them cannot be sustained.”
–Wangari Maathai

daily post #2