What’s this graph about you wonder? At Palmer Station Antarctica, starting in late July 2018, severe fissuring of the glacial sheet was equal to a magnitude 6 earthquake. What normally takes several hundred years occurred in one day in a section a little larger than Connecticut. This glacier helps lock down the others in place. Summer is coming to Antarctica and It’s already melted about 400 million tonnes of glacier.
So what are you going to do about climate change and global warming while we still can?
JUMP ON THE BUS with a dynamic group of activists for the Rise For Climate March in San Francisco on Saturday, September 8th. Take part in street art, music, chants and merriment as we demand government leaders take action on global warming. Details below on how to get on the bus! ‘
Or join our actions in Ventura, like the one I organized above on February 11 2017 and for the Climate March 2017!
In preparation for these events, this weekend, join an Artbuild in on Saturday in Ventura or on Sunday in Isla Vista with arts organizer David Solnit. We will be screen printing, painting flags and banners, and planning a street mural for the Sept 8th CA Rise for Climate march. Great way to meet people before the event! There’s also an Art Build in Oxnard Read more…
My Twitter bio lists two homes: Black Rock City, Nevada and Ventura, CA. One is the home of my physical body, and the other is the home of my heart and my imagination. I’ve been a resident of Black Rock City 18 times from 1992-2017. Read more about the early days of Burning Man here Part 1, about growing pains here Part 2, and about the 10 Principles here Part 3. Learn more about Burning Man founder Larry Harvey here. Read more…
“Springsteen on Broadway” by Ron Wells
“My vision of these shows is to make them as personal and intimate as possible. I chose Broadway for this project because it has the beautiful old theaters which seemed like the right setting for what I have in mind. In fact, with one or two exceptions, the 960 seats of the Walter Kerr Theatre is probably the smallest venue I’ve played in the last 40 years. My show is just me, the guitar, the piano and the words and music. Some of the show is spoken, some of it is sung, all of it together is in pursuit of my constant goal—to communicate something of value,” says Springsteen.
“This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.”
His rendition of My Hometown showed his love and hate of the place where he grew up, and how he could smell the coffee from the nearby factory, and yet the town was “surrounded by God.” The song reminded him, and me, of the “fights between the blacks and whites,” and how “there was nothing you could do.” I too had been there, as my hometown was hit more than once with curfews due to uprisings brought on by race, and hatred, and prejudice. It was a shared memory that was separated by 3,000 miles and yet represented a country that struggled mightily with race no matter where you grew up.
So many of us had experienced the same feeling of hopelessness, helplessness, and the pure anger that the war engendered.
Turning a very different corner, Bruce shakes his head at the “dark angels” that are running our country now, and how he never thought he’d see his country become what it is today. But he quoted Marin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it tends towards justice.” Let us pray that it is so. Yet, he reminded us that arc needs our support, and as citizens, it is we who must help bend it.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the entire performance was his consistently coming back to a spiritual context for his life.
When he talked of Clarence Clemons, he said he felt Clarence and he had been together in previous lives, and he would “see you in the next life, Big Man.” Ghosts are always trying to reach us, he said quietly but without hesitation. And I too believe this to be true, for it has happened to me. Spirits in the night. For we “commune with the spirts, and are surrounded by God.” Bruce’s reminder that “the soul doesn’t dissipate.”
For 43 of my 69 years, Bruce Springsteen has been an integral part of my life.
He is the same age as me. He has put on the greatest rock and roll shows I have ever seen, and I’ve seen 90+ (I think that’s correct) of his shows.Bruce has inspired me to be a better teacher. He has coaxed me to work harder. He has invited me to laugh at how absurd life can sometimes be.
This is, was, and has been his “magic trick.” It was his art that he “wanted to be somebody you could count on.” For me, he has been all that and more. He was never perfect, but he stood “in witness of joy and heartbreak.”
James Joyce probably spoke for me when he wrote, “He wanted to cry quietly for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.” His music and words were not always sad, but they were all encompassing, life affirming and beautiful. I did cry. And I did laugh. It was a spiritual experience, with all the beauty that entails.
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
If you’re lucky, it will stay with you much longer as it seeps deeply into your soul.
The Otters and the Seaweed by Teddy Macker
you need to know that otters wrap themselves
in seaweed so they won’t,
Are you imagining this?
Can you see the otters actually doing this?
Does it seduce you just a bit
into loving more
Oh otters, wrap yourselves tight! And sleep,
exactly like you do, floating but seaweed-held
wrap yourselves tight! And you,
the one who doesn’t, the one who doesn’t
we are with you as you float away,
we are with you as you sleep
Today, Thur. Jun 21, 2018 is the solstice, and in the northern hemisphere, it is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. In the far north, the stars barely get a chance to shine during the twilight that goes from sunset to sunrise.
On this, the longest day of the year, it’s time to GET OUT THERE AND DO SOMETHING! Save the otters and be the seaweed!
This is the perfect way to honor the memory of Larry Harvey, the founder of Burning Man who died earlier this year on April 28, 2018 on this “Day of Gratitude” as well as service because for many of us, Larry Harvey and Burning Man has served as the seaweed that has kept us from floating out to sea:
Burning Man participants around the world will toast Harvey at events, at home, or wherever they may be on this day, because according to the Burning Man Journal, June 21, 2018, is the anniversary of the first Burning Man in 1986. we invite you to connect, reflect and celebrate the life and gifts of our original instigator and firestarter, Larry Harvey. If you don’t know much about Larry, you can read some moving tributes here in the Journal, as well as on the public memorial site. Check out the hashtag #thankslarry on social media.
One of the most important “rules” at Burning Man is: NO SPECTATORS. That means, instead of standing around gawking, DO SOMETHING! It is up to all of us to make the world a better place. As the Burning Man Journal points out, “Larry lived a life of purpose, play, creativity and service. One of his greatest talents was making opportunities for others to co-create in imaginative ways. The results sparked a network of participatory events, which gave rise to a year-round community and a global cultural movement.” They ask us to consider today: Who were you before you found Burning Man? Who are you now? What are you inspired to do? How do you want to see more Burning Man in the world?
The Burning Man Journal reminds us that “The hour around sunset is a special time of reflection on the solstice, no matter which hemisphere you’re in.” They encourage us to gather and share “the moment of sunset” which is what we did here in Ventura on the day that Larry died. Read more…
What do Ventura’s historic Mission, Olympic cyclists, and Lodi wine have to do with each other?
The Amgen Tour of California! Read more…
Tonight’s historic opening of the Bad Exhibition: Value in Art at Ventura’s Art City is dedicated to Joe Cardella, artist, book designer, and publisher of ArtLife who died of cancer last week.
“I have used the word avant-garde a number of times in talking about Bad Exhibition: Value in Art, though I know it’s a pretentious and problematic word. This is precisely what I want to talk about. What would it mean to talk about a 1980’s and 1990’s avant-garde in Ventura and Santa Barbara as distinct from L.A., for example? Southwest China early 1990’s avant-garde as distinct from Xiamen Dada, mid-80’s?” writes curator Dr Sophia Kidd.
Environmental Activists in Ventura earlier in 2018; I’m holding the “P”!
“HANDS ACROSS THE SAND/LAND” PROTESTS SLATED FOR 113 LOCATIONS WORLDWIDE ON MAY 19TH
Communities standing up against offshore drilling in 17 states and seven countries
The Trump administration has announced a proposal to expand offshore oil drilling in U.S. waters, threatening ocean recreation, tourism and fishing industries. This extreme proposal opens over 90% of the Outer Continental Shelf to new drilling and puts our nation’s coastal communities, beaches, surf breaks, and marine ecosystems at risk of a catastrophic oil spill.
In response, please join us as we take hands across the sand and land! Details from a press release on how how and why you should join below! Read more…
The Little Prince: It’s a Question of Discipline
‘It’s a question of discipline,’ the little prince told me later on. ‘When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet,” writes Antoine de Saint-Exupery in his classic novel The Little Prince.
The semester at Ventura College where I teach writing is coming to a close. It’s been an amazing semester, one where we’ve learned a lot about loving kindness, compassion, community, and yes, about tending our planet, our home.
We’ve been studying ecology.
In our ecological studies, we’ve faced many of the problems troubling our planet and examined our role — what can we do to address climate change? Plastic pollution in the ocean? Nature deficit disorder? Technology addiction?
It is a daunting task. And it is easy to get depressed.
“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise,” writes Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac.
This semester we have actually learned that we do NOT live alone in a world of wounds: we live in community. By working in community, we can together be the doctor that sees the mark of death in communities that see themselves as well enough and we can guide out communities along the path to wellness.
I appreciate the willingness of my students to travel this path with me this semester. Not only did they learn how to be better writers, researchers, and critical thinkers but together we are making a difference. Of that I am very proud and happy.
Two Poems by Kevin Patrick Sullivan
art predator 