Earth Month, Earth Week, Earth Day 2018 and VOTE!
How has your Earth Month been so far?
While the Earth is celebrated all April and while #EarthDayIsEveryDay, this week is considered Earth Week and Sunday April 22 is the official “Earth Day.” Read more…
When are TAXES due in 2018?
Usually it’s pretty easy for you and for Hagar to figure out when taxes are due.
But this year it’s quite complicated! Read more…
Get yr grammar on: World Semicolon Day
Word Crimes: We all commit them. Srsly, theyre part of the rising process, write?!
When we are rushing to get the words out, to go with the flow, to stay with our wild minds, to get our down draft down, we need to follow the rules of writing practice as set out by Natalie Goldberg and not worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar. But then there comes the time to revise those down drafts, and to fix them up, as Anne Lamott describes in her chapter on “Shitty First Drafts” in Bird By Bird.
So to help you get your grammar on, I have two videos, and a very important public service announcement.
Burning Man at VC’s Diversity in Culture
As I scanned my mental files for folks who would add something amazing to Ventura College’s Diversity in Culture Festival April 11 and 12, in addition to Alice Bag, it should be no surprise that I’d think of women who go to Burning Man like:
- Rasika Mathur, actor
- Deniz Nicole, artist
- Lynne Okun, artist
I know how attending Burning Man affected me as an artist and writer and so I asked them via email a series of questions about how attending Burning Man influenced them as artists. Here are their answers. Read more…
“You don’t have to be anything,” reminds Tsoknyi Rinpoche. “You don’t have to teach anything. You just have to be who you are: a bright flame shining in the darkness of despair, a shining example of a person able to cross bridges by opening your heart and soul.”
How can we do this? How can we be who we are, a shining example? And can that bring more social and environmental justice to the world?
To increase justice in the world, Judy Lee Dunn suggests we practice the “3Es”: Empathy, Education, Empowerment:
Empathy is the ability to walk in the shoes of another: without empathy, we don’t know what injustice feels like and we don’t care about the injustice in the world.
Once we care, we want to learn more through Education about injustice so we understand it — the causes, the solutions and the actions people take.
Education leads to Empowerment — taking action. If we only learn about problems, and don’t see how we can be part of the solution, we feel helpless. Taking action leads to a sense of empowerment.
Empathy. Education. Empowerment. I wrote about this a few years ago but it bears repeating.
One way to to become empathetic and to educate yourself and empower yourself is by attending events like Ventura College’s Diversity in Culture Festival and Earth Day events going on all over the world this month.
So yesterday some of you got lucky and got tickets to Burning Man before they sold out almost immediately and you’re excitedly making plans to head out to the Black Rock Desert, Nevada over Labor Day weekend Read more…
With Burning Man main sale tickets going on sale today at noon — and sold out soon after —
and with a HUGE important Burning Man Art Exhibit opening this week at the Smithsonian in Washington DC where many Burners and many of my friends are making a pilgrimage for the opening (BUT NOT ME!! seriously bad case of FOMO going on here — totally kicking myself that I did not go…)
… I figured it was a good time to share this awesome Mermen video from a Burning Man long ago past — 22 years ago in 196 and YES I WAS THERE! For more about Burning Man’s past, check out this Laughing Squid post. Read more…
ENOUGH: MARCH FOR OUR LIVES 3/24/18
- When black and brown men killed black and brown men, we did nothing…
- When husbands killed their wives and children, we did nothing…
- When white men killed families in sacred spaces, we did nothing…
- When police officers killed unarmed people, we did nothing…
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When CHILDREN killed other CHILDREN, THE CHILDREN SAID ENOUGH.
JOIN US! WEAR ORANGE! MARCH FOR OUR LIVES TODAY! In Ventura at 10am we meet at Plaza Park in downtown Ventura. Another school walkout is planned for Friday April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting.
THANK YOU TO MB HARRAHAN FOR ENOUGH ARTWORK. I printed out a bunch to pin on to shirts.
Here are a few ideas about gun reform.
Happy Vernal Equinox: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at Burning Man’s Tree of Ténéré 2017
In the northern hemisphere, today is the Vernal Equinox when days are FINALLY longer than nights. Or, as explained below, when the sun passes over the equator.
Above is a different interpretation of the Vernal Equinox: Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring as performed by Art Haus’ Playa Players at the Tree of Ténéré installation at Burning Man 2017 in this video by Vincent Rommelaere with footage by Walter Patrick Smith; details of dancers and musicians etc below.
Burning Man Read more…
Because of Art City…
Paul Lindhard, center, in Art City’s new gallery which is exhibiting a show of his work and the paintings of John White through March 20.
Simply put, Art City is why I am in Ventura today — and why I am the person I am today. Read more…
art predator 