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Culture

Redwood Mary writes:

"A New Anthem for America?"
Redwood Mary

I was pondering this week how to celebrate the 4th of July, the birth of our country. It was a grand experiment — an act that shook the world when a group of men, all immigrants, convened to draft a declaration of independence for freedom and liberty — a declaration that sparked the War for Independence from British rule. War and freedom so interlinked. How can that be I asked myself?

Recently, within the last six months I was able to talk to a dear friend of my father as he was struggling in his last days with cancer. He and my dad were both immigrant refugees. They were like brothers to each other. Coming from war torn Europe and liberated by the British Army they later found themselves in a DP (Displaced Persons) Camp and grateful to be under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army. They landed on these shores in the 1950's — in NY Harbor — greeted by the Statue of Liberty. They were on fire with dreams of a future in a land of the free. My Dad's best friend said to me before he died, “You know that your father and I went through war and it was horrible and war solves nothing and war has to stop. We have to stop all war. and Mr. Bush was wrong for starting this war. This war was not right.”

Subcommandante Ricardo Flores writes:

We're Looking for a Few Good Clowns

Rebel Clown Army

CALLING ALL THOSE WHOSE INNER CLOWN IS DANCING AND WIGGLING AND TRYING TO GET OUT

Are YOU tired of humdrum protests and bored of capitalism?
Do YOU enjoy working in a team and ridiculing authority?
Do YOU long for extremely silly adventures?

JOIN THE CLANDESTINE INSURGENT REBEL CLOWN ARMY
To join, email circa-sd@riseup.net
For more info, see http://clownarmy.org

Join our anti-citizens brigade to help repel the invasion of the fascist Minutemen and similar anti-immigrant groups from our country! Our country of Laztlaugh, of course. We have seceded from both the US because of its genocidal colonial adventures all over the globe and from Mexico for its complicity in the plans of the US through free trade treaties such as NAFTA. We have created our own autonomous rebel clown territory, Laztlaugh here in the borderlands, but is is now being invaded by the endlessly dreary seriousness of the Minutemen. Join us and help us repel this invading menace from our precious country!

Of course, we are an anti-citizens brigade, and not a citizen's brigade, because until everyone can be a citizen, we don't want to be citizens. In fact, we want no one to be a citizen so that everyone can be a citizen and then we'll all be able to be treated humanely, with hugs and ice cream.

We will repel the invasion of the Minutemen with our powerful laughter, dangerous weapons such as feather dusters and with lots and lots of silliness.

Although, we really may just end up joining them. Clearly, what better example of a clown army has the world ever seen than the Minutemen and their tiny battalions? The Minutemen are truly an army of clowns and we could never hope to outdo them at what they do best, stupidity and idiocy.

Join us! If we want to defeat the Minutemen, or if we want to join the Minutemen, clearly we're going to have to do a lot of training! We have to do some serious training in being completely un-serious.

Of course, there are many battles for a good clown army to fight, so once our brigade is well trained, we can move on to fighting valiantly against the many other facets of capitalism that are oh so boring.

For a world where many worlds fit into a single clown car...

Justice! Dignity! Bubbles! Giggles!
From the anti-citizens brigade of CIRCA — Border Faction

To join, email circa-sd@riseup.net
For more info, see http://clownarmy.org

Kristina Hallez writes:


"Her Voice, Her View" Film Festival
New York City, July 15–29, 2006


"Her Voice, Her View" Film Festival, a part of the Pioneer Theater’s Female Film celebration, makes us happy to say, "It’s that time of the month!"


Featuring over 40 films by and about women, "Her Voice, Her View" includes a variety of styles and subjects. "The Shape of Water" reveals an intimate encounter with five very different women in Brazil, India, Jerusalem and Senegal, narrated by Susan Sarandon. Black women and men unveil the reality of sexual violence and healing in African-American communities in the feature-length documentary "NO!" directed by Aishah Shahidah Simmons. In "Left Lane" folk-poet Alix Olsen's life on the road is chronicled as she searches for independent thought, grassroots defiance, and passionate connection in between spoken-word performances.

Abortion, hip-hop, religion and spirituality, motherhood, peace, death, responsibility, national politics, gender identity, representation, and resistance are just a handful of what is to come in this amazing film festival. Every person who attends will receive a goody bag filled with items generously supplied by our sponsors. For more information and screening schedule, go to http://www.altarmagazine.com and click on "Her Voice, Her View" film festival.

Pioneer Theater, 155 East 3rd Street at Avenue A, NYC
tickets: $9 general, $6.50 student, seniors

Finding the Real Punk

By Richa Jha and Sandhya Gurung

From Kantipur


“Anarchy”, “Punks not dead”, “Burn in hell” and other more hostile graffiti spray painted on the walls of buildings and even temples grab your eye while walking around Kathmandu. The typical reaction is, "Must be the work of a punk”.

And when you think of "punk" you visualize young people with torn clothes, unkempt hair, spiked or dyed and usually carrying a bad attitude with a loitering intent. But is punk all about vandalizing public property and being a nuisance to society? Is it only that?

"Punk was an activist movement in the late 70s in the UK and spread across Europe. It was a synthesis of music and action that opposed fascist and imperialist foreign policies formulated by governments there that usually ignored problems at home (e.g. the US today), which rendered qualified youth unemployed”, says Sareena Rai who has been involved in punk since 1990, and is in the punk band Rai Ko Ris in Nepal. "It was initially to stand against suppression especially of a ‘classist’ nature, but with time, it certainly has got lost in translation."

Meet the Shock Troops of the Christian Youth
Battle Cry for Theocracy!

Sunsara Taylor


If you've been waiting until the Christian fascist movement started filling stadiums with young people and hyping them up to do battle in "God's army" to get alarmed, wait no longer.


In recent weeks, Battle Cry, a Christian fundamentalist youth movement, has attracted more than 25,000 to mega-rally rock concerts in San Francisco and Detroit and this weekend they plan to fill Wachovia Stadium in Philadelphia.

NOT BORED! writes:

Karl Appel, 1921–2006
Philippe Dagen


Born in Amsterdam in 1921, Karel Appel received his first lessons in painting from one of his uncles in 1936. From 1940 to 1943, he was a student at Amsterdam's Academy of Beaux Arts, where he became friends with another student one year younger than him, Corneille van Beverloo, who was already called [just] Corneille. In 1946, the two friends found themselves in Liege, hometown of Corneille. Then they showed their work together in Amsterdam in 1948. It was then that they met another Amsteldamois, born in 1920: Constant Nieuwenhuis, surnamed Constant.

Together, on 16 July 1948, they founded the Dutch Experimental Group. In common they had youth, their refusal of all academicism and their taste for Matisse, Picasso and Miro. Several weeks later, they were in Paris, in the company of the Belgian poet Christian Dotremont and the Danish painter Asger Jorn. On 8 November, in a cafe near Notre Dame, they drafted a manifesto of rupture, [entitled] The cause being agreed. Several days later, Dotremont came up with the name of the emerging group: CO for Copenhagen, BR for Brussels, [and] A for Amsterdam. Thus, COBRA. Appel was thus one of the founders of this essential post-war movement.

Creative Resisting In Tampere

Fri - Sun 19-21 May 2006


An evening with 'MY DADS STRIP CLUB'


Friday 19.May 18-20.00

Old Library House (Vanha kirjastotalo), Keskustori 4

English with Finnish translation

A mix of video, comedy and stunts this special My Dads Strip Club
evening brings a unique combination of critical consumption & humour
to the old library house. This social evening offers an insight into
the world
of playful creative resistance acts from around the globe.

Everyone welcome.
Free entry.

ANSWER BACK "No, Macdonalds. I'm NOT Loving It."

Saturday and Sunday 20-21 May 2006

Tampere Central Square 12:30-17:30

( part of DIY city project http://www.teeseitsekaupunki.net/)

Working languages: English with Finnish translation

My Dads Strip Club takes up the challenge to work with local citizens
to 'Answer Back'.

How do we break out of the climate of hypnotized passivity that the
products and adverts cultivate?

"Hey Coke, do you wanna see what The Real Thing feels like"

We want to culture a spirit of answering back with an emphasis on good
time and playfulness. We envisage a mix of 'creatives' and 'resisters'
working together to improvise and make new responses to the city in a
creative and lively way. This DIY approach is a chance to bring
together different ideas and build networks for future creative
actions in Finland. The emphasis will be on fun, building confidence
and relationships.

CONTACTS: For additional information email: me@mydadsstripclub.com
Booking is not essential, but it helps us to know who is coming.
+358 50 929 6887 (english)

Fourth Annual People's Poetry Gathering
New York, May, 2006

Friends, Join us for

THE FOURTH PEOPLE'S POETRY GATHERING

Sponsored by City Lore and the Bowery Poetry Club

Featuring


The Wor(l)d of New York!


and


Poems from the World's Endangered and Contested Languages

Read and performed in their Mother Tongues and English

including the

“Festival within a Festival”

Harpsong: Celtic Poetry and Music

and

The New

New York City Epic Poem

and Poems of our Fair (and sometimes Unfair) City

Read by Twenty Poets Laureate of New York

From May 3rd to 7th, 2006, the People's Poetry Gathering www.peoplespoetry.org - a poetry festival unlike any other, rooted in New York City's hybrid sounds, rhythms, and histories - bursts into life for the fourth time to invite New Yorkers to consider and celebrate the inestimable value of all languages and the artists who sculpt, sing, rant, dance and breathe the Realm of Words.

Eduardo Galeano and Arundhati Roy

New York, May 21, 2006

An Evening of Readings and Conversation with
EDUARDO GALEANO and ARUNDHATI ROY


Presented by the Center for Economic Research and Social Change


7:00 pm, Sunday, May 21, 2006

The Town Hall

123 West 43rd Street, New York

Between 6th Avenue & Broadway

Doors open at 6:15 pm

All seats $15.00. Limit of 8 tickets per person.

ART AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE IN COGNITIVE CAPITALISM

Capturing the Moving Mind, ARS 06 Kiasma Rear Window 20.4.-2.7.2006.

In September 2005 a meeting took place in the Trans-Siberian train. It gathered a pack of people ... artists, economists, researchers, philosophers, activists who were interested in the new logic of the economy (knowledge economy, attention economy, biopolitical economy), the new forms of war and politics (war against terrorism) and in the new cooperative modes of creation and resistance (precariarity, terrorist cells)... together in a space moving in time. Spatially moving bodies and bodies moving in time (through nine time zones) created an event, a meeting that not really 'was' but 'is going on'.

Capturing the Moving Mind exhibition tells about this organizational experiment. The exhibition at the Kiasma Rear Window is part of the ARS 06 exhibition. It weaves a connection between art and politics, between art as an act of resistance and economy as production of life. Today our thinking and emotional abilities, our imagination and subjectivity are increasingly put to work in economic production. That is why the question of art as an act of resistance and creation of new forms of autonomous and good life – a life in which our ways and acts of living are always about the possibilities of life – intervenes directly at the core of this enterprise. The question of experimental life and the critique of capitalism must today be seen as one.

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