queeruption doin' it oldschool

We Riot silk screened T-shirt / Poster, originally uploaded by noa_revolting.

spotted in harlem

miltary equals slavery, originally uploaded by abovegroundpool.

pride in neckties

I made it to the soggy but spirited nyc dyke march this year, but not the drag march. Because it's still raining and because I missed those crazy faeries, I'm spending my afternoon making neckties (while humming the Church Ladies for Choice tune God is a Lesbian). If you watch the video, I hope the "Liberation" banner at the end warms your heart as much as mine.

to the archives

I have a full belly after a potluck at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Park Slope, Brooklyn. With plenty of new dykes to meet and vegan food to eat, I didn't get to paw through the archives themselves. There was evidence of fierce dyke activists all around: Lesbian Avenger banners, Dyke Action Machine posters, and many more delicious materials. To make my flashback complete, they even had Joan Armatrading playing on the boom box. I hadn't been to the archive for at least a decade, and probably closer to two, but I feel sure that my memory of it, like sorting through my friend Bob's stuff after his death, had some impact on the decision to begin the abovegroundpool online archive.

The gathering reminded me, too, of ye olde days of potlucks. Back before Isa Chandra Moskowitz was the vegan cookbook queen, and even before Post Punk Kitchen, she was organizing anarchist women's potlucks. These events (held in Park Slope, Prospect Heights, and the East Village) often doubled as planning meetings or info shares, with the constant of good food. (Yeah, there was always someone lazy who brought a bag of chips, but the bulk of the gang made a good effort.) When organizing materials for the abovegroundpool archive recently, I ran across copies of Eat Me, the potluck zine. Isa was sharing her recipes even then.

tree city

My town has been awarded a "tree city" award by the Arbor Day Foundation a bunch of years in a row. This is funny (in a sick way) since there are constantly massive, old trees being cut, and rarely any being planted. In four days this week, eight 75+ year old trees were cut down in view of my house, by two different homeowners. Now you see them, now you don't. The thuds the trunks make when they hit the ground makes my heart hurt.

cooking without oil

Reading an article about solar cookers, recently, I caught myself being skeptical. Waiting 3 hours for food to cook? Would a well-angled box covered in tinfoil really get hot enough? I was sipping my tea and thinking "no way." My sun tea. Newsflash, self! Tea brewed in a jar in the sun is solar cooking.

Pause, challenge own assumptions, consider giving it a try.

If sunshine is strong enough to bring health, burn your skin, power your home, turn whole fields of sunflower faces toward itself, of course it can cook food. Forget police barriers, sometimes I have to get over my own.

*Picture courtesy of the fabulous You Grow Girl.

**Hearsay Warning: I grew up in the desert and always heard a story about a woman who was drunk from an all-nighter, and passed out by her pool. She was so dehydrated and her alcohol level so high that she essentially boiled, and died. Now, it may be a dusty urban myth, but you have to admit it's an awesome story, and a fine example of the power of the sun.

appo

There's a new film about the popular rebellion in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2006, and the filmmaker is hoping to have the film screened for groups of activists. They are not looking for money, but to share the the information widely. See trailers of Desde el Filo de la Navaja.

grass

Today was the day. We moved into this house from Brooklyn four and a half years ago. In the garage at the time was an old reel mower. I wanted to refurb it, but it was too rusted out, wood rotted, etc., and I was told it wasn't worth all the replacement parts and work it needed. Alas, with a yard of grass and neighbors who glare when it grows wild, we settled for what we could afford: an old $20 gas mower at a yard sale.

After 4 summers of struggling with that stinky, noisy thing, I mowed the lawn today with a quiet, non-polluting mower.

I know some of you out there are saying, "A lawn! Any real environmentalist would have rid of that silliness by now." We have a big yard, growing lots of edibles and I'm continuously planting perennials (edible and otherwise). And I haven't had the money or time to pull up all that grass. When I do, the priority will be pulling up the nasty asphalt driveway. The lawn stays for now!

The reel mower feels like a good solid step in the right direction. The neighbors are already giving me looks.

i heart the high school pool

There's nothing political about this, except for trying to keep my head straight and my feet on the ground by swimming. Yeah, and my skin smelling like evil chlorine. There's no public pool in my town, and I can't afford the fancy gyms. The high school kids may not really appreciate this beautiful pool, but I sure do.

fruity

The cherries are almost ripe, and I've lost my list. I'm a major listmaker, and last years' list that recorded the number of cherries, of apples, of figs that our trees brought is LOST. The only comfort: this years' cherry count = too many to count! They're out there ripening right now, mmmmm. Planting this and other small fruiting trees has been incredibly satisfying. Both the birds and I have been watching the ripening process closely, and we might have a little struggle regarding who gets more of the fruit once it is ready. There are gardeners in town who put nylon stockings over their ripening melons to keep birds and bugs away, making them look like bank robber heads. I cruise by their house just to see the muskmelon "heads" on the fence each year.

It's too early to report on the figs, and the birds are still claiming some of the emerging apples: the count won't be final for months. The mulberries and wild strawberries are abundant, as usual. Newly planted, and for next years' count: elderberries, wolfberries, cranberries, and ligonberries. Yee haw.

Oh, and the eulogy, the plum is officially dead. Too much shade.

animals of iraq

A beautiful and heartbreaking new coloring book from Nick Manske.

small world

I work in publishing and went to a big book conference last week. I had two highlights: One was meeting Billie Jean King, and getting to tell her all about trans artist Tara Mateik's Battle of the Sexes performance at the Guggenheim. BJK was super nice and very interested in the artwork. She acted surprised that people were still thinking about this 1973 event.

The other people I got to meet are the great minds behind the Homegrown Evolution blog, and I got my hands on a copy of their new book. Good stuff. It felt like seeing old friends (because of that internet intimacy thing, where I feel like I know them well even though we'd never met). Creep factor aside, check out their fine work! (They're not animal activists, YET.... Don't let that deter you from the other good info in the book.)

flags

Flags are always a potent symbol (although the semaphore flags look an awful lot like a Swatch watch I had in my teen years): Pellegrino Ritter, a sixth grade student, Queers for Palestine, Daniel Buren, resistance against the U.S. mission in Havana and Adbusters.

drawing day

I was all in wrap-up-the-day mode when I remembered it's drawing day. I ran out and did a couple quickie drawings, and got my first ever wasp sting while I was at it. Wow, that hurts.

moving out

When working on my big, old, needy house and worrying about money, energy consumption, and the like, moving into the garage sounds better and better. I'm a longtime fan of tiny houses, and think I'd be perfectly happy living in someone's pool house with a composting toilet and a garden hose solar shower. Other people have taken it further. Read all about it at Shedworking.