self defense

I noticed yesterday at my gym that they're offering new self defense courses. My mind wandered back to the awesomeness that is self-defense training. I took classes about 15 years ago, before some solo traveling, at Brooklyn Women's Martial Arts (now the Center for Anti-Violence Education). Empowered is an overused word, but it was amazing to understand the power of your body and connect with it in a practical way. Parts of the training were terrifying, like learning to break out of a choke-hold, but the instructors and students were gentle with women who had strong reactions to some of the simulated attacks. For "graduation" we broke planks of wood with a karate chop. It made me feel very strong, and safer, and proud to have made an effort to learn how to protect myself.

But of course, self defense can be criminalized, as with the seven New Jersey lesbians charged with "gang assault" and attempted murder for fighting back when attacked. There's a demo this Monday in NYC demanding that the D.A. drop all remaining charges (some indictments been overturned by the appeals court).

Stop persecuting Renata, Patreese and Venice. They fought back to defend each other. Had they not fought back successfully, one or more of them might have been killed or raped. Are rape, death, or prison the only three options open to lesbians who are attacked on the street?

Protest Monday, March 2
noon - 1 p.m.
1 Hogan Place
Manhattan, NY
(corner Leonard and Centre Streets) (A, C, E & 6 trains to Canal St.)

For more info, e-mail: freenj4@yahoo.com

Related "defense" is that abovegroundpool friend and merit badge winner Susan Tipograph is Renata Hill's attorney.

Support this group of women on Monday; support women's safety every day!

touched

We've talked botanigrams before (moss graffiti, guerilla gardening and the like), billboard alteration, and wheatpasting, but here is another version, clean tagging or reverse graffiti. This version, by Paul Curtis, is paid for by advertising agencies, and riffs off those who've been writing messages in dirt for years. Using graffiti styles as advertising isn't new, unfortunately, but creative types are happy to steal back methods that have been lifted from street artists.

Using cleaning brushes (or in some instances, power washers and stencils), tagging or drawing into grime does have the allure of things that have been touched or used a zillion times. Picture the worn and darkened wood of your grandma's trowel handle. It can be that beautiful.

But it doesn't mean I have to give up spray paint!

altered & improved

For the lowdown on billboard and sign improvements (and gorgeous photos!), see

• California Dept. of Corrections
  
• Billboard Liberation Front
  
• Wooster Collective
  
• Streetsy
  
• Culture Jammers Encyclopedia
  
• I Hate Billboards
  
• that photo site

propaganda

Behold Josh Macphee of the organization Just Seeds and books Stencil Pirates, Reproduce & Revolt, and Realizing the Impossible (discussed here).

Forgive the wonky photography.

These two lovlies were purchased by a friend at an art auction fundraiser for political prisoner Daniel McGowan a couple of years ago. I love the suggestion of 50's suburban domestic life and of Christian propaganda mixed with anarchist politics.

gay marriage

While "the gays" have been celebrating in California, I've been mum on gay marriage. That's because I'm not into it. I like ritual sometimes, I like queers being committed to one another (monogamous or no), and I get warm fuzzies when I hear about those couples who've been together for 60 or so years.

But in my mind marriage is a stopgap. It might get a couple of queers health insurance. But shouldn't we all have healthcare, whether we're in relationships or not? It may help a queer or two not lose their child or their home when their lover dies. But that really hasn't been tested yet, has it?

Gay marriage doesn't solve our problems. And when everyone's atwitter & aglow over their new right to marry, I feel like a jerk pointing out those problems. My co-worker reinforced that feeling this week when he quoted a gay man as hanging his head and saying "I miss having something to be angry about."

Sorry ya'll. I like a party as much as the next one, but that's no reason to invite the government to regulate my relationships, no reason to invoke old institutions that secure property. My dear old friend mattilda bernstein sycamore always comes to the rescue when I am without words, and I stumbled on this Alternet post from mattilda today. It's not just about wanting to be different.

I'm not going to spend my time fighting against gay marriage. I still haven't recovered from a late eighties gay rodeo protest where our signage (as queers against animal abuse in rodeos) wasn't clear enough, and the local paper clumped us with the protesting Christians. Still, I would like to be able to give a clear answer when people ask me about it, or assume I'm on the bandwagon fighting for my right to marry.

P.S. As unattractive as it may be to some, I'm still angry. Remember Sakia Gunn?
P.P.S. Image courtesy of Gay Shame SF.

spotted in harlem

miltary equals slavery, originally uploaded by abovegroundpool.

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.

caught cutting

I read a lot of mediocre books, which makes me even more picky and critical of the good ones. When a book actually surprises and inspires me, I'm all that much more excited.

AK Press is an important cooperative press running out of Oakland, and you should support them. Last year they published another book by political art boy wonder Josh MacPhee called Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority. I didn't love everything in this book, but I was oh so grateful to have access to information and images contained within. It was part of the inspiration for starting the abovegroundpool free activist archive. I'm always on the search for interesting political work, or images of the activism taking place around the world. [Current obsession: the rich history of Olympic protest.]

And I chose this page of the book to show a sample of, because it made me laugh out loud. There I am, cutting my own hair, both proud of being self-sufficient, and a little embarrassed by the resulting chops and my lack of willingness to leave it up to the professionals.

The point is this: there is a rich history to activist art. This book helps us begin to track it.