eye of the beholder

I'm from the desert, which many people think of as ugly, lonely, hot, and prickly: barren. It is not unfamiliar for people to consider what I love to be strange or unpleasant.

I laughed when I came across a link that listed these photos as being of the world's fugliest plants. Some of the best genetalia look-alikes, maybe, but "fugly" isn't what I'd call them. It's thought of as déclassé to plant purple, orange, and pink flowers together. Instead, the tidiest, the most controlled of gardens are respected. No weeds. No mixing. Trimmed. It says a lot about who we are.

These plants are performers, loud, garish in the most appealing of ways. They are out of control.

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.

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.

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.