— Ellen Willis, “Women’s Music”, June 1974 (via fuckyeahellenwillis)
Sitting in a coffeeshop in my hometown reading a 7-page New Yorker article about the roots of Occupy Wall Street and remembered that the last time I was at this coffeeshop was last year just after Christmas and I was reading the Adbusters “Big Issues of 2011 issue,” the one with the “Capitalism’s Terminal Crisis” cover. Wild.
— Ellen Willis, ”Beginning to See the Light” (via jennpelly)
It’s been a while since this sort of straightforward, hi-fi folk pop has resonated with me as much as this has. (Saintseneca, “Acid Rain.” Can’t.stop.listening.) In general, I’ve been hearing a resurgence of minimal punky sing-a-long jams and clever/piercing lyrics in my life lately, which I think I am going to attribute to the protests, and feeling drawn to all things simple and direct and accessible; things that ‘just make sense.’ Or maybe it’s just that it’s November when everyone gets nostalgic and I’m reverting back to my 2k7 tastes. (Or something.) Or maybe this is actually just above-par songwriting.
~My weekend in Instagram-ed show pix~ I keep saying this on Twitter, but for real, the vibes are so high in Boston right now. This weekend ruled, especially Friday night’s show at Lorem Ipsum Books w/ Mutual Benefit and Birthdays and Hear Hums and Many Peoples Band. I love that place and am glad that they finally collabed with the Boston FMLY folks. Every time I am there half of the conversations I have with people are about how the vibes at Lorem Ipsum are so great and how it is a really important spot for Boston right now. (<3s.) Saturday night I saw Earthquake Party’s cassette release show at Great Scott and they sounded sweet and tonight I was there again for a show I booked which was **so fun.** Fat History Month and La Big Vic and Friends and Ganglians were all incredible and everyone danced a lot and enough people came that I could pay all the bands and it was generally just one of the smoothest/least stressful shows I’ve put on, ever.
Widowspeak - Gun Shy
P.S. Eliot - Troubled Medium
Tacocat - Partytrap
Squarehead - Get Light
Bleached - Think of You
The Beets - Friends of Friends
Friends - I’m His Girl
Widowspeak - Puritan
Quilt - Utopian Canyon
Quilt - Young Gold
Prince Rama - golden silence
Waxahatchee - be good
Big Troubles - Minor Keys
P.S. Eliot - Like How You Are
You can be a wesley - Giants
For Science - Even
Parasol - Firecracker
Colleen Green - Y Do U call me?
this is the soundtrack to my fall 2011.
An article I wrote for this week’s Boston Phoenix
— Stephen Boyer, a member of the Occupy Wall Street Library working group, in his blog post re: last night’s Zucotti Park raid and the destruction of the OWS People’s Library, which destroyed the entire public library of 5,000+ books.
“HEY IS THIS THE TRUST FUND CLUB?”
“NO, THIS IS THE WE WORK OUR ASSES OFF CLUB … SOME OF THE 99 PERCENT HAS TO WAKE UP FOR CLASS IN THE MORNING.”
“This is what democracy looks like! Harvard’s what hypocrisy looks like!”
“You fucking selfish narrow minded people need to shut the fuck up!”
“What are all of these people arguing about?”
“Education is a right! not just for the rich and white!”
“Harvard has faculty that have made war more efficient. Harvard has economists that teach us that profits are more important than people.”
“WE ARE THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT. YOU ARE THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT… Wait actually …”
“ONE PERCENT. ONE PERCENT. OCCUPY J.P. LICKS FOR THEIR OVERPRICED ICE CREAM!”
“HARVARD OUT OF ALLSTON. HARVARD OUT OF EXISTENCE.”
“This is hilarious.”
“Those kids are obviously douchebags but they’re also probably on the lacrosse team so I’m not so surprised.”
All this (and more!) in my most recent post for the Boston Phoenix staff blog, Locked out: Scenes from #OccupyHarvard’s first night.
Boston-based groups like Feast Mass, the Awesome Foundation, and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education’s CSArt program aim to make community-sourced funding more democratic and accessible. In a cash-strapped economy where arts funding has been deprioritized, such solutions have been particularly valuable …. Just as the food served at Feast Mass comes from local farms, rather than unsustainable agribusinesses, its grants represent an alternative to handouts from big corporations or the government.
From “Hacking Philanthropy: How microfunding is feeding the creative economy,” an article I wrote for the November 11th issue of the Boston Phoenix, reporting on how certain local artists and creative organizers are dealing with global economic meltdown.
Ultimately, these groups can serve as inspiration for anyone who is frustrated with how wealth is currently distributed by foundations, corporations, the government, etc — in any capacity. (Yeaah, I am making this #Occupy related.) These microfunding groups are autonomous initiatives, organizing community-based programs that directly connect grantors and grantees, instead of waiting for larger powerful entities to make systematic change to create a more sustainable economy. And drive creativity, innovation, etc. In other words, the sort of grassroots, ground-up organizing that needs to be happening across the board to empower individuals everywhere to work outside of larger ‘systems’ that clearly don’t work.
