Learning to Roar

Check out this article in the Villager.

They’ve been covering the issue well since the crackdown started and have won awards for it since.

They’re the real deal.

I will attempt to print the following on one piece of paper in two days. This image consists of the same part of a negative printed twice (one is rotated 180 degrees)–they meet in the center. This will become the top image of a two layer collage.

The final design is currently in process.

I am going to geek out for a second…

Two images (or negatives) precisly printer on one piece of paper in the darkroom, using masks printed on transparency:

1st Try

2nd Try

I printed solid black ink on transparency using a computer. The transparency is layed on top of the photo paper before printing the first negative (the subway) onto the paper. The black of the transparency is meant to block that part of the image from being printed on the paper. I then use an inverted transparency (black becomes clear and clear becomes black) to print the second negative (winter forest) on the same piece of paper, essentially filling in the unexposed portion from the first exposure.

Obviously I am still working out the kinks. On the first image you can see that the black does not completely block the light, instead the “blacked-out” parts are seriously underexposed causing a cyan shifted portion of the print. The 2nd image is the closest I got for now.

I need a blacker black (story of my life).

Since starting this blog I feel I have been learning a lot about the world in my heart and the outside world and its many layers and messy truths. So there is the world within and the world without. There is a kind of co-existence, but often not by choice. Indeed it seems the complex nature of navigating the often large chasm between these two worlds is too much to ask, and yet it is required by us all.

Sometimes I think of the activist community as a support-group for those looking to get through life with the world in their hearts intact–fostering growth and evolution. My theory is that each of us holds a unique bit of the elusive, long-term solution deep inside. When our piece is shared and joined with others, perhaps in the organizing of an action or event, the entire community benefits from that offering and we learn new methods of self-empowerment. Offering mutual-support in a journey that is simply too difficult to walk alone.

The struggle in the industrialized world is to first see all that is wrong with the way the system is built, then learn the ways in which you are complicit and finally go about the messy process of extracting yourself from that system and building viable alternatives in its place. And of course you do most of this as you continue to walk around in the very world you recognize more and more as being completely out of synch with the world you are building in your heart.

But then there is Critical Mass, First Warm Night and other such events in which a bit of that world in your heart bursts onto the streets and you are there with lots of other like-minded journeyers and you feel free for the first time in a long time. These little tastes inspire and encourage, and you remember you aren’t so alone and then you start to think about what community really feels like and you realize you don’t really feel that strength very often and you go back out there more determined to feel that way again.

Clearly there is something wrong. Something out of balance, leaving a bad taste even when you like what you’re eating (or are being fed). In many ways I see madness all around.

The lawsuit and the overall crackdown on the bike community in NYC is my little piece of this insanity, relatively benign in the grand scheme of things. The illness has roots that are far deeper, with effects far worse and more unjust.

The problems of the first world are a joke in comparison to those of the “2nd” and “3rd.” Bringing awareness to this truth is painful and complicated as you very quickly must face your own tacit complicity. In many ways the activist community functions as a support group in which compassion is the foundation for facing our own ugliness. We bring awareness not to incite, but to spread the opportunity for small changes, decisions based on the broader context in which the whole-cycle is considered before moving forward–Learning to navigate the journey between the world we live in and the one we dream for together.

So there is a wholeness to one’s approach. All forces that question the current paradigm are considered a direct threat to Power and are subject to the militant wing of the state most often represented by the police. As they go about there job, these people often suspend their humanity, becoming mindless and merely part of a system designed to absorb and destroy dissent, regardless of right or wrong.

So there is a problem of distributed guilt in which no one person or entity is at fault and all participants can easily deflect accusatory questions.

There is an apparent seamlessness to our everyday lives and our job is to tear at the walls revealing the hundreds of little mistakes and problems, circumstances that don’t add up and feel wrong in your gut.

So we make messes and make mistakes, sometimes exhibiting the very behavior we wish to change on the larger scale. And we’ve integrated that truth as well, admitting our faults, accepting our contradictions, standing on our little piece of what feels just and learning to hold it in our hearts, if only to teach your piece to another. Protecting our own origin as a stepping off point for a series of principled stands and learning experiences.

Perfection was always an illusion anyway.

So a lot has changed in the last week. I am away from NYC and it is difficult to give updates, but Time’s UP! and four XUP volunteers (including me) have been issued a summons in regards to our involvement in promoting Critical Mass. More later.

In the meantime I highly suggest my friend’s Bike Blog for more detailed info. He was at last friday’s Critical Mass.

Also, check the links below:

Democracy Now! Segment
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/28/1434209

Normal Siegal Press Conference Statement:
http://www.times-up.org/press_view.php?release=050327_norman_siegel

XUP Press Release
http://www.times-up.org/press_view.php?release=050327_nyc_sues_criminalizes

NYC Indymedia Critical Mass Reportback:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/146345/index.php

NYC Indymedia Summons Report:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/146175/index.php

hello;

It appears much fun will be had during the early spring in NYC. If the warm weather weren’t enough then you’ve got the NYC May Day Festivaland the continuing battle for the streets during Critical Mass in Manhattan and Brooklyn!

Pay attention to Complacent and get on their email list for fun and worthwhile events throughout the year.

More later, maybe.

Originally this Blog was very practical. I used it to share my experience of organizing the resistance around the Republican National Convention in NYC during the Summer of 2004. It was a way to let people know whether or not i had been arrested and generally allow me an outlet during an incredibly stressful time.

During the six weeks leading up to the RNC i often thought the experience would never end. Organizing on that level had this way of dominating almost every aspect of one’s life. I’m surprised my dreams weren’t more dominated by activist subject matter as often happens in production when you’ve been working on a feature film for more than a month.

Anyway, enough time has past for me to really feel the RNC experience as part of my history and no longer a dominate feature of my everyday reality. I am grateful for this distance.

The crackdown on Critical Mass, and the bike community in general, continues with no end in sight. The cops started something that they don’t know how to stop. Each month they seem to escalate. In the long run I believe we will win, but it could take awhile.

In the meantime check out my friend’s Bike Blog on NYC bike culture for the latest info on what’s going down in the streets.

My art remains my salvation and each month I seem to be putting more and more energy into the enterprise. The process is draining and thrilling at the same time. My efforts have led to a chance to show in Berlin, Germany. I am thrilled and will be heading out there later in the month.

As for the Blog I intend to maintain some sort of a presence here and I assume a time will come when it becomes a more vital part of my life again. But I am not sure when.

Peace for now.