lambs knitting sweaters

Recent Interview about Chapter 5 Valencia

2011-12-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

Here is a fun interview with Michelle Tea about our chapter on the RADAR BLOG!

San Francisco Fundraiser and Sneak Preview Party for Valencia Chapter 5

2011-09-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Oct 28th Fundraiser and Sneak Preview Party

Please Help Support and Celebrate Our Talented

Cast and Crew:

Michelle Tanya Wischerath

Iris Machete Mendías

Laurel Jaq Schmitz

Director/Writer/Animator Hilary Goldberg

Producer/Art Director Shani Heckman

Original Music Jen Turner

Director of Photography Ilona Berger

Wardrobe/Costume Designer Margaret Hasley

Make Up/Hair Kristina Hontalas

Assistant Director Elia Singer

Sound Recordist/Sound Designer James Flynn

1st AC Sam Berliner

2nd AC/Production Stills Ewan Duarte

Production Assistant Eli Bryant

Production Assistant Vega Darling

We will screen the short film at 7pm and 9pm, and celebrate everyone's hard work as we try to raise some funds to reimburse production costs and pay our people. Suggested donation of $5 - $50.

Scenes From Valencia The Movie: Part 2

2011-08-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

Heather Smith completes the Chapter 5 piece in Mission Loc@l with Scenes From Valencia The Movie: Part 2. The piece focuses on the stop motion animation, my delinquent youth, and passion for filmmaking at the ripe old age of 12.

Valencia Chapter 5: Stop Motion

2011-07-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

Valencia Chapter 5: Stop Motion: "Chapter 5 opens with a break up in the buffalo paddock in Golden Gate Park. Then Michelle and friends take magic mushrooms. We see the trip ..."

Valencia Chapter 5: Valencia Chapter 5 in Mission Loc@l

2011-06-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

Valencia Chapter 5: Valencia Chapter 5 in Mission Loc@l: "Scenes from Valencia the Movie: Part 1 by Heather Smith features Chapter 5 as a starting point for a series of posts about the upcoming fe..."

Touring with Makeshift Reclamation

2011-04-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Southern California Dates 2011

Friday, 4/22, 8 p.m.: Echo Park Film Center
1200 N Alvarado St. (@ Sunset Blvd.) Los Angeles, CA
Feminist Media Night with imMEDIAte Justice
Live performances by Hilary Goldberg, Jessica Hoffmann, tk karakashian tunchez; Film/Video/Audio works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, imMEDIAte Justice, POOR Magazine

Saturday, 4/23, 3:34p.m.: Cal State Long Beach

Chicana Feminisms Conference, USU Beach Auditorium,
1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA
Live performances by Irina Contreras, Fabiola Sandoval, tk karakashian tunchez, Hilary Goldberg, Jessica Hoffmann; Film/Video/Audio works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, imMEDIAte justice, POOR Magazine

Monday, 4/25, 3:15 p.m., Cal State Los Angeles

U-SU Theater, Student Union, 5151 State University Drive, LA, CA
Live performances by Hilary Goldberg, Jessica Hoffmann, Maegan "la Mala" Ortiz, Fabiola Sandoval, tk karakashian tunchez; Film/Video/Audio: Alexis Pauline Gumbs, imMEDIAte Justice, POOR Magazine

Tuesday, 4/26, 7:30 pm, UC Santa Barbara
Multicultural Center Theater, 1504 Santa Barbara, CA
Live performances by Irina Contreras, Hilary Goldberg, Jessica Hoffmann, tk karakashian tunchez; Film/Video/Audio: Alexis Pauline Gumbs, imMEDIAte Justice, POOR Magazine

Makeshift Reclamation - Southern California

2011-04-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

Save The Dates!

4/22/11 Los Angeles, CA

Echo Park Film Center

4/23/11 Long Beach, CA

California State University, Long Beach

4/25/11 Los Angeles, CA

California State University, Los Angeles

4/26/11 Santa Barbara, CA

University of California, Santa Barbara

Valencia Chapter 5: Pictures from Valencia 90s Party Fundraiser

2011-03-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

Valencia Chapter 5: Pictures from Valencia 90s Party Fundraiser: "Photos by Amos Mac. Cast member Machete reads between our staged reading performers Michelle Tea and Ben McCoy with Hilary narrating. And o..."

Casting Complete! Come to the Fundraiser Event and Meet Them.

2011-02-12T17:28:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 28
9:00pm - 12:00am
The Elbo Room
647 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA

9pm, $5/door
with DJs Pink Lightning (Stay Gold) and Junkyard (Junk, Muffdive)
toilet photo booth with Amos Mac
porn from NoFauxxx
films by Justin Kelly

screening of Valencia's Chapter 11 by Sarah Adams featuring Greta Jane Pedersen and Jenny Hoysten

a staged reading of Chapter 5 by Hilary Goldberg + cast

Come meet the cast and spread the word about Valencia (the movies)!

movie clip 2 recLAmation

2011-01-31T16:06:00.000-08:00

The Zine and DVD are available here

movie clip 1 from recLAmation

2011-01-31T15:59:00.000-08:00

The Zine and DVD are available here

recLAmation DVD and Zine

2011-01-25T09:55:00.001-08:00

recLAmation is finally on DVD and the Zine is also available here.

You can watch trailers and read about the film here.

Live performances of the film with narration are in the works. If you are interested in bringing recLAmation to your venue, school, center, space, please contact me directly.

Makeshift Reclamation is planning another tour. If you are interested in bringing us to your space please checkout our official tour blog.

New Film, New Blog - Valencia Chapter 5

2011-01-17T18:41:00.000-08:00

I am starting work on my next short film project. Here is the blog. I'm looking for cast, crew, and community support.

CONTACT: email us at Valenciachapter5@gmail.com

Also seeking crew and background characters.

Michelle Tea’s Valencia is a fast-paced account of one girl’s search for love and high times in the dyke world of San Francisco in the 1990s. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction.

recLAmation in Europe

2010-11-01T20:49:00.001-07:00

Makeshift Reclamation Europe Tour Dates

November 4-7 Uppsala Pride, Sweden (various)
November 10 Hamburg, Germany at Liz 9:30pm
November 16 Bonn, Germany at Oscar-Romero-Haus 7:00pm
November 19 Vienna, Austria at aRtmosphere 7:00 pm

www.makeshiftreclamation.com

New tour dates for Makeshift Reclamation

2010-10-10T11:43:00.001-07:00

my film recLAmation is headed to the northeast with make/shift magazine --

Makeshift Reclamation Tour Dates:

10/13/10 Middletown, CT
Wesleyan University

10/14/10 New York, NY
Barnard

10/16/10 New York, NY
Bluestockings

10/18/10 Amherst, MA
Hampshire College
Food For Thought Books

10/21/10 Philadelphia, PA
Kelly Writers House

Makeshift Reclamation Fall Tour

2010-08-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

We are excited to announce a Northeast Fall Tour! We will be presenting Makeshift Reclamation at Barnard in New York and Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia. We are currently booking shows in the region and if you would like to bring Makeshift Reclamation to a space near you, please email us.

Beautiful Detroit

2010-06-21T10:06:00.001-07:00

One of many community gardens...

Hanging Gardens - Detroit

2010-06-21T10:04:00.001-07:00

Hilary Goldberg brings her new film recLAmation to the National Queer Arts Center

2010-06-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

Hilary Goldberg brings her new film recLAmation to the National Queer Arts Center

A great article/interview by Sona Avakian

making postcards for june 15 event...

2010-05-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

updated recLAmation flier

2010-05-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

Feedback influenced flier update...heard it was too hard to read "recLAmation" on the last one. I hope this is better.

a new trailer for recLAmation - are you with me?

2010-05-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

Please let me know what you think about either trailer! (or both)

recLAmation live June 15th National Queer Arts Festival 2010

2010-05-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

recLAmation in its entirety

2010-05-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

Tickets are already available for the show on June 15th. Here is the National Queer Arts Festival page for the event.

new trailer for recLAmation!

2010-05-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

Coming Soon: A special recLAmation performance will debut with live narration at the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco on June 15th at the Garage at 8 pm.

reconfiguring recLAmation

2010-04-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

Still from Double Take

2010-04-08T10:35:00.001-07:00

Here's a little snippet from our recent tour. I will write more about the journey soon.

Jess and I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the new feminist video zine Double Take at Evergreen. We are excited to check out how the project unfolds (unlike our jeans which appear to be well cuffed).

The Road (Portland)

2010-03-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

I am drinking yerbe mate in the quiet grey morning of Olympia's light rainfall. We arrived yesterday from Portland. Portland. The In Other Words bookstore show was a really fun first event for our tour. The audience was lively and receptive. I was a little self conscious about my film project presenting alternative possibilities for Los Angeles that already seemed common place in that city, but the larger question of why more places aren't modeling that city planning still loomed. The Q & A after the show sparked a fun dialog about capitalism and trailed off into philosophical musings around the concept of liberty in times of a prison state.

Breakfast the next day was a gorgeous array of vegan wonders, and a warm mix of folks cooking in the kitchen. I learned some cooking tips and relished the kindness at Timmy Straw's abode. Later we trekked over to Reed College for our second show in a very pretty chapel hall. Reed looked like a brochure or a film set for Dead Poet's Society. I learned from documenting the shows so far that one venue isn't looking different from the next if I want the performers larger than the size of a carrot stick. Posterity lacked the rich woods and carved ceiling. (The multimedia means there is a blank white screen behind the readers and poets when art isn't being projected.) In my downtime before the next show I'm going to make some color mattes to project on the screen. That might be an interesting way to break up the background.

After the show we ate some food at the Red and Black Cafe, a worker owned cooperative vegan joint with delicious offerings. Then our dinner conversation brought to light the fact that across the street there was a bar that offered vegan corn dog baskets with tater-tots. I saved up some room in my belly and we went for a second dinner. It was a nostalgic whirlwind. I hadn't had a vegan corn dog in many years, not since Sandeh and Rene made them at The Clinic in SF. The next morning we went to Blossoming Lotus on the way out of town. I mistakenly looked at the brunch menu and had my heart set on savory pancakes -- then when we got there learned brunch was just a weekend thing. Lunch was not disappointing, actually it was the opposite, and I had a hard time parting from the city without longing for more meal time.

We arrived in Olympia and journeyed around the town in the rain. The Last Words bookstore had a display of books that made it hard not to want to stop and read every last item. We went to Le Voyeur Cafe for a rad meal. The Pacific Northwest is really delightful on the food front, and that such wonderful meals are actually affordable on a tour budget. Today hiking, visiting a food co-op and checking out community gardens are the top items on our list (not to mention some rehearsal time). Tomorrow we are at the Olympia Public Library at 8pm.

here's how we do

2010-03-08T14:19:00.000-08:00

"Makeshift Reclamation: New Feminist Art and Activism" is coming to the Pacific Northwest!

"Makeshift Reclamation," a multimedia event showcasing how contemporary feminists are resisting and creating alternatives to not only gender-based oppression but also a collapsing economic system, climate crisis, and more, will be touring the Pacific Northwest this spring. Featuring live readings, performances, and film/video/audio works by artists and activists including Jessica Hoffmann, coeditor/copublisher of the independent, transnational, antiracist feminist magazine make/shift; Hilary Goldberg, whose new project,recLAmation, is a Super 8 experimental documentary/narrative film in which queer superheroes navigate a future beyond capitalism; Alexis Pauline Gumbs; Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; Little Light; Timmy Straw; Laura Piece Kelly; Jessica Lawless; and others TBA.

http://www.makeshiftreclamation.com

3/27, 7 p.m.: In Other Words Bookstore
8 Northeast Killingsworth Street, Portland, OR
Live performances by Hilary Goldberg, Maribel Gomez of the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Jessica Hoffmann, Little Light, and Timmy Straw; original film/video/audio works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jessica Lawless, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

3/28, time TBA: Reed College, Eliot Hall Chapel
3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, OR
Live performances by Hilary Goldberg, Maribel Gomez of the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Jessica Hoffmann, and Timmy Straw; original film/video/audio works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jessica Lawless, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

3/31, 8 p.m.: Olympia Public Library
313 8th Ave. SE, Olympia, WA
Live performances by Hilary Goldberg, Jessica Hoffmann, and others TBA; original film/video/audio works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jessica Lawless, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

4/2, 2:30 p.m.: University of Washington, Ethnic Cultural Theatre
3940 Brooklyn Ave. NE, Seattle, WA
Live performances by Hilary Goldberg, Jessica Hoffmann, Laura Piece Kelly, Kai Kohlsdorf, Little Light, and others TBA; original film/video/audio works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jessica Lawless, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

4/3, 7:30 p.m.: Left Bank Books
92 Pike Street, Seattle, WA
Live performances by Hilary Goldberg, Jessica Hoffmann, Kai Kohlsdorf, Little Light, and others TBA; original film/video/audio works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jessica Lawless, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

RSVP and invite your friends to our events on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Makeshift-Reclamation/341352119197?v=app_2344061033&ref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2233928781&ref=ts

makeshift reclamation tour site

2010-03-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

I have been in serious neglect of this blog, and hopefully that will shift in the coming weeks. One of the main things I have been working on is my film recLAmation and the other is an upcoming tour. I'll be presenting excerpts from the film on the road and then premiering the work in its entirety in June at the National Queer Arts Festival. It will be a live narration event at The Garage June 15th at 8pm.

Here is the new website www.makeshiftreclamation.com

We also started putting stuff on facebook but that's a very new strange universe to me. We put up a page. I don't even know how to recommend finding that page. I'll work that out soon.

Our tour to the pacific northwest starts in a few weeks. First stop Portland.

recLAmation hitting the road...

2010-02-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

makeshift recLAmation

I will be putting together a more comprehensive and visually enticing form of this promotion in the near future. I've been lost in the sound mix and work of pulling together recLAmation for the upcoming tour...here are some immediate details taken from the make/shift website:

Pacific Northwest Tour

Make/shift is teaming with filmmaker (and make/shift contributor) Hilary Goldberg for a Pacific Northwest tour. Our multimedia events will showcase grassroots, multi-issue feminist art and activism with readings, film and video works, and more. We've still got a few dates to fill, so if you'd like to bring us to your campus or community venue, please get in touch soon: jess@makeshiftmag.com.

3/27: In Other Words Bookstore, Portland
3/28: Reed College, Portland
3/31: Olympia Public Library, Olympia
4/2: University of Washington, Seattle
4/3: Left Bank Books, Seattle

Big Deal screens in London

2010-02-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

The Katastrophe music video Big Deal will screen at the 24th BFI London LGFF on March 27th & 2 8th. It will open for the film Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance

You Will Be Missed

2010-01-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

"Don’t hide, don’t lie. Do that which scares me. Resist the urge to settle. Be as many things as possible in this lifetime."

-- Flo McGarrell

The brilliant artist/agrisculptor & art director from Maggots and Men passed away on Tuesday in Haiti. Here is an inspiring interview by Georgia Kotretsos

home planet or whatever...

2009-12-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

The agreement aims to provide $30bn in funding for poor countries to adapt to climate change from next year to 2012, and $100bn a year after 2020.

But it disappointed African and other vulnerable countries who had been holding out for far deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in previous drafts were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO2 emissions by 80% was also dropped.

Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, was scathing: "This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It's nothing short of climate change scepticism in action.

"It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush."

John Vidal, Allegra Stratton and Suzanne Goldenberg in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 19 December 2009 00.47 GMT

Minority Reported Matrix - COP 15

2009-12-17T10:43:00.000-08:00

Here is a post from Naomi Klein blogging at Copenhagen Climate Negotiations: http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/12/climate-structural-adjustment-we-ll-save-your-life-our-terms

And here is an excerpt from Democracy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: You spoke yesterday here at the Bella Center and said we cannot end global warming without ending capitalism. What did you mean?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity. Capitalism—and I’m speaking about irrational development—policies of unlimited industrialization are what destroys the environment. And that irrational industrialization is capitalism. So as long as we don’t review or revise those policies, it’s impossible to attend to humanity and life.

AMY GOODMAN: How would you do that? How would you end capitalism?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] It’s changing economic policies, ending luxury, consumerism. It’s ending the struggle to—or this searching for living better. Living better is to exploit human beings. It’s plundering natural resources. It’s egoism and individualism. Therefore, in those promises of capitalism, there is no solidarity or complementarity. There’s no reciprocity. So that’s why we’re trying to think about other ways of living lives and living well, not living better. Not living better. Living better is always at someone else’s expense. Living better is at the expense of destroying the environment.

thousand kites radio project

2009-12-16T11:37:00.000-08:00

parts per million

2009-12-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

350

that's the number

over there

2009-12-13T20:37:00.000-08:00

Copenhagen is upsetting, this concurrent reality in which people continue to redirect the end of the world to the profit margin, but the brink is melting...the tide is rising...and small islands are fighting to survive. From Democracy Now!

NAOMI KLEIN: Over at the Bella Center, a particular model of dealing with climate change is dying. It is revealing itself before the world as nothing more than a final scramble for the remaining resources of a planet in peril. That’s what’s going on at the Bella Center. And when you’re in there, you can feel it. It feels really ugly.
There was a protest yesterday of people from Tuvalu, and they were making themselves visible. They were—I see all you nodding, because it’s been very odd in there. They were talking about the absence of their future, the disappearance of their country, which is a form of genocide. It meets the UN definition of genocide, which is the acts that lead to the disappearance of a people. And as they were staging this protest, you watched people in business suits file by and look at their shoes and try not to meet their eyes, in the way that you see people in the streets avert their eyes in the face of a homeless person. But this was a country that was disappearing. And that’s what it feels like over there.

trying to finish a big push by the end of the month

2009-11-19T17:53:00.000-08:00

will try to return to blogging soon!

city lights penny arcade book release

2009-11-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

inevitable

2009-11-11T15:43:00.000-08:00

nothing but the waste of war
keeps the present system of society going, and that the system,
in turn, breeds conditions that make war between nations
almost inevitable

GAYLORD WILSHIRE.
Dec. 14, 1907.

connected

2009-11-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

Just got my digital recorder for recLAmation soundscape production. Back to work...

headlines

2009-11-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the booming bass from nearby traffic comes through my window. It adds a thickness to the air, unexpected movement, and it feels like an incoming message. It's noise I can't help but hear and feel. Sometimes facts and figures are so loud I can't help but stop like a deer in headlights. Perhaps a deer doesn't belong on a freeway or a freeway doesn't belong in a forest.

From Democracy Now! Headlines:

Report: 237 Members of Congress Are Millionaires

A new report by the Center for Responsive Politics has found that 237 members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body. California Republican Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker with a net worth estimated at just over $250 million. At least seven lawmakers have net worths greater than $100 million.

CDC Criticized for Distributing Scarce Flu Vaccines to Wall St. Firms

And calls are growing for an investigation into why health officials have handed out swine flu vaccines to some of Wall Street’s leading financial firms while they’re unavailable to most Americans. More than a dozen companies were given the vaccines, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. The Center for Disease Control says the companies met several criteria, including having a large number of employees and their own medical staff. But critics say the CDC has violated its own calls to distribute the vaccine only to those at highest risk. In a statement, Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said, “Although CREW has been unable to uncover the demographic makeup of [these companies], it seems safe to assume the vast majority of their employees are not pregnant women, infants and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers.”

Bilerco uh oh - Mattilda's roundtable for Maximum RnR

2009-11-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore created a roundtable for the October queer issue of Maximum Rocknroll - it was fun to participate, but the Bilerco reposting of the article sparked comments that have ignited a gay inferno. So much smoke it is hard to breathe...

Why gay marriage IS the End of the World (or the queer world, at least)

under the park

2009-10-23T12:24:00.001-07:00

Is this the part of the park that used to be a cemetery? And what of the trash dump that was there before MacArthur park? What remains in these spaces haunted by former histories like childhood inside the adult. So much buried. What will blossom?

inflight entertainment

2009-10-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

The flight was delayed and I waited in the airport and then again on the runway. Airborne towards the end of the brief flight, an attendant asked the two women next to me what they would like to drink and then said to me, "and for you sir?"

I answered but then my head started to spin with different theories like, I am on my way to SF and that's why, or that she just read me that way or...she put down my drink and said "here you go ma'am". I was really impressed with the gender fluidity offered on American Airlines.

underneath

2009-10-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

Windows. Time somehow takes on this hard lined shape. I see what I can fit in a window. This project feels too big for a window. It feels like I need a cave entrance, or a large hatch. And instead of working I write about not having enough time to work and that feels equally useless. It is the way my mind works. I look up ahead and see the distraction so I don't want to start because I'll have to stop.

I don't even feel like I can start properly because the impending rain is giving me a headache. And I wonder about the weather and whether or not I should take an adventure to the apple store to get a new power cord but then I remember paycheck then power cord, so no, not today.

I can force myself to sit here, but not to write. I can't force the writing. I can drink green tea until the caffeine creates a false blip of inspiration or the inability to sit still so of course I will write.

The headache started around five in the morning, I woke up and took advl, and heard my friend Steven's voice regarding pain management - catch it on the upswing. I have the tendency to resist taking pills as if my body will resolve itself and then the next thing I know the pain is too intense to beat with two advl and i'll need to keep taking it all day, as much as the bottle recommends.

The headache is still here, light and manageable but not anything making me feel like I am going to write anything. I should go back to sleep, but I had too much tea. I shouldn't go back to sleep. I should do some kind of productive task like hang something on my wall. I have stacks of things that could be hung on my wall leaning on my wall but on the floor. But that would mean banging and I don't want banging.

I keep having dreams about my first documentary film. I guess they are recurring in the sense that they are about the same type of thing, but the dreams vary so I'm not sure if that counts. And I can't tell if I am dreaming about it because I was talking about it or I was talking about it and so I was dreaming about it. And the wound precedes the memory...the trigger rests above the skin.

When the tea gets a hold and the writing is happening, even writing about not having time to write, the headache falls away. And then the palm trees come rushing in, Los Angeles is on the line with so much to say. It's the LA River calling and the suicide bridge, Griffith Park and Union Station...I want to answer with a shovel, a shovel is a quiet tool as it digs and digs, until it hits something hard. And when it hits something hard it clangs but that is okay, because turning the Earth as the story surfaces, makes up for the loud noise. My head can handle it.

Hearts of Palm

2009-10-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about palm trees. Palm trees and the LA river and natural things with lifelines that connect neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that are connected by cement blacktop and freeways too. I like to think about the palms and the river, but the history is another story. The history is often another story. LA is sprawling. LA is spread out. There was a property boom in the 1880s and many of the palms were planted then. I was reading an article that compared the planting of the palms to Johnny Appleseed. I recalled reading Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire, a passage that talked about Johnny Appleseed and applejack and hard cider. Applejack and cider were the main reason for the popularity of the apple tree, and it was only later that the fermentation fell out of favor and keeping the doctor away was the new comodification tagline. I guess in the 1880's they were drunk on raising property values. The article also mentioned that some of the seedlings used in Coachella palm orchards were from Iraq. I like to think of that connection too.

The natural lifespan of palms range between 125 - 150 years. I wonder which ones were planted during the boom and which ones will die of natural causes as they make their way until 2030. The fungus that makes them sick is indigenous to the soil. It has more of a right to be there than the imported trees. But fungus isn't a beautification model. It doesn't raise property values.

And that pesky LA River was no help to property values as it flooded the city. Cement channels were another feather in the cap of man vs. nature. I remember studying literature in school. There was always this scrawled across the blackboard "man vs. nature". That was never my party.

I've been thinking about root systems. Root systems in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Root systems in general. People that study the roots. Roots of words, roots of trees, roots of how it all came to be, those that lay them down and tear them up and pick them out of a song. Root note, family roots, establish and eliminate. The word heart reminds of the word root.

I'm looking for the root, the heart, and the people that are also invested in such a quest. When I look back I see a history of exploitation and things that do not belong. I see divisions, breaks, and sayings like man vs. nature.

I'm trying to map out the roots. Routes to take as I explore this new chapter of writing. So much is broken.

Timmy Straw "Victorville" music video

2009-10-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a music video I made for Timmy Straw.

www.myspace.com/timmystraw

flare

2009-09-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's the star my camera makes when it looks at the sun

between wooden beams on a construction site

try to explain gentrification with images

neighborhoods at a first glance

even without the familiar corporate chains

words like gelato and real estate and properties

stolen land anyway - yeah, so it doesn't matter huh

doesn't matter much

fragmented art shifts

2009-09-22T11:36:00.001-07:00

I am in a new space with the film. I am overly critical and feeling despondent about not enough real focus to be able to draw out what I want it to be. And I realize that the narration is vulnerable and so I am feeling vulnerable about the technical aspect of the filmmaking. I watch shots and feel sad that I didn't use a tripod or have a better handle on the lighting. I listen to the scratch track of the narration, audio that won't be used for anything other than editing, and I get fixated on the sounds. I wonder if it is making sense or asking too much of the viewer.

I guess that is part of a work in progress. The frustrated perfectionist wondering how to make it look better, but it is not a film about looking better. I know there is a level of trust I have to return to.

And I think this is the difference of working on a project in the off hours. In the time that is squeezed in around work and play. I think this process is different than one focus. It is fragmented. I feel fragmented. I have to stop working this art now and go to the job that pays the bills. And that is the difference. When the art pays the bills and you can focus. And I keep dreaming that dream of aligning those things so I can focus on the art. The art I came to do. And in the past when the art paid the bills I did not own the art. I did not have a say when it came to credits and presentations and I did not get to go anywhere with the art. The art went without me. How do I get it all on the same page again. Like the short films but longer. It just takes longer and is harder to have those uninterrupted work sessions. I guess it is something most artists struggle with and I'm lucky to even have a project that is upsetting me so.

I think it is separation anxiety. But I must go to work now. I must fragment.

sunset delivers

2009-09-19T16:14:00.001-07:00

walking with mattilda

cutting horizon lines

2009-09-19T11:37:00.001-07:00

love sea lion slumber

2009-09-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

horizon line

2009-09-14T12:11:00.001-07:00

psychotic amounts of antipsychotics

2009-09-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

In doing research for my film recLAmation I stumbled across an amazing article. Haldol is one of the drugs I was put on in the mental hospital.

Haldol gained notoriety in the Soviet Union, where it was often given to political dissidents imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals. "In the history of oppression, using haloperidol is kind of like detaining people in Abu Ghraib," the infamous prison in Iraq, said Nigel Rodley, who teaches international human rights law at the University of Essex in Britain and is a former United Nations special investigator on torture.

I am now ready to move on to editing the latest section of narration for recLAmation thanks to the investigative journalism of the staff writers at the Washington Post.

(If this new item also went by you, apparently ICE agents from 2002-2008 were shooting up immigrants without any medical conditions that they were deporting. After successive lawsuits ICE now needs a court order to do so.)

see sea lions

2009-08-27T18:44:00.001-07:00

sea lions - i love them!

Sept 4 Femina Potens Music Videos

2009-08-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

SHAKE THINGS UP AND GET DOWN WITH A NIGHT OF QUEER MUSIC VIDEOS AT FEMINA POTENS

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - SEPT 4, 2009 - "Open Eyes, Queer Film Night" takes place the first Friday of each month at the Femina Potens Art Gallery. Open Eyes features local artist's provocative, critical, and engaging films curated by Stephanie Yang. In addition to the engaging film screenings, Open Eyes also hosts hot buttery popcorn, cold beer, discussion and an open mic for directors or artists who can provide a film of five minutes or less.

Get ready to rock out to some seriously gay music videos at Femina Potens queer film night! Over the past two decades we have seen the power of a hot video. It can immortalize a band or group and make a director the next big thing. But can a queer music video do something even greater? We will be exploring what happens when queer artists take over behind and in front of the camera. Recently a multitude of gay musicians and filmmakers have joined forces and mediums to share their stories with the world. This month's 'Open Eyes' will look at several of these music videos and engage with local filmmakers who are (re)claiming this form in comedic, political and artistic ways.

We will be showcasing a trio of Hilary Goldberg's music video work. Including a world premier of "Victorville". This music video for artist Timmy Straw, explores themes of gender, sexual abuse, and suicide. "Big Deal", Katastrophe's music video, full of glitter blood and hip-hop, colorfully retells the shooting of Andy Warhol in 1968. Finishing up with "Domestic Violence" for Melange LaVonne -- Executive Produced by the non-profit Power Up. Filmmaker Dara Sklar brings her cinematic view of San Francisco's playful queer culture in "Lezbro's". For her latest project, Brynn Gelbard spoofed 'Jenny from the Block' about a recovered Jewish American Princess from Long Island called "Jew Lo" who emerges from her East Coast closet to become a faux queen in San Francisco. Justin Kelly will show "Teardrops on My Telephone" by Hunx and His Punx and "D-a-n-n-y" by The Younger Lovers. And Courtney Trouble will show her music video: "Won't You" by Jenna Riot.

Open Eyes Queer Film Night
Queer Music Videos
September 4, 2009
Doors/Open Mic Sign-up at 7:30/ Films at 8:00pm
$10-15 sliding scale admission ($5/open mic performers)

Femina Potens has limited seating availability so advanced online ticket purchase is highly recommended through Brown Paper Ticketing: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/78636

OR

Visit www.feminapotens.org for guaranteed seating information and advance ticket sales.

San Francisco's playful queer culture is brought to life with sass in the characters Dara Sklar creates and directs. She co-produced "Sweet Boy" about mommy/boy dyke relationships, casted true S.F. extras for the love story "Mango Kiss", and wrote and produced both "this is a party" about a transgendered man questioning his role in the lesbian community, and the worldwide film festival favorite "Toothbrush Tango" which danced through the trials of a hygiene obsessed slut. She collaborated with the talented and zany director, Pam Dore, to produce the popular short "Day One: a period" about women's once-a-month chasm between perception and reality. She was also assistant director for "Godspeed" based on the award winning novel by Lynn Breedlove, Stark Powers Productions' "Little Mutinies" starring lesbian icon Guinevere Turner, the sexy short "Getting Off" and hilarious music video "Jew Lo."

Brynn Gelbard has always found herself more at home around guys. Making a film about the unique bond between guys and dykes with the help of many of her closest lezbros felt like just another day at the pub. Brynn has produced television commercials, music videos, short and feature films. One of her favorite production memories entails getting to tell Bob Hoskins that wacthing 'Mermaids' and falling in love with Winona Ryder was when realized she was a lesbian. For her latest project, Brynn spoofed 'Jenny from the Block' about a recovered Jewish American Princess from Long Island called "Jew Lo" who emerges from her East Coast closet to become a faux queen in San Francisco. It features comedy duo Jew Lo and Devorah becoming as inseparable best friends. Brynn is at work on a feature script along with her band of co-filmmakers.

Artist Hilary Goldberg is primarily a filmmaker with a combined body of narrative, documentary, and experimental work. Her films are continually touring the international film festival circuit. Some of her films include in the Spotlight, Beyond Lovely, and Render: Spanning Time with Ani DiFranco, as well as Big Deal, the recent music video for hip-hop artist Katastrophe. Goldberg has toured nationally as a spoken-word artist, performing work from her project Giraffe Medicine at large festivals as well as universities, clubs, and coffeehouses. She has recently relocated to San Francisco where she is finishing work on her upcoming feature film installation project recLAmation, an experimental post-capitalist journey through Los Angeles. www.hilarygoldberg.com

Justin Kelly has directed numerous music videos for Bay Area bands, some of which screen on MTV's queer network LOGO, as well as short films that have played internationally at film festivals. He's currently working as an editor for various projects before delving into his first feature film.

Courtney Trouble is a queer erotic artist from San Francisco, CA. She began the underground porn site NoFauxxx.Com in 2003 and has kept the project alive ever since. She works with digital photography and film,as well as video. She works both behind and in front of the camera, knowing that her unique point of view comes from the excitement ofboth exhibitionism and voyeurism. Trouble also spends time playing guitar and writing songs in her band, The Divine Feud, making porn with other queer artists, and searching for that perfect part time art
job.

________________________________________________________________________

Femina Potens is a nationally recognized art gallery and performance space dedicated to the advancement of women and transgendered artists since 2001.

Sponsored by the Queer Cultural Center with support from California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, the Zellerbach Foundation and Grants for the Arts. Femina Potens is a leading queer organization in San Francisco, and has been featured on the LOGO channel, Q-Television, Bitch, Bust, Spread, Brian Alexander's book "America Unzipped", the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the San Francisco Chronicle where Violet Blue called Femina Potens, "the most happening art space in the city; a revolution in art and sex."

2199 Market St | San Francisco, CA 94114 US

experiments

2009-08-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

I was rereading about the Stanford Prison Experiment 1971, as I've been reading about that cult my roommate from the hospital was in, and I've been reflecting on the interconnections of all three facilities. And the commonality of a psychological prison experiment and the psychiatric hospital.

damage

2009-08-21T16:32:00.001-07:00

I fell down a hole. I was writing about the mental hospital. I made it to the point where I was transfered to the second floor. I wrote a sentence about my roommate on the second floor who wanted me to guess her age. She was in a cult called The Seed. I decided to look it up. I saw it was shut down the year we were both in that hospital. That must have been why she was out of the cult. The Seed was an anti drug cult program of abuse run for kids by kids -- it was a spin off of the Synanon Church. The Seed actually got a 1.8 Million dollar grant from the Federal Government in the 70's. Their tactics were brainwashing and abuse. Several spin off organizations Straight Inc and Kids were sites of similar abuse. I came across a film called Over the GW where a kid was locked up from 16-18 years of age in the New Jersey program. I found the film on Netflix.

I keep thinking about that roommate, trying to search my brain for the details, I remember she was in for a medication change. She had been labeled with schizophrenia. She was forty but looked twenty. She used to have a drug problem. As I read about The Seed, the levels of abuse are sickening. The links between psychiatric hospitalization, human experimentation, federal funding, and correctional institutions are rapidly connecting in my brain. I feel overwhelmed and off balance. It's this thing about being held against your will and unable to negotiate against it. To be placed somewhere by a loved one.

My roommate was familiar with the hospital setting. She had done it before, changed her medication as an inpatient because she needed to be monitored. She heard voices. She could see aura's and offered to clean mine. I said sure. She stretched her fingers out and swept around my entire body head to toe -- an inch or two away from the surface.

I saw her after the hospital. I had invited several of the people who were locked up to come over to my grandmother's house after our release. There was the executive, the security guard, and my roommate. I think there were others too but I don't remember. I don't remember much from that time, just the back pain that was so severe that I would lay on the floor and cry. I think it was a side effect of the Ativan. It was hard to say. I was also on some kind of epilepsy medication even though I didn't have epilepsy. Something to do with the way my heart beats. I was not a candidate for Lithium. I didn't take any of those prescriptions once I made it to the west coast. Never have since. I don't like knowing the names of medications. They are like cities I don't want to visit, lands I don't want to be familiar with and nothing I ever want to see or experience again. My passport was not renewed.

I only remember two people's first names even though I spent weeks with them, had them at my house. Ki and D. D didn't come over. I spent alot of time with Ki. I am sad we lost touch but I am not sure we could have sustained a relationship built on the darkest point in our lives. She had a husband named Kir. Ki and Kir. Ki was Korean and had skin that felt like the most perfect fragile soft texture better than a newborn. She woke up every morning and put on make up. Even in the hospital. She was an executive and dressed up every day at the hospital like she was going to work. I don't know her last name. I wish I could thank her now. Thank her for being her. Thank her for being the kind of executive that goes overseas to the factory, witnesses the treatment of the workers, and then quits her job as a result. She took on the responsibility to the point where it brutalized her soul. She was at a loss. I was at a loss. That's where we really connected.

I'll keep digging in my mind for the details. Those drugs they had me on make it so hard to remember. I wasn't planning on writing about my roommate. I was writing about the executive, the prison guard, and the truck driver...but now I know there was someone overlooked. Someone who seemed so comfortable in that hospital setting that I almost forgot her. And to realize now that the mental hospital must have been an incredible reprieve from the cult world she knew. It was just another day of changing meds. Not a whole room of people actively abusing her - only a system of abuse.

are you dreaming?

2009-08-19T12:33:00.001-07:00

Some dreams pull me far out to sea. To see. And I wake up in some other dimension as some other person - no recollection of the one that came before. I think something has gotten easier but I am unsure of what that something is. Seems like a meditation of sorts - or a realization but I don't know what I've realized. Some dreams swallow up the transitions. I listen to the news. Troy Davis got another reprieve. They don't let inmates have visitors after a repreive. They have to wait a week to see family. Like the reprieve counts as a visit. Their life handed back to them equals a visit by loved ones. The so-called justice system that has been stealing years takes more time. And he'll never get it back. Not the family. Not Troy. So many innocent people in cages - on hold - in wait. Punished for a broken system. And I have so many dreams floating out to sea.

the reading

2009-08-07T11:37:00.001-07:00

The reading at Modern Times went well, fantastic turn out for the make/shift event and it was really helpful to share my opening narration for my new film recLAmation. I feel like the first piece is complete but the only thing I wonder about is if it needs more levity. I love generating laughter and it is hard since that is not the mood of the piece, for the most part. I feel happy with it and appreciated the positive audience feedback after the reading. And since that is the case, I am going to rest with that section and press onward with Collapse.

Collapse continues to disrupt my sleep. Restless nights brought about by returning to personal traumas. I feel like the project is working, but I really won't know until deeper into the editing process if I am correct. At times I am unsure if it is too linear, but I have learned that in film it is helpful to have some kind of structure if you are striving for a particular direction. I don't want to overly dictate to an audience, and am seeking an emotive response, but I want it to have a certain arc, cadence and resolve. I guess I want everyone to leave the film more open to the end of capitalism. For people to be more aware of the micro level in which that system operates, and the beauty that could exist without it.

That dream follows the nightmares. Soon that dark horse will stop its ride through my dreamscape. And I will be write about the dream.

dream awake

2009-08-02T17:12:00.001-07:00

Reading in SF in less than a Week! 8/6

2009-07-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

Make/shift in San Francisco
Thursday, August 6, 2009, 7 p.m.
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
FREE

Hosted by make/shift coeditors/copublishers Jessica Hoffmann and Daria Yudacufski, with readings by columnist and reviews editor Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and contributors Hilary Goldberg, Lailan Huen, and Stephanie Yang.

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I will be reading some my latest writings from my upcoming film project -- reclamation. Hope to see you there!

dog eared wormholes of heartbreaking disappointment

2009-07-29T21:19:00.001-07:00

Writing went well until I felt like my heart was gonna pop out of my chest. Then I was too distracted to make much progress.

I made a quick scratch track recording of the first section of narration. I wanted to see how it would lay down and come together - start working with the footage again. Immediately I wanted to delve into the stop motion. I always get over excited about my latest footage. But then once I pulled out the pieces I wanted for the opening, I started to plow through other footage, trains and the LA River, and the fields near farm lab. I was putting it together but the sound scape was getting to me. I should start making lists of the sounds I hear and need to record instead of being frustrated at my lack of sound recording gear. That would be infinitely more useful.

I think I am going to do what I've done in the past as a sound designer. I'm going to seek out free samples online to sketch ideas. I'd really like to get the project to the place where I can do live Foley. Make use of those silly years in a recording booth, time spent sewing cornstarch into pillowcases so the artists could step on it to make it sound like they were walking on snow. I'm actually writing about that time, well just before I got that job, about a year or two prior to that job. Sad thing is, that's still the most money I've made yet from a job, the company's second to lowest position in the sound department, my most regular pay check with benefits...what happened? I quit to finish the documentary and then my job didn't exist anymore. The record company kicked me to the curb, and then I couldn't afford my apartment. I lived with friends, and eventually moved into that collective space, the other thing I'm writing about now. The part about the building. Perhaps there's something else of importance between the mental ward and the collective but those two places are the pinnacle landmarks of instability and defeat. I guess they are like bookended wormholes. Dog eared bookended wormholes. You don't get it back to do over. You get something else to do better.

I think the Collapse section is a tall order, it is taking a toll on my body - my back feels like it is on a weird angle now. My desk is uncomfortable. I spent two hours with a shelf I found on the street. The walls here are plaster and I couldn't properly locate the studs by rapping my fist against the wall. And the shelf was too heavy and for some reason, in my state of delirious elation, I believed I could finally move my monitors off of my desk to create a better work space - I didn't even measure the shelf. The speakers would have hung off by four inches - I don't know what I was doing. Or I do know. I was distracting myself.

And so - progress is elusive, my heart still hurts, and my eyes are very red. Another day comes and goes, the ice cream place might be hiring at the end of summer, and I returned the shelf to the street where I found it.

marketdero

2009-07-25T13:42:00.001-07:00

local veggies secured...as well as a lovely view.

right write time is

2009-07-16T00:35:00.000-07:00

It's true. Things have fallen off here. I have been lost in Outfest and Los Angeles and my film about Los Angeles. Stop motion went slower today than I had hoped, and I will be going to sleep thinking about tomorrow's shoot.

I like working with construction paper. I have no broken trust with construction paper, no communication issues, no surprises, and full collaboration. I guess I am thinking a lot about road maps and contracts and legal language around ownership and rights. Intellectual property and all of those things...not the usual wonders on my mind.

Fig Trees is still the best film experience I've had at Outfest so far. I did have the wonderful opportunity to see Transfixed with Calpernia Addams and Jer Ber Jones, a live cabaret that had me crying from laughter and rocking in the seat. I really can't remember the last time I have laughed that hard from live performance. I could watch those two for days. It was not an Outfest event, and it will be performed in San Francisco later in the month.

Time to conjure up the remainder of the scenes needed to finish production on the LA film. So close, but I guess the lab cut off is 1030 in the morning...so as much as I want to return to the Bay, looks like more time in this city for the likes of me. The lab isn't open on the weekend so I will return to the cinema realm of Outfest soon enough and hopefully discover some more gems. Then back to the Bay!

transliminal rememberance

2009-07-12T11:06:00.001-07:00

at the world premiere of transliminal criminal...

I sent this from my phone last night but it didn't post. The film screening went exceptionally well, and I am enamored with the way Super 8 is blowing up on the big screen. I was not sure how any of that was going to translate and both Big Deal and Transliminal Criminal have surprised me.

The program was thematically assembled with drama, women on the verge, and music. I continually geek out about programming these days, and last night was no exception. To be honest, I'm glad the screening is behind me and now I can enjoy other people's work.

John Greyson's Fig Trees, a video opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell and Zackie Achmat, has been the show stealer of Outfest thus far. My head is still swimming in it, and I've enjoyed recalling different moments from the film over the past few days. I think my favorite films are like that, they show up in my head in little film strips of memory, and I continue to unpack and adore and stand in awe. I'm sort of sad that I'll never be able to see it for the first time ever again.

back in la la

2009-07-08T09:53:00.001-07:00

Wake up in Los Angeles. Middle of the night and my nose is stuffed, the moon light cuts a demarkation line down the bed splitting it in two. And I keep having dreams and forgetting them the moment I try to remember.

Outfest Film Festival starts tomorrow. It is like the business minded gay brother of Frameline. The Hollywoodness of the city infuses the festival with a kind of network electricity. People are wired. There will be corporate sponsors dimming senses with free cocktails, and somewhere in the back drop, art is business too.

I picked up my badge and got one of this year's gift bags. It looks like a paramilitary marriage bag, a queer desert camo color to help us blend and inside a bottle of free shampoo that opened and spilled all over everything and the contents were all lathered up in mint shampoo. Perhaps the theme is clean. Nothing really sexy, no condoms or lube or key chains with naked people -- not even sexy coffee mugs with the semi clad cast of queer as folk of yore -- nope, gays should be able to marry and join the military because gays are just like everybody else...not necessarily what the bag is "saying" but that's what I heard. Or maybe it was just that "Legalize Gay prop 8" shirt that is in the font of American Apparel "Legalize LA" shirt that set me off, not only does American Apparel incite me, but the single issue of gay marriage sheesh! You know the person wearing that shirt did not come out for the immigrant demos...a whole new layer to add to the worker's backs. Anyway the bag reconnaissance and the shirt were too close together in time and first impressions to have a real emo read on what is triggering me. It all is.

Film Recommendation

2009-07-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

The best film I saw at Frameline is playing at Outfest. I was incredibly moved by El Nino Pez and think it is brilliant. It gets my audience award.

Transliminal Criminal World Premiere

2009-06-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles July 11 2009

slaughter house pink

2009-06-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

When I decided to move, there were conversations about certain problems that travel with you, and changing cities would not make much of a difference. This seems to be true about the police state. I came to SF to take a break from LA. I wanted to travel with the current of a city, to be with its energy instead of constantly struggling towards possibility, to be enchanted instead of disenchanted. It has been difficult to juggle a move and a film festival and my gay pride and Saturday night it all exploded.

Not on the cell phone, not on the cell phone Jess kept repeating to silence me without silencing me - and so after every anti-establishment punishable offense I added the phrase in my movie, in my movie. Easily taken out of context after a humiliating and dehumanizing experience - I would be taken to one of those secret prisons in the U.S. if I had kept up my urgent need to spill out every thought that came to mind -- extraordinary rendition was not far behind. I wanted to go home and cry or set things on fire or both, but I was trying to meet Mattilda and I didn't know how to cancel our annual date in front of the Harvest Market. I didn't want to reconcile the fact that this was my home now, and it had turned from the Sesame Street lot to a militarized checkpoint.

In years prior, the Pink Party ends at the Castro, and Mattilda and I amused ourselves with the aftermath -- the trickling stream of people going in and out of the little outdoor party. We were set on the outskirts, and at a safe distance until we wandered through at the end of the night. Last year had the addition of some of Milk's set facades still in place, and I also remember some boy tried to pick up Mattilda and spun a tale of having just returned from wandering into an open limo to do drugs and have sex on the seats...something like that. It was funny and that was how I remembered our traditional gathering. I walked up a near empty side walk on Market Street, just a few storefronts down from Harvest, and three security guards in orange jackets puffed up their chests. One yelled at me that it was "exit only". I said I wasn't going to the event, just trying to go to the food store. He would not let me pass, and it was not the kind of person to ignore and push onward -- this guy would tackle me or worse if I continued to perceive and act as if it was public space. I debated screaming "Mattilda" from the line he drew, but decided to go through on the other side. I was guided into a sea of individuals trying to go thru a tiny checkpoint. I cut the line and squeezed to the front, and I was met by SFPD or some augmented police force. There was a Sister, as in a cross dressing nun, yelling through a bull horn in some kind of approving voice, as the security identified our gender for us and sent us to the "women" or "men" line. At a queer event? Really?

The "women" line was on the other side and much longer so I went to the men line where security refused to frisk me until I demanded that the "men" line was the one I had chosen -- so he felt me up and then told me I could not enter with my backpack. I tried to argue, tried to plea, and then after an intense refusal I parted through the crowd. As I pushed through a guy started some male posturing thing with me, with this non security straight guy I was passing as a faggot that he could bully, hey buddy say excuse me -- what did you say? what did you say? And I turned and said, I said please excuse me, and I felt like I was back in grade school again, trying not to get beat up in yet another way before going home.

Mattilda doesn't use a cell phone unless she's on tour. I debated calling information for the Harvest Market to page her to cancel. I wanted to go home and cry or to take down that nun with the bullhorn. The most clever thing I could come up with in my low blood sugar (since I could not get to the market) rage was to go home and drop off my backpack. It was on that trip that I called Jess and was ranting about the binary line, and the consent of the homos to this kind of policing. Why didn't everyone just turn and go home? Why wasn't there more fuss over this straight aggro security frisk show? Was this really San Francisco in 2009 -- the self congratulatory life affirming film festival movie of our lives? Yay for Stonewall progress, cops and gays working together to keep the streets safe for consumerism.

I ranted and cried and made my way back through the line because I don't stand people up. But wondered if I should just go back home, since Mattilda carried a bag. It wasn't back pack shaped, so I thought maybe they would let her in with a purse, but which line would she have gone through at the checkpoint? Would she still be there now that I was so late? My cell phone rang and she had made it inside the perimeter, but had also been just as galvanized by the time she reached the market.

We met up and shared our respective journeys. She had to throw away her water bottle and also shared words with one of the Sisters. The Sisters holding their suggestive buckets didn't say a word to either of us about donating. They must have seen the blind rage in our eyes, and I had a specific suggestion for them if they had come within a few feet of me.

The rest of the night I was exhausted and saddened. And the next day I bailed on the new tradition of attending the parade. It was a year ago when I started this blog, and partially it was about this time of year and the parade and the energy that comes from being in SF. The writing energy I draw from this city. And I guess the rest doesn't matter, it simply continues to validate all prison abolition work and the struggle for expanding public space.

I was sad to see so many homos behaving like docile creatures to be gendered and stamped like cattle. Not that I feel okay about cattle being treated like domesticated cattle.

I did not have much energy left for closing night of Frameline. I went to the film and felt a glitch in the Matrix q&a moment -- the same person from opening night stood up and asked the same question, framed the same way, and staging the same response -- it goes like this:

"I noticed the main character seemed to have themes of gender variance..." and at first I got annoyed because it was like a line being drawn of needing verbal recognition for the sake of the trans community - but then once the stupidity of the response started my allegiance shifted to the questioner -- the response went something like, oh I'm just a simple lesbian from simpler times when we did not struggle with our genders. Can't their be space for butch lesbians? She's just a lesbian.

It was this Michigan's Women Fest response, the inability to share space with younger generations (as well as people who came long before) who recognize a failed system when they see one, that binary doesn't cut it and there was never a simpler time. Fortunately, instead of just the simpler playwright from cut and dry times, (who obviously was a super control freak about the adaptation so that we watched a play for hours instead of a film), wasn't the only one who answered, and the actress who played the character expanded the definition of the role and of gender variance by saying that she was playing a multi-layered complex character.

In that moment, I could once again see the boxes and definitions that put everyone into the acquiescing line at the Pink Party. We are simple. We are this. We will get in line and buy beer and are happy because we can get married some day and that's all. We just want our space nevermind about the gender queer because space is somehow limited. Or not somehow limited but limited by the lines of non-profits and privatization, and cozy little binary security frisks to buy beer and celebrate our some day marriages. The urgency to compartmentalize and unify into one thing is a problem that keeps cropping up and it goes against nature. Nature is a spectrum, light is a spectrum, and all of this other stuff is like a violent pair of scissors gone wild on our livelihoods. I feel cut up about it all and keep trying to piece it back together again, but it hurts.

Here is a photo essay from the Pink Party Gay Cattle Prod:

disaster party

2009-06-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

I don't even know where to begin. I met Mattilda for our annual pride commentary session and it was a calamity of stupidity. Our hang spot used to be just outside the gates, but more gates went up this year with an intense security perimeter of gender police. It was all so disturbing that I need more time to formulate my thoughts. I barely wanted to get out of bed today. I don't even want to go outside for fear of Pride. I'm plotting my way to be inside movies for the last day of the Frameline Festival and need more time to meditate on the ugliness of a so-called charity organization.

bathroom wall art

2009-06-24T13:08:00.001-07:00

farmers and farm supporters

2009-06-12T16:52:00.001-07:00

Taking Back The Farm Reunion at South Central Farm Saturday June 13 6 - 11:30 pm

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sleepy time tea post

2009-06-12T16:44:00.001-07:00

The puppet show was well received. The news that the phone company cut off my internet today instead of Monday was not well received.

(at a coffeehouse using free wireless...)

shadows in daylight

2009-06-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

behind the scenes - puppet practice for tonight's show at tranza.

split focus

2009-06-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

I was trying to stay up. I even tried to get a friend to come over and keep me awake so that I would get through all of the stop motion stuff I wanted to do before the morning. Only my friend's rehearsal pushed late, and my steam wore out as suspected. I figured I could turn in and wake up insanely early. My upstairs neighbor (new?) decided that listening to loud music into the night was the way to go. I didn't resist. I was too tired, it was just me and the booming bass and a body worn from driving in too many directions around the city. All day.

I did wake up ridiculously early, but I felt better than I assumed I would. I made my way through the stop motion section, some creative bursts and some disasters from lack of planning. My initial thought was to finish this project before leaving for LA, but I am really into the possibility that my remaining four rolls of film offers me. It's not much, but it is enough. A little do-over button, or an infinite possibility button.

The air mattress raft type sleep is definitely better than a floor, not as good as a couch, and far from a bed. My bed. My shoulders are tweaked, and I don't think hunching over construction paper for nine hours with very few breaks and barely any food was a good plan. I have been trying to stretch as much as possible since I dropped everything off at the film lab. I feel physically inverted, I keep drawing my shoulders down and I hope the walk to the subway and the Outfest Launch Party thing created enough movement.

The Outfest event drew me to Hollywood and Highland for the first time, I've never been inside of that ridiculous mall thing. It's madness, even the bar where the event was held was madness, I tried to photograph a chandelier for the chandelier fans out there, but my phone freaked out. When my phone freaked out and refused to take pictures of chandeliers, I knew it was time to go, and so I left. And the oddest thing of the night was that my film Transliminal Criminal that is screening in Outfest was not written on my badge, no, instead it had my name and the project that is screening in Frameline and Homoagogo -- Big Deal. I kind of liked that it said my name and Big Deal underneath, it was funny, especially in L.A. But strange nonetheless. I guess whatever volunteer typed up the badges digs that Katastrophe video or something. Funny. I just told folks about both films and practiced the art of living in two cities out loud. It's already happening.

This Thursday Tranza (shadow puppetry)

2009-06-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

river bed

2009-06-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

Full moon, fireworks in the distance, trains rolling past, warm blankets and warm coziness, and the L.A. River, I'm not really sure what happened in the play last night because everything else was too magnificent. Although every time I think I want to write a musical, I see one, and I change my mind. But if ever I was to write a love story, now I think I could.

Los Angeles in all her beauty and strife, reflected in those moments between moments, in the cold, in the summer air, and I really don't know what happened in that play. Touch the Water...clearly, great set dressing (pictured above). Oh yes. Honestly I could have sat there for just as long with the set and a few spotlights on the river, and gotten the message.

Another day of checking things off a long list. And checking off things that were never on the list but should have been, or were and I just hadn't realized it.

facing it

2009-06-06T16:37:00.001-07:00

it is true that i will miss this view and that color blue next to red brick

perspective

2009-06-06T11:18:00.001-07:00

Flying again...dreams of uncolonized spaces territories without flags...realms of the undiscovered and untouched. Nature you delinquent of thought and recreation. Heard they are closing down parks because they can't afford to staff the rangers & upkeep. Beauty and life are at the top of budget cuts...how can you not question any system designed against nature?

los angeles taking the streets

2009-06-05T17:57:00.001-07:00

'hiv cuts wtf?'

2009-06-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

"I Am Human Don't Kill Me"

At the blocked Santa Monica street protest in front of Hollywood Forever Cemetery, almost all of the signage was hand made with heartfelt sentiment edited down to brief statements. It was the most mixed crowd I've seen at an LA Demo in a very long while. I know that weather played a role in the turn out, but was wondering where all those people who show up for prop 8 were today? Til death do us part.

national holiday

2009-05-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday mattilda bernstein sycamore!

Let's celebrate transparency, accountability, possibility, and artistry in her honor. And gorgeousness. Yes.

words that move

2009-05-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

For some reason I can't embed this video but Democracy Now with Author Eduardo Galeano was one of the most beautiful shows I've ever seen. Wow.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And why the short stories or the vignettes that you’ve increasingly gravitated to in recent decades? Why that form to express these huge stories?
EDUARDO GALEANO: I am fighting against inflation, not monetary inflation, but the inflation of words. So many words to say nothing. I am trying to say—to tell more with less. This is a challenge. And so, each one of the stories I tell has been written and rewritten ten times, fifteen times, I don’t know how many times, ’til I get the words that really deserve to exist, which are the words that I feel are better than silence.

....

EDUARDO GALEANO: ... And I say, “Well, yes, it’s true, because a woman is not better than a man or a man better than a woman. We are all made, you know, half-garbage and half-marble, half-beauty and half-shit.” But we should have the same opportunities. And that’s a problem. The discrimination have condemned so many people to be invisible. And this book tries to recover their memories and to recover their presence.

Bridging Realities

2009-05-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to be that person filming someone falling off of a bridge. I yelled at Clint to step backwards off the barbwire, lured him with kindness and statements of fact like

even if you go over there I'm not going to cross so we can't film, so just come back.

Aries please get back here.

Clint you are scaring me.

He was not turning back and there was nothing I could do. I didn't want to enable him with the camera.

But from the moment he said, I'm scaring you? Then film it!

I gave in. And I'm not sure if his boots will be out of focus or the terror will translate on to film. That was not new barbed wire. That was a wire that would snap with the wrong shift of weight. And it was wire next to his forehead, and I didn't want to watch him acquire some new scar, even with the knowledge that he would have loved the blood, if for nothing less than cinematic poetry.

I'm curious to see how the moment translates on film. I've always felt an intimacy with Super 8, like my emotions and visions are a cellular component to the film stock. And I don't think my fear of his safety will betray what we were hoping to convey with his roll in the film. In fact it was the exact beautiful disaster alchemy I was hoping for and when he disappeared into the woods, I felt haunted by the suicide bridge.

Lights flickered and there was a little chill in the air. An eerie energy went against the usual adoration I have for those kinds of lush landscapes around the LA River. People had been jumping to their deaths there since the Great Depression. I had intended to shoot from up on top of the bridge and while some consideration had gone into shooting from below, the fact that I would be filming Clint in a high risk trespassing dance had not occurred to me. And that it would be in this portal between worlds. And that night would fall around us while I waited for him to return from the other side of the gate.

film adventure with an extreme catalyst

2009-05-27T21:08:00.001-07:00

post film grubbin with catalyst...who btw tempted fate on barbed wire over a cliff for art only moments ago

wasn't on the menu

2009-05-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

me at 3 on a public access kids show getting devastated

2009-05-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

city hall food call

2009-05-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

A call for health care and food for the people. Gathering took place downtown outside of City Hall. For more information: HALA

hunger action day los angeles

2009-05-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

Across the street from the Governor's office in the Ronald Reagan building.

children of the non-gmo corn

2009-05-20T17:09:00.001-07:00

march of the veggies

2009-05-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

hunger action day la

It was so fun to march with cardboard fruit and veggies, the people were nice too. I went downtown and did some filming today at City Hall and along the march route.

Global Call to Action

2009-05-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

unshackled

2009-05-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

I filmed at the 1914 old "abandoned" zoo in Griffith Park today. I stood inside of the cage with the open door. I thought about zoos and prisons. Cages of all kinds. The way ivy can take down any tree, but was not having much success with the metal bars. There were no good feelings affiliated with the cages, no kind of beauty or admiration felt in my documentation efforts.

I looked through the bars and up at the trees and the sky and felt for the animals that were trapped in those cages a little less than a hundred years ago. And I realized that I got distracted and forgot there were other cages for larger animals around there, I think I missed one or two.

Griffith Park has so many different views that I found myself wandering up the trails instead of sticking to the animal cage plan. I guess there are only so many cages to see before one's head explodes with hopes for liberation. There was also some weird children's concert going on in the park, people singing about walk a dog and bake a cake. An odd juxtaposition to say the least, but definitely fine alternatives to look at creatures in cages.

It was hard not to get distracted by the power lines jutting through the trees. Hard to simply enjoy the park without thinking about domination, dominion, and control. I get so distracted by fences now. I couldn't distinguish between the cages and the fences. I was looking at the trees behind the fences that make room for the parking lot. I was thinking about wilderness. I was thinking about the animals behind bars looking at the trees behind bars. I was thinking about filming at the LA River yesterday, in one area where there are trees and stones growing in the river, and then the clean cemented dry bed we passed in another area downtown. Life directed as such, these mental energies of industrialization and human marvel, and where is this world headed?

Will there always be the constant erection of cages and fences? Or will it reverse? Will I witness it in my lifetime? I guess some people are comfortable taking their children to zoos, some people are comfortable with enhanced torture techniques, some people want to be entertained at whatever expense, and some people long for the day when all doors swing open.

on the bridge

2009-05-16T22:58:00.001-07:00

filming with irina - 1st street bridge

lost angeles...progression

2009-05-15T20:27:00.001-07:00

more stills from my film in progress city in progress life in progress...

appliance graveyard

2009-05-14T22:19:00.001-07:00

where broken things gather

the

2009-05-12T18:48:00.001-07:00