East Africa Famine Relief

Synchronized Chaos Magazine is encouraging you to do what you can to contribute toward East Africa famine relief efforts. East Africa is experiencing the worst drought in over 50 years and right now, there are millions of people living in fear of starvation and in immediate need of food and water.

Here are several ways to donate directly:

Art and music events in Canada:

Synchronized Chaos Magazine – Aug 2011: Building Bridges

This month’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine, Building Bridges, expresses transition, movement, and connectivity.

Lex Munson and Michelle Tholen connect their own lives with the natural world. Munson’s rustic artwork is unique in that it is often created from memory. Tholen’s landscape paintings are luminous and subtly mysterious.

Erik White’s paintings are intricate and alive. Each piece seems as though it is in a state of transition.

Andrea Allen links identity, consumption, and nature in interesting ways. Her work contains lines that intertwine into balanced and colorful designs.

This issue also features spirited mural work by Johanna Poethig. You’ll have an opportunity to catch a glimpse of what the artist is currently working on in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, California.

We have several poems to offer you this month, including those from new Synchronized Chaos contributors Cesar Love and Don P. Musey. Also featured are Sam Burks and J’Rie B. Elliott.

Be sure to read Michaela Elias’ interesting interview with artist and publisher Rama Tiwari. Tiwari is the owner of Pilgrims Book House.

Whose Brain Is It? Presented as a mystery with fictional characters and some clues before the answer is provided, this is a monthly column with a journalist’s (Leena Prasad’s) perspective, on the neuroscience of the brain.

We appreciate you reading this diverse and exciting issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine! If you would like to contribute to the magazine, we are always accepting new submissions. For more information, please click on the “Submission Guidelines” tab on the top of this page.

Art by Andrea Allen

About the artist:

Andrea Allen doesn’t believe in wastefulness. Allen often uses secondhand objects or seemingly disposable objects and places them into new context in her artwork. “Does our progress come from new ideas or recycled ideas in a new context?”

“Color, line, form, and texture are prominent design elements in my sculptures. My abstract artwork incorporates found objects, rope, resin, paint and metal.”

– Andrea Allen

Website: http://www.andreaallen.biz

Contact: alaart@gmail.com

Whose brain is it? [Aug 2011 – Leena Prasad]

Whose Brain Is It?
by Leena Prasad

“Maybe you should start smoking pot,” her daughter says and laughs.

“Does it help?” Patricia says, not laughing.

“Well, the THC in cannabis has been shown to be useful.”

“THC?”

“I couldn’t tell you what it stands for; it’s a very long name. It’s an active ingredient in marijuana and has been shown to help delay the onset.”

“But smoking can cause so many other problems,” Patricia says.

“Well, you can ingest medical marijuana in other, safer ways.”

They are talking about prevention for a type of brain disease. The Scripps Research Institute found a possible link between THC and the prevention of plaque formation in the brain. But, more recent studies at the Brain Research Center in Canada and the Maudsley Hospital in Denmark, have refuted this claim. Cannabis has not been scientifically vetted as a preventive method for this disease.

Leena Prasad has a journalism degree from Stanford University. Her writing portfolio is available at www.FishRidingABike.com and she can be reached at leena@fishridingabike.com.

Continue reading

Poetry by Cesar Love

Oedipus

Study the green sting of fireflies
Those alert and fulgent flares
Prods in pulse against the witless night
Till quashed by the whiteout of day

Take note the glow of the Halloween frock
Wraithlike white – a hue of milk disbodied
Worn by the revelers who coquet death
Yet boxed, forsaken – once the moon is through

Then watch the welder and his snaky torch
His furtive peek becomes a lock noose stare
The pupil learns when he closes his eyes
Of the retina’s dreadful stigmata

Cesar Love is an editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. He has recently been featured on the San Francisco Poetry Open Mic Poetry Podcast TV Show: click here!

Continue reading

Paintings by Erik White

Erik White calls this work “Gravitational Art.” His style, similar to the effect of Jackson Pollock, showcases the the movement of paint as a result of the pull of gravity. He states, “The movement of the paint pulled by gravity is a frozen record of the force that holds our world together. The paint is a visual representation of those invisible vibrations.”

White is also a political activist. He created The Obama Bill (see image above) in an effort to address his view on current political and economic issues. The following is an excerpt from his essay on The Obama Bill:

This painted ten-dollar bill is an artistic representation of the connections that I have been able to uncover in my research, painted to expose the international corporate bankers who control our money system for their own benefit. When Barrack Obama was elected to the Presidency, like many Americans I was excited. Then he appointed Timothy Geithner to be the Secretary of the Treasury, and it became clear to me that America was not going to see the change it had been promised. Since the election I have been doing research to uncover the hidden forces behind the American political system. The more I have learned, the more evidence I uncover, the more an ominous picture emerges, of shadowy forces, working behind the scenes, to shape and control our world.

Continue reading

Landscape Art by Michelle Tholen

About the featured artwork:

Michelle Tholen’s inspiration is drawn from the landscapes in Northern California, the sustenance of stunning mist-laden rivers infused with atmosphere and a sense of tranquility.   Colors, light, shadows and perspective in the sky drive the artist to create a lure of light found in the spiritual that illumines, fills and enlivens.  Hopeful in feeling, Tholen’s landscapes suggest real and imagined, familiar and foreign places that reveal depth, drive imagination and create mystery.

Email michelletholen@gmail.com for more information. Click here to view the artist’s Website.