Dee Allen’s New Spoken Word Poetry

 

BIO
___
Used to be 404 and 770.
Now, I’m 415 and 510.
Seven years spent
Taking in all this Area by the Bay gives me.
The good,
The bad,
The strange
From my adopted home on the range.
“Consume all of it,
Grow strong and
Put in the work you’re meant to do”,
My heart whispers.
Always down for the Struggle
In defence of all life
Encompassing nature, all races, sexes,
      species and certain classes
Especially the Poor—-
________________________
W: 9.26.09
[For Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny.]

TORCHLIGHT
___________
From a marble pit in Athens,
A perpetual pyre burns on.
Re-housed in a cone hand-held,
Made of titanium steel, part of the pyre is
Glowing, flickering, blazing, illuminating
With its own newfound life.
Traveling the globe
In a cyphre, the steel torch is gripped & carried
Providing light.
Torchlight tells us that the games are coming.
Yet whenever the torch approaches,
What some see as a symbol of sportsmanship
And good will, most see
Lost blood, damaged lives, mouths sealed shut
In the “people’s republic” of the Far East.
Visions of nightsticks, shields, boots kicking in
Ribs, filling jails, extracted innards, outlawed
Faiths & politics, support for starving children,
Divide & conquer in another besieged land
Covered in African dust & endless warfare.
Visions alive & well in the public mind.
Torchlight darkens its path through
Old cities of the Earth.

Torchlight tells us that the games are coming.
And with them,
Displacement
Repression
Surveillance
Follows.

Looking at evil transpiring
Elsewhere
Makes it easier to cast
Thousands of blinded eyes on
Atrocities in the land of plenty.

Displacement
Repression
Surveillance
In their harshest forms
Happen here, too.

Never mind Tibet. Never mind China.
Free Hunter’s Point. Free Oakland.
Better yet, free Amerikkka
From its hypocritical self.
____________________
W: 4.28.08

TORCHLIGHT 2
_____________
Torchlight
Burns bright
Torchlight
Holds flame
Torchlight
Carried in different hands
Torchlight
Carried across continents
Torchlight
Means games
Torchlight
Brings crowds
Torchlight
Means sportsmanship
Torchlight
Brings tenfold
Catastrophe
To women,
To black bears,
To legions of impoverished on the street,
To non-surrendered
Indian land
Torchlight
Means corporate sponsorship
Torchlight
Brings happy consumers
Torchlight
Means merchandising
Torchlight
Brings pale green
Cascades, the kind that fills
Bank vaults well
Torchlight
Is development
Of paradise for wealthy, smug ones
Torchlight
Is removal
Of mountains & forests
Torchlight
Is cleansing
The city of their weary, tired
And dirt-poor with nowhere
New to breathe free
Torchlight
Is feeding
The two-week, five-ring
Spectacle billions of the workers’ dollars
Straight line to debt
Torchlight
Is the beacon
Flickering, attracting
Businessmen, snipers, militarised
Cops, their hated armoured flesh
Lent to a powermad, sickened dream
Torchlight
Shines its brilliance
On a vision its backers want materialised:
Steel-gated, multi-camera, heavily-guarded
Checkpoint AR-15
Panopticon future
Guaranteed not to disappear
When the games do
Torchlight
Is the symbol
For Fortress KKKanada
Torchlight
Means runination
For Vancouver—-

The natives
Saw this coming long ago.
Together, they fight
The torch & the chaos its brings.

Bulldozers sabotaged.
Roadways blocked.
Flags stolen.
Corporate offices wrecked.
Relay runs disrupted.
Billboards defaced
With spray-paint warnings subtle
As a car crash.

For all its powerful shine & magnitude,
The torch

Have nothing on the wolves.
There’s more than enough to
Snuff out the flame.
The packs are gathering,
Moving in for the big strike
With glowing hearts.
The digital clock
In the downtown square is ticking.
Captains of industry are ready
And so are the furious wolves,
Emerging from hiding in the woods.

The games have already begun
On the streets.
_________________________
W: 11.12.09
[For Gord Hill aka Zig Zag.]

NO OLYMPICS ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND.

Dee Allen performs and writes at social-justice events all over the San Francisco Bay Area. You may reach him at pathogen@sanfranmail.com

Max Ehrman’s Mythology on City Walls

 

Max Ehrman (Eon75) was first slapped in the face by this obsessive art form called Aerosol Art in 1995 when we was studying architecture in Gainesville, Florida. In Gainesville, there is a legal wall for muralists and graffiti artists to express themselves and execute large scale murals. One day two international graffiti artists painted the wall and blew him away with their concept and execution of technique. The mural was amazing and it sparked a fire in Max. The next day he bought a few cans of paint, went to the wall, and has not stopped painting ever since.

Over the years Max has written graffiti under a lot of names. Currently he goes by the name Eon75. Eon meaning Extermination.of.Normality and the 75 denoting the year that he was born. Over the years this name has taken him to over 10 countries and 3 continents. He has painted large scale productions and travelled with the meeting of styles throughout Europe  – www.meetingofstyles.com

Eon75 has exhibited in galleries all over Europe and North America. Some of his favorite destinations are Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Florida, NYC and currently all over San Francisco.

Max’s formal schooling is in architecture. He has attained a Bachelors of Architecture from Florida Atlantic University and also a Masters of Architecture from the Bauhaus (Dessau Institute of Architecture) in Dessau, Germany. The rigid and structured constraints of architecture helped him develop an eye for detail in his art.

Ehrman’s art is heavily influenced by organic forms in nature and the ocean. Having grown up in Florida and living on the beach most of his life, nature is an underlying element in all of his work. Free flowing organic forms that connect with the viewer in a naturalist way. The elements of the ocean and plant life can be found in his pieces, this is the basis for the forms. There is always a repetition of 3 in every painting. This is used to balance out the painting and connect with nature. Nature is perfect in its construction of its parts to the whole. Leaves and shells are always structured off odd numbers..3’s, 5’s, etc. This pattern can also be found in Eon75’s artwork.

Currently living in San Francisco, Max is a freelance designer,architect, and artist. He has his hand in a little bit of everything, from graphic design,industrial design to the realization of large scale murals in the bay area. He can always be found sketching or enjoying the outdoors and being influenced by his surroundings.

Where can you find and contact Max Ehrman?:
Interview:
www.vimby.com and type in eon75 and you will find a good 4 minute bio..

Lonely during the Holidays? Some ideas reposted from Craigslist which we at SC are sharing with you all

(This was originally posted on Craigslist 12/24/2001. I’m not the author but it helped me during a sad time in my life so I post it every year on behalf of the real author in the hopes that it might help someone else.)

Christmas bums me out. I have no family, and most of my friends have died. I have no place to go for a friends & family & tree dinner and day of Yule Tide Spirits. However, I won’t pule about my misery. I’ve done this for the past four years and it works for me.

But. This is what I do to make Christmas bearable for me.

Preface this with saying that this Christmas looks like it’s going to be nice weather, so no reason to sit isolated at home!

OK? These are just my things. Think of some of your own, too.

1. Get out of your apartment.

2. Take a walk.

3. Ride MUNI somewhere neat. The drivers aren’t happy about working Christmas, so be nice to them and greet them with “Merry Christmas,” and thank them for the transfer. Make eye contact with other passengers and smile.

4. Go to different parts of town you’ve not been to.

5. Round up some of that spare change you have in a jar or such … carry it around with you and give it to panhandlers and watch their surprize … sure, let ’em buy a beer or cigs or whatever. It’s Christmas for them, too. Who am I to judge?

Continue reading

Open calls for submissions

The Land of Odd Gallery will be holding an open call for artworks for an upcoming exhibition. The theme for the exhibition will be $100 and under works. All media will be considered for inclusion.

The Land of Odd Gallery is located at 4690 Eagle Rock Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90041, and holds its opening receptions in conjunction with the NELA 2nd Saturday Art Walk.

To be considered please come by the gallery during our normal business hours to meet with us so that we may view and discuss your work.
If you are not in the Los Angeles vicinity please contact us to make other arrangements.

(We are also still accepting submissions for the March 5×7 show, please see our discussions tab to view the guidelines.)

More information and the gallery website available here: http://thelandofoddgallery.com/blog/open-call/
Also, Mudd’s Coffeehouse in San Francisco’s Mission District seeks artists to send in work to hang on their walls. Please contact their manager, Hisham Massarweh, at hmassarweh@comcast.net for more information.

Virtual New Year’s Party, annual worldwide tradition, all are welcome!

Everyone, sorry for the late notice, but we’re hosting our traditional annual online New Year’s Eve party in this journal (http://ladycatherina.livejournal.com/) again this year. Got started back when I first moved to the Bay Area and everyone I knew was scattered among various states and countries or didn’t have the cash for food for a party or gas to get there.

How this works is that somewhere around the morning of New Year’s Eve Pacific Standard Time, I will post a virtual description of a party – complete with a decorated house, food, music, drinks, and a place to share memories of 2009 and hopes and dreams for 2010.

For an idea of how this works, here’s a past year’s virtual party: http://ladycatherina.livejournal.com/300058.html

Everyone from around the world is invited to come along and participate at any time that night or the next day – write a comment there describing what you’re wearing, what you’re doing, what you’re bringing (recipes are great!) and talk with anyone else by responding to their comments along with me! In past years people have danced, played Pokemon, traded gourmet recipes, and talked philosophy and remembered loved ones, through hundreds of comments.

All are welcome, regardless of whether you’re friended to ladycatherina on LiveJournal or not…and we’re inviting Synchronized Chaos Magazine’s readers and others I know from other communities.

I view New Year’s as a philosophical/spiritual holiday as well as a fun time for a get-together…this is the truly democratic, inclusive winter or summer) holiday, as everyone, regardless of how lonely or broke or sick they are, can have hope and resolutions for the new year. It’s a time when we can choose to forgive, let go of past grudges and move forward into a future with unlimited possibilities, when old barriers can be broken and new dreams realized.

New Year’s Eve was the night in Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights when romantic antihero Heathcliff let go of years of resentment towards people who had wronged him and on whom he’d previously spent most of his time exacting revenge. Then, out of the power of love and honoring the best within himself rather than the worst, he broke through the boundaries of life and death, time and memory, money and class, and found a real spiritual connection with nature and others and his departed lover, Catherine.

So, in that spirit, let us all join in forgiving the past and embracing the future, the promise of infinite creative possibilities where all are welcome.

Seven by Twenty – Twitter length submissions

 

Please pass this along to anybody you think may be interested! Thanks.
Seven by Twenty (http://twitter.com/7×20) is looking for submissions
for publication in 2010. Since we publish on twitter, all submissions
must be fewer than 140 characters. Leave room for attribution – either
your name or your twitter handle. We publish fiction and poetry. We’re
especially interested in very short stories, six word stories,
American sentences, cinquains, haiku, senryu and tanka. We happily
consider reprints. Please send 1-10 pieces for consideration.
Regards,
Joanne Merriam
Editor, Seven By Twenty
http://twitter.com/7×20

Note: Seven By Twenty takes twitter-length fiction and poetry. Please
include attribution (twitter name, or author name) at the end of your
piece, as well as a separate bio. No sim subs, no serials, no horror,
no pay, reprints encouraged. We use one-time electronic rights. Send
to: 7x20mag@gmail.com with subject “Submission.” Please report your
response times at duotrope.com.

Call for Visual Artists – Mill Valley Art Commission, February deadline

 

Mill Valley Art Commission

Mill Valley City Hall

26 Corte Madera Ave.

Mill Valley, California 94941 

 

 

Mill Valley Art Commission

announces

 

“CALL FOR ARTISTS”

for

2010-2011 Gallery Shows

 

 

 

The Mill Valley Art Commission is now accepting 2D work (sorry, we cannot accommodate 3D art or jewelry) from artists in the greater Bay Area to be considered for a show in the City Hall Council Chambers or Mill Valley Community Center. Some of the shows may include more than one artist. Shows are hung for one month; opening receptions are held on the first Tuesday of the month, and are part of the downtown Mill Valley “First Tuesday” gallery art walks.

 

Artists should mail a cd with 5 examples of their work in jpeg format representing the type and range of the art that would be included in their show and the Artist Information Sheet to Mill Valley Art Commission, 26 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley, CA 94941. Also include a check for $20, payable to Mill Valley Art Commission.  Entries should be received by 5 p.m. Friday, February 12, 2010. Artists will be notified by March 26, 2010..

 

Note: Artists showing at City Hall Council Chambers or Mill Valley Community Center in 2009-2010 are not eligible for the 2010-2011 Call for Artists.

 

For information and applications, go to the Mill Valley City Hall (26 Corte Madera Ave., M.V., 94941), the Mill Valley Community Center, (180 Camino Alto, M.V., 94941) or www.cityofmillvalley.org (go to City Government on the top row menu, then to Boards and Commissions, to Art Commission, to Call for Artists entry form).

 

 

 

  

 

Mill Valley Art Commission

Mill Valley City Hall

                                                                              26 Corte Madera Avenue

Mill Valley, California 94941

 

“CALL FOR ARTISTS”

 FOR

  2010-2011 GALLERY SHOWS

 

 

 

 

Checklist for complete application: 

Please review the checklist below. Applicants who do not have a completed packet will not be considered.

Ÿ  All applicants must reside in the greater Bay Area.

Ÿ  Enclose a check or money order for $20 made payable to the Mill Valley Art Commission.

Ÿ  Enclose a cd with 5 examples of your work in jpeg format

Ÿ  Enclose list of individual jpeg descriptions including titles, medium, and dimensions.

Ÿ  Fill out the attached Artist information sheet

 

 

            Please note the following City of Mill Valley guidelines for hanging art work in city buildings:

     

…..”the selection of art for display in public buildings must be based on artistic merit, rather than the content of the artistic message being conveyed.” …… “City buildings are primarily places of employment and where public business is conducted and secondarily serve as a limited public forum for the display of art.  Although the City encourages artistic expression, the City also wishes to ensure that City buildings are places where citizens, employees, and visitors of various ages and diverse views feel welcome and comfortable.”

Complete application, and instructions for return, here:  http://www.cityofmillvalley.org/Index.aspx?page=759