First of all, I attended one of the local Earth Day work-party events, the marsh grass watering and weeding in Union City/Hayward, CA at Eden Landing – today, April 18th from nine to noon. Found out our area is home to the endangered clapper rail/tiny salt marsh mouse and all about how the wetlands have shrunk over time and how they filter pollution and heavy metal residue out of the environment. Encourage as many of the Synchronized Chaos family as possible to Google/GoodSearch Earth Day events in your local community.

Also – shout-out to Oakland’s Montclair Neighborhood’s El Agavero – wonderful place that is about to host a Cinco de Mayo event Tuesday, May 5th with local mariachi bands. Beautiful restaurant, not too expensive, with authentic Frida Kahlo tequila produced in honor of the binational artist who ‘painted her own reality.’ The Lincart Gallery on Market Street (near Civic Center Bart) in San Francisco is also featuring photography of places/people related to Frida Kahlo and the enigmatic artist Man Ray.

Another announcement – passing on a letter from Fran Varian, social justice-oriented performance artist suffering from late-stage Lyme disease and part of the Synchronized Chaos family (if you have recurring flu-like symptoms, please ask for a Lyme test as this condition can be cheaply, quickly treated if found right away but can be deadly and unaffordable to treat if found late, as happened for Fran.) The letter concerns how to help her and others, and encourages people to make the most of whatever life is left to them:

Editor’s note, for those able and interested in helping Fran out, or reposting this message (and the letter is worth reading as the girl can write, even if you can’t spare cash at the moment!)

*She can receive donations online at: www.helphealfran.org

Or:

Fran Varian
503 Carlton Ave.
Durham, NC 27701

My Very Dear (and Hella Pretty) Lyme Fighting Army:

Unbelievably, this thank you letter is close to five months in the making. I’d like to say that time moves quickly when you have Lyme Disease, but it doesn‘t. Time rolls together when you are chronically ill, long stretches of it with little to delineate a day in January from a day in late March, except for a bit more sun.

I had set out all of those months ago to thank you. I thank you multiple times each day but I wanted to offer a thank you that you could see, a proper thank you that you could hold onto and come back to; even point the misanthropes in your life toward as evidence that there is good in the world, and that it originates in you.

Recently a 27 year-old man in Maryville, Illinois walked into a Baptist Church and shot its Pastor to death. The man, Terry J. Sedlacek, has a very severe case of late stage, neurological, Lyme Disease. He did not start out a shoot ‘em up kind of guy, but once those bacteria screw themselves into your brain and get the opportunity to hang out for a while everything about you changes.

It is well documented that he did not receive the care he needed. Very few of us are actually receiving all of the care we need. But in the absence of an adequate or sympathetic health care system the support and belief of one’s community makes an entire world of difference.

I wish you could see yourselves from here. You are many beautiful colors, all sizes, most socio-economic groups, many different genders, and many different sexualities. You run the gamut from the healthiest to the strongest crips and survivors I’ll ever lay my grateful eyes upon. You live all over the country, and in Canada and in Europe. You have various, and sometimes opposing beliefs. Some of you are religious personnel and some of you are not so holy. I’ve known you for most of my life and there are those among you I’ve never met – and still you are my family. You are smart and funny and kind and compassionate and you hold me up – you have held me up for over a year now. On my very worst days when I am certain I absolutely can not endure another minute of this I imagine your faces, and I hold on.
Continue reading →

Save the Bay – Earth Day Restoration Projects

Throughout the Bay Area

Save the Bay offers a chance to get involved by way of habitat restoration projects around the Bay Area. Check the Save the Bay website for additional details — and to learn more about the great work Save the Bay engages in everyday on behalf of our Bay Area habitat and resources.

http://www.savesfbay.org/site/pp.asp?c=dgKLLSOwEnH&b=490289

These are small projects where people help plant native plants, clean up a beach, take a nature hike and learn about the wilderness while clearing trails, etc for just a few morning hours. Designed to bring people together while benefiting the environment all over the San Francisco Bay Area…there are projects all over in various SF Bay counties on various days.

I’m thinking of attending a few this late spring/early summer, if other Synchronized Chaos folks would like to join for a meetup and have coffee or lunch afterwards please comment and let me know!

Chabot Space & Science Center presents the 2nd Annual Science & Art Appreciation Night Friday, April 24th 7pm-11pm

CALLING ALL VISUAL ARTISTS

Want to showcase your artwork to a new audience FREE of charge? Chabot Space & Science Center is calling all aspiring, emerging and professional artists to come and

showcase their art or photographs during the 2nd Annual Science & Art Appreciation

Night. The specific theme for the evening is the infusion of Art & Science. Just as

Leonardo da Vinci was an artist AND a scientist, great art is often inspired by discoveries in science. The study of light in painting, led to many great discoveries by scientists such as Galileo and Newton. We are a family friendly environment so no explicit or sexually suggestive images are permitted. Selected artists will be featured for the duration of the event. Artists must be 18 years of age or older. Each artist is asked to submit a minimum of 2 pieces (electronic versions only) and a 200 word statement about their piece and how it relates to science for approval. All final pieces must be self contained; free standing pieces will be accepted if accompanied by an easel. Minimum number of submission is 2. Selected artist and 1 guest will receive free admission to the Center on the day of the event. Deadline for submissions: 4/17/09. Send all submissions to ljohnson@chabotspace.org

What is Lunar Lounge? Lunar Lounge is an event designed to attract new visitors to

Chabot for an evening of musical entertainment in the form of a DJ or a live band,

interactive exhibits; food; beer and wine; and telescope viewing through our spectacular telescopes- weather permitting. This event also features a special presentation of DomeFest 2008, a production of the ARTS Lab at the University of New Mexico.

DomeFest is dedicated exclusively to dome-work, which incorporates video, animation, art and technology in a fully immersive, hemispheric experience. The primary audiences targeted for this event are in the 18-44 age range as an alternative date night or group outing.

Lunar Lounge is held on select Fridays of the following months (February-April- May-July-October) Tickets Price: $20Adults/$18students/$15Members

CHABOT SPACE & SCIENCE CENTER — a Smithsonian affiliate is a 501c3 nonprofit

interactive science center whose mission is to inspire and educate students of all ages about our Planet Earth and the Universe. Founded in 1883, the Center is located just off Highway 13, at 10000 Skyline Blvd. in Oakland’s Redwood Regional Park.  

Welcome to April’s Synchronized Chaos issue! This time we have the privilege of featuring artists from a wider variety of genres, including independent filmmakers, several musicians, and a business consultant. Each work within this month’s assortment was highly unique and distinctive, with a clear sense of theme and purpose. Our contributors know they have something to say, and have clear reasons for choosing their particular styles and media.

Various aspects of adaptation and change served as a common thread through this month’s work. This theme currently features in popular and academic culture outside of Synchronized Chaos, through works such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point and Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. How can we identify and keep up with the changes around us? How can we survive and effectively adapt and take advantage of the opportunities presented by changing times while holding on to our values? Can we choose our responses to, or choose to direct and modify, the changes happening in the world around us? How have people historically dealt with periods of rapid societal change?

Our April contributors explore and address these kinds of questions through their art and writing, as well as concerns of their own. Authors Adam Metz, Ina Wong and Ashlee Holland provide a framework through their characters or their business models for choosing to change oneself  first to better adapt to personal and encourage broader societal change. To encourage ethical behavior (accommodations for deafness, loyal, honest friendship) or to move one’s company towards use of the latest technology, one must examine one’s own behavior and attitudes honestly before seeking to critique others. Not that any of those authors shies away from encouraging activism…but world-changing starts with oneself and one’s own approach to speaking out for what one believes.

Cultivating an attitude of curiosity and wonder also helps many people face change…the band Corpus Callosum explores old, odd technologies and bits of history to create a sense of horror/fascination and wonder at how things have changed historically. Their music brings us back to the days when people stared in wonder at Bell’s telephone or Edison’s phonograph. Missy Feigum’s paintings depict mutant animals with pastel colors, delicate little Siamese twin unicorns and pigs with extra legs…at once showing off the effects of possible environmental damage to chromosomes and touching on the childlike sense of wonder at something out of the ordinary, different from the children’s book romanticized views of animals. We can be afraid but curious and strangely fascinated at the same time.

Acceptance and taking full advantage of change can also start with acknowledging the reality of one’s fears and emotions. Shanna Gilfix’ music looks at love, loss, and questioning one’s place in life and encourages people to recognize their own emotions in the lyrics and to know through hearing the song that they are okay and not alone. Other songs inspire people to question their place in life, to sit with themselves and wait for answers from the truest part of themselves which may not come immediately. Michael’s Resignation, an upcoming independent British film about the psychological consequences of war and the global financial crisis, explores how change causes many ordinary, decent people to feel irrelevant and experience extreme frustration. The new story from M.R.C. of Chaos Creations looks into loss and grief and how those change-associated emotions hold people back as metaphorical ‘ghosts’ unable to move forward into a new reality as represented by Heaven/remarriage/new life directions. Both pieces look into how change affects different people in different ways…quick and easy adaptation is not a privilege everyone can enjoy, and how can we help those for whom change may be more difficult? Also, in both pieces acknowledging honest feelings of fear or rage concerning impending change (as an individual in terms of saying a ritual goodbye and moving forward, or as a society in terms of providing retraining/assistance to jobseekers or treating ordinary people with dignity) comes forward as the first step towards progress. We see what happens for people who cannot adapt (Michael’s violence, the ghosts stuck forever in the desert deprived of Heaven) and start a dialogue concerning how to best facilitate adaptation for those who will be disadvantaged.

Susy Flory and Ashlee Holland’s writing, and Ricci De Valdez and Shanna Gilfix’ music (as shown by their artist’s journeys, detailed in brief through our interviews) all celebrate resourcefulness when it comes to adapting to change. Locally based musicians must deal with performing to a wide variety of crowds, financing their ventures in unique ways, and often fusing a variety of styles. Susy Flory also presents adaptation by choice…coming across icons from the lives of famous women she admires, and taking small steps towards emulating them. Her work reflects a high degree of creativity in terms of figuring out how best to incorporate each historical woman’s life choices into her own…how can a suburban homemaker take on qualities of Queen Elizabeth or Mary Magdalene? Ashlee Holland’s journey through deafness involves many adaptations by necessity…but she still approaches these with creativity and honest self-acceptance, which is a choice in itself.

Synchronized Chaos Magazine certainly has adapted over the years, both by choice and by necessity. We celebrate and honor these artists who have highlighted the journey of adaptation and the historical imperative of change and responded by encouraging personal and societal compassion, creativity, and resourcefulness.

He and the small unit of men he had been with had been attacked by aircraft earlier that morning. Two dead, one badly wounded, and himself with minor injuries. Their jeep labored as they struggled to make their way to a small oasis that was marked on the map they carried, it was supposed to be neutral territory and many of their troops were in the area.

Eamon walked around and glanced into the jeep and sighed. Sergeant Anderson, the only other survivor, had died. Eamon had known it was coming, the injuries were just too bad, but it was still a frightening reality that he was standing in the desert with a disabled jeep, three corpses and damn little else. He thought for a few moments, then began scavenging items from the jeep, setting them aside and building them into a pack. He then carefully arranged the three bodies to lie in state in the jeep and covered them with a tarp the best he could to keep off carrion birds.

Read the rest of the story here:

I am a painter currently living and working in San Francisco, California. I have been painting since the age of 19 when I discovered that the skills I acquired in college art classes could be applied to the examination of my own psyche. Since then, I have used painting as a tool to help me better understand myself, creating honest, humorous, moody and expressive paintings.

Currently, I am compelled to explore freaks of nature, animals whose physiology verges from the normal. Though often considered horrific–especially when created with imperious intent by humankind- they can be endearing as well. When I stumble across their images, I find myself unable to pull my eyes away: pity and revulsion battle it out within me as I peer in fascination at their abnormalities. I know I am not alone in my fascination as images of these unique creatures abound in the media. On the Internet alone they are often the most emailed image of the day, some achieving a near celebrity status.

My latest work “Little Abominations” is a series of animal portraits rendered in a whimsical, brightly colored fashion, giving them a children’s-room feel. This initially distracts from their deformities. Once the ‘wrongness’ of the animals is spotted, the too-vivid colors and over-the top cutesiness seem cloying and twisted. My intent is to re-create for the viewer the juxtaposition between the allure and repulsion I feel for these oddities.

Missy Feigum’s work is on display at San Francisco’s Artist’s Exchange (16th St. near Valencia.) She may be contacted at catsbah@gmail.com or online at www.missyfeigum.com

 Our souls are like fingerprints. You recognize a fingerprint as a fingerprint, but each one is different from the others.  

My influences were initially conscious, then became unconscious. I started with all the music I liked, even though it wasn’t cool then. Ken Loggins…Culture Club, Boy George, Billy Idol.

There’s more value placed on originality today…you’ll get popular if you sound like yourself, have your own niche inspired by people you admire.

What distinguishes you from other musicians…what do you feel makes your sound unique?

Probably the way [my friend and bandmate] Brian Fernandez and I play off of each other. Brian is a supervising chemist and a UCLA grad….very smart and knows music theory too! We’re a real mix of educated and undereducated people.  Some know music theory, while some, such as myself, don’t.

Also passion, inspiration…I came up with Calibama spur of the moment during a performance…everyone was amazed and thought I’d spent more time on it, but it just came to me.