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.

(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?

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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.

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.

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

A PLACE CALLED CHRISTMAS  (reprinted from Castro Valley’s Neighborhood Church’s 2009 winter women’s ministry newsletter Redeemed)

 
Though I have known hardship, and unspeakable pain, I have never known a place without Christmas; the hopeful longing, the joyful anticipation, and the flickering lights that burn bright in a child’s memory.  I can’t recall a time without the glad tidings that abound this time of year, and no matter what sorrows befell a family or a nation, there was always that sense of wonder and awe as I witnessed the picturesque nativity scene, or gazed into the maze of December’s gardens.

The ideal converges with the real in a place called Christmas; early America portrayed in picture perfect postcards with rustic cabins, carolers, and streetlamps in the snow.

Real life memories come to mind. Christmas Eve in the spirit of my Grandmother’s native Genoa was relived with some likeness, yet with each generation there is a watering down.  Midnight mass with its heavily draped pomp and drawn out Latin was a bit severe as I felt drenched in a black smoking inferno of incense: even so, the exhilaration could not be stifled. In my life I have been at crucial crossroads, and often at a crippling loss to resolve or understand the spiritual battle within. After my conversion from the world of dark to a saving knowledge, I still don’t quite fathom the puzzle of salvation, and the reconciliation of a baby King with a blood stained wooden cross, but now I believe that the word of God is true, no matter how I feel, or think, on any given day.
As a Catholic, I first heard of the triune God; the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. As rays of brilliant sunlight streamed into the stuffy dark cathedral, I witnessed the Stations of the Cross in colored sections of stained glass. I watched as my Father lit tiny candles, and my Mother dipped her slender hand in the holy water.
Somewhere along the way, I tasted from the the bitter cup of betrayal. I down-spiraled for a time, so alone in my vacuum of pain and isolation. In spite of my wanderings, during the harsher seasons without visible sunlight, God’s hand was there amid the dark pages of my youth. Through the prayers of my Mother, my sister, those I encountered in my searching, and through the intercession of angels, (my own guardian angel included), I came back to the sacred heart of Jesus, and to a place called Christmas.
Never far from a Mother’s prayer, a child’s cry, or the genuine repentant prayer of even the most desperate of humans, our Savior stands in the line of fire between us and the enemy of our souls; he stands at the right hand of the Father, our advocate, pleading our case, over and over yet redeeming us from hell’s fire, once and for all by his shed blood.
He reigns, the sole victor, dispelling the flaming arrows of myths, disbelief, confusion and all dominions of darkness. I can honestly say that because of God’s amazing grace and the power of his redemptive love, I never knew for long, an apathetic heart devoid of holy passion and a noble purpose. I say to you, to myself and all, Choose this day whom you will follow. Beyond that, choose this minute whose allegiance, and mastership you will pledge yourself to that you may always know in fullness, a place called Christmas.