Craigslist posting I came across today, for anyone in the Alameda, CA area:

Looking for Artists to exhibit

Reply to: comm-nbsma-1069268568@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-03-10, 3:07PM

We have a large vendor space already paid in the Alameda, Calif. Art & Wine Festival to come in July. We are looking for up to five local artists to display/exhibit their art (we will not charge for vendor space.) Possible publicity in local newspaper. Email me the artist’s contact information.

Also, Synchronized Chaos will participate in Ada Lovelace Day, an international event honoring past and present women in science and technology. We’ll post to spotlight the achievements of some women we’re aware of and we invite anyone reading who has art or writing related to that theme or anyone else they would like to mention to leave a comment.

More information on Ada Lovelace Day:

Sign up now for Ada Lovelace Day! http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay

We need 1000 people to sign up for this action to reach critical mass. Read more here: http://findingada.com/2009/01/05/ada-lovelace-day/

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.

Please interpret it as widely as you like. One of my friends is going to write about women in animation, another about women on the tech side of the book industry. Women in gaming, women in hardware development, women in tech project management, women entrepreneurs… there are also sorts of careers that could come under the banner of “technology” and we’re happy to hear about women in any of them, whether they are still alive and active, or not.

It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, if you do text, audio or video, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited to take part. All you need to do is sign up to this pledge and then publish your blog post any time on Tuesday 24th March 2009. If you’re going to be away that day, feel free to write your post in advance and set your blogging system to publish it that day.

We will gather as many of the posts together on the day as we can, and we’ll let you know exactly how we’re going to do that nearer the time. For ongoing updates about Ada Lovelace day, please follow us on Twitter, join our mailing list or see our blog.

http://findingada.com/
http://twitter.com/FindingAda
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/findingada

Who was Ada?
Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

Finally, our contributing writer David Cicerone (Arthur’s Harp, from last fall) also creates visual art and is having a show at San Jose’s Gardner Community Center on Friday, May 8th. We will be able to view Cicerone’s work coupled with musical accompaniment.

Fearless Books has put out a call for new poetry submissions for an upcoming anthology, The Light in Ordinary Things.

From their announcement:

We live in a time when old forms are catastrophically breaking down, and new forms arise to take their place. The overheated engine of capitalism has blown a gasket; the politics of thoughtless greed retreats in a hail of shoes, and Western civilization faces the provocative prospect of a simpler life.

While banks and the Big Three beg for bailouts, we here at Fearless Books propose a different cure for cataclysm: poetry that helps us take a new look at the world. Thus we cheerfully announce the launch of the Fearless Poetry Series: two graceful anthologies per year on piercingly relevant topics.

Here is your chance to add your work to a chorus of sane but irreverent songs that will help usher in an illuminated culture. From January 15 through May 30, 2009, we are accepting entries for the first Fearless poetry anthology, The Light in Ordinary Things. You can send us one, two, or three short poems (up to 40 lines each) and/or prose poems (up to 500 words each) on your unique view of ordinary things, places, events, or living beings. The subject matter should be common, but the insights extraordinary…

www.fearlessbooks.com

Also, our contributing writer Faracy Grouse (http://www.faracy.org) is creating an indie movie! Here’s the synopsis:

I want to start filming this April and finish by the end of 2009. 
The only way Madelaine, a final year PhD student, is able to make sense of her life is to maintain her exacting routine. Surviving a turbulent childhood at the hands of a distant mother and drug-addict father who took her from fascist Spain to cold war Russia in search of an ideal life, she defects to America only to find herself drawn back to Spain and into a dysfunctional marriage of her own.
Now in London, she meets Lisboa, a charming but reckless Portuguese sous-chef who forces her to face the past which nearly destroyed her.

For more information, and to make a donation (any amount helps, and you’ll get a copy of a collection of her writings) visit her Fundable site here: https://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2009-03-04.7166812766?email=cedeptula@sbcglobal.net

She’d love people with whom to network, people to spread the word, people to help her out with cost saving/fundraising ideas, people who can donate their time, etc.

We’re considering a Synchronized Chaos benefit auction to support her film – will keep you posted.

Finally – The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Burmese group working to practically help nonviolent political prisoners in the country as well as raise awareness of their situation, has developed a petition for the release of the remaining imprisoned activists.

Please read more about the situation and the organization and consider signing here: http://www.fbppn.net/?page_id=5

The group has created a Facebook page for their cause and the situation in Burma: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526821601&ref=profile#/group.php?gid=17725816181&ref=mf

Filmmaker, wife and mother Daw Ma Khin Khin Leh has been released…hopefully more will follow!

Starting now, Synchronized Chaos will provide periodic updates on events and information involving our authors and artists! If you have an update you would like to share, please email cedeptula@sbcglobal.net with Synchronized Chaos in the title and we will share your creative progress with the rest of the community.

First off, George LaCas, author of the poetic pool hustler epic The Legend of Jimmy Gollihue recently spoke with author and poet Laura Lascarso concerning his novel, live on authonomy.com with an appearance by James Hagen. Interview transcript available at the end of the post. 

Also, Susy Flory, author of So Long Status Quo: What I Learned from Women who Changed the World will be hosting a book launch party at the indie bookstore Jordan’s Village Books on Saturday March 28th at 1pm. Jordan’s Village is a lovely little indie store in the Castro Valley shopping center near the BART station, near the Starbucks and the bike shop. I (Cristina Deptula) will be there…also she’s looking for suggestions of other women who have/are making a difference in the world for an upcoming blog/spinoff series. Here’s the Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1068481587713&mbox_pos=0#/event.php?eid=54896490938&ref=mf

* Right after Susy’s book launch, in San Francisco’s Women’s Building (3543 18th St. near the Mission/16th BART and Dolores/Guerrero Streets), Free Battered Women is hosting its annual art show/awareness event, Our Voices Within, from 3:30 to 6 pm. This event features artwork and writing by incarcerated domestic violence survivors whose crimes were related to abuse they lived through (i.e. self defense) and explores community-based grassroots strategies for safety, nonviolence-building, and alternatives to over-reliance on the criminal justice system. I know many of the organizers personally – they’re a great, creative, talented group of people and I encourage you to come.

* San Jose’s Poets and Writers’ Coalition is hosting our spring semester’s Four Minutes of Mayhem open mic (and still possibly looking for another featured reader!) Synchronized Chaos authors Dan White (Cactus Eaters) and Kate Evans (For the May Queen) spoke and read at events sponsored by the San Jose PWC…and we’re looking forward to finding more talent through that venue. Mayhem is open to all and features a diverse group every year…will be Thursday March 12th at the Market Cafe on the SJSU campus at 7 pm.

* Heads-up for a Food not Bombs benefit concert, featuring some of the musicians we’re going to interview in upcoming issues. Still working out the lineup based on people’s schedules, but the event is at Station 40 (in San Francisco’s Mission District, on 16th St. across from BART) on Sunday March 29th – will let you know the time when they decide. Some of the musicians we’re considering are simply amazing…all unsigned local talent but fun and worth listening to! Food not Bombs is looking for someone to host  Saturday’s serving in the Mission too.

* Ashlee Rose Holland, author of a memoir on growing up deaf, Turn the Lights On, I Can’t Hear You! has made a community for her book on Facebook. Currently they’re having a contest where people can win free books and chat with the author! http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/group.php?gid=47067223183

* The Northern California Science Writers’ Association, of which I’m a member and which includes many creative people with interdisciplinary projects, is hosting a dinner in San Francisco Wednesday March 25th at 6:30. The topic is the latest research into the function of glial cells in the brain – the matter which insulates the neurons.

You must sign up in advance and pay for the dinner (maybe $35 or so for non-members) but anyone can walk in to hear the speaker.

NCSWA Spring Dinner: What’s happening in the other ninety percent of your brain?

Please reserve your seat for the dinner by March 18. You can pay online through Paypal using your credit card by going to http://www.ncswa.org/dinner_03-09.html and scrolling down to the bottom of that file. A Paypal account is *not* required.

Please select your entrée when you pay. If you fail to select an entrée at that time, the default is the chicken. (Vegetarian options available.)

Transcript of the Authonomy interview with George LaCas, author of The Legend of Jimmy Gollihue:

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March’s issue of Synchronized Chaos invites reflection and a new sense of awareness of the potential of ‘ordinary’ objects and experiences.

Upcoming author Marty Castleberg journeys through faraway South American capitals, back streets and the rainforest…only to find himself constantly pursued by and reminded of the same issues which plagued his life back home as a Wisconsin farm boy turned corporate organizational consultant. The memoir shares how he learns to accept and make the most of his unique personality, learning style, skills, and challenges, as personified by his ever-present friend and sparring partner, Dave. The extraordinary brings Marty back to the ordinary, back to puzzling through his regular life.

In the same way, Lauren Groff’s short story collection Delicate Edible Birds probes the basic themes of family and love through her unusual characters (Olympic swimmers, writers enduring amnesia, ornithologists) and eclectic settings (a barn in wartime London, small-town upstate New York, a French cruise liner.) Ordinary people and relationships are just as fragile and precious as the exotic specimens in her tales and require as much dedication as the swimming, writing, and baton twirling in which her characters engage.

Sharon Woodward Jacobson also presents themes of love, faith, and family – in a piece which incorporates, but refuses to become defined by, her cerebral palsy. As the cartoon at the end of her prose and poetry points out, Jacobson is fundamentally a mother and human being with thoughts and desires not too different from others. The rhythm of her words and her manner of speaking highlights the determination which enabled her to succeed and intentionally refocuses readers on very basic ideas concerning what is important in life.

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, photographer and painter Sean O’Cairde has added an Irish lighthouse to his assortment of California scenic vistas. He documents the journey he takes with his brother to visit each place, and we learn not just the textbook history of the monuments, but the local color and culture through clever, sometimes humorous vignettes from O’Cairde’s journeys. His ordinary life becomes part of the artwork which makes his lighthouse photography unique.

Giorgio Borroni takes the comic books he enjoyed as a boy, as well as his own imaginings concerning futuristic technology, and develops them into original mixed media pieces exploring our fascination with and fear of what we can create. His work showcases and reinterprets a sensibility which we have become familiar over the years through the artistic media of video games, sci fi books and movies, etc to look into (among other themes) how we can simultaneously love and lament our increasingly technological world. That aspect of Borroni’s work reminds me of the professor Phaedrus’ work to reconcile the romantic and engineering-minded scientific ways of thought in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (one of my longtime personal favorite books.)

Finally, Kelsi Dick’s painted quill pen art takes an object which used to be quite familiar in homes and offices just a few hundred years ago and re-interprets it as a chance to create something unique and beautiful. She explains in our interview that she prefers to work with supposedly ordinary objects in a craft sense rather than create abstract art specifically to help weaken the distinction between the practical and the artistic. Simply because something must be useful does not preclude a creator from making it lovely or interesting through thoughtful craftspersonship.

This latest issue takes us far away and then brings us back home. Replants us on solid ground and refocuses us on fundamentally important issues. We invite you to make the journey with our contributors, to read and re-examine what matters in one’s own life.

Thank you very much for granting us the time and space to share our thoughts and passions with you, and we hope to inspire a renewed creative focus.

When reading some memoirs, one is tempted to call out, “Periscope Up, Mirror Down!” In other words, to admonish the author to break out of describing his or her personal struggles long enough to effectively convey a sense of the setting and time period. Marty Castleberg’s Daveland avoids this pitfall by pulling off an effective balance between relating the author’s journey of internal self-discovery and his physical journey through the Midwest farm country, high-level academia, off-the-tourist track South American destinations, the rainforest, and his current home in inner-city San Francisco.  

Born to a poor Wisconsin farm family in a neighborhood where his father compares shotgun shells with teachers at his school during pheasant season, Marty discovers music only to injure his hand at work on the oil field. Through a series of events, he eventually marries, earns a Ph.D., lands a position consulting for Harley-Davidson…only to find himself stalked by an unwelcome, but all too familiar stranger. His assortment of neurological and learning differences, whom he personifies as Dave, the loudmouthed pot-smoking, trashtalking bully who will no longer allow Marty to hide him away beneath a veneer of success.

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Traveler and photographer Sean O’Cairde creates a unique work-in-progress through his travelogue as he visits many of California’s historical lighthouses (and one with a rich past located in Ireland.) Plenty of people are inspired by lighthouses as an artistic subject, visually and metaphorically – everyone from American master landscape painters to modern Irish folk singers. But O’Cairde goes a step beyond creating photographs and artistic representations of the places he visits with his brother – he details his experience journeying to each locale, who he meets, what he observes, any little vignettes which occur along the way. So the process of selecting subjects and taking photographs becomes artwork in itself, as much as the finished products.

We read funny anecdotes concerning asking for directions and finding one’s way through the Irish countryside, descriptions of local people and families, the history, look, and feel of each place in a way that interests both history buffs and average travelers. The spectacular photography available on the website encourages people to purchase O’Cairde’s work and to go beyond ‘fingertip travel’ on one’s computer and visit the lighthouses in person.

You may read about his journey and find more information on the artwork here:

http://lighthousesofcalifornia.blogspot.com/

Emerging author Sharon Woodward Jacobson’s From the Heart: Prose and Poetry reaches its best when she turns out unusual twists of phrase or reveals unique or complex aspects of her story. The book combines poetry, prose, and a cartoon, and reveals a thoughtful soul who, together with her close and supportive family, faces questions with no easy answers.

Her “Tribute to Grandfather” describes her memory of the man who raised her: ‘Into the past my mind wanders/like rolling waves dancing through thunder.’ The mixed metaphor conveys a sense of strength which is powerful, frightening, yet at once fluid and adaptable. In prose we learn of a grandfather who constantly taunted Sharon, born with cerebral palsy and to a mother who died of a heart attack during labor, that she would never amount to anything and who made her run up a hill near their country home while he followed in his Ford.
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