Posts tagged with "People we know"

New Ithaca Freeskool Mushroom Hunt Video

By Shira | Jan 12, 10 11:58 AM

Renowned local fungi expert Carl Whittaker led a Mushroom Hunt and Identification on August 30th, 2009 as part of the Ithaca Freeskool summer session, and I finally got around to editing the footage. Enjoy the beauties of the Danby State Forest while learning about many species of edible and inedible mushrooms.

Mushroom Hunt and Identification - Ithaca Freeskool Distance Learning from Shira Golding on Vimeo.

Photos from NYC and Thanksgiving

By Shira | Dec 4, 09 04:31 PM

Fresh off the Wordpress: Frac Attack

By Ari | Nov 28, 09 10:31 AM

$fracattackhome-launch.jpg$ I'm sure Shira will post something more detailed later, but I'm excited about a new Wordpress site we just set up yesterday, so I'll write about the tech for now!

Frac Attack: Dawn of the Watershed is up at fracattackthemovie.com. It's an evolving site (the About page hasn't been made yet, for example!), so keep checking it if you want to see it grow. We'll be adding production info, credits and thank-yous, press coverage, and, after our world premiere at Cinemapolis on Dec. 10, the film itself, so people can watch the whole thing online anytime. It is, after all, an advocacy video, and we believe in free culture. This whole project is about getting the word out about natural gas drilling so we can protect New York state!

We set the whole thing up yesterday. We've been doing more and more Wordpress sites for clients and I wanted to do one for us and see how long it would take to put up something attractive and functional. Here are the features of this little site, built in one day:

It makes use of a partnership with a local, related advocacy organization (Shaleshock; I update their website, among other things) to provide maintenance-free Take Action and background info links.
This site has AddThis social bookmarking and send-to-friend functionality, and is already collecting stats via Google Analytics. We're also using a Facebook fan page and event listings (which we link to liberally) to help people get the word out about the film on Facebook.
It's serving up a trailer hosted on social networking sites, saving us bandwidth and providing a range of online viewing options.
Graphics, and the template itself, have been designed to not need updating: The left sidebar auto-updates as authors blog and add links and pages. The right sidebar is designed to not need any updates while sending traffic exactly where it's needed, though its auto-updating Flickr badge showing photos from the production (and soon, our Premiere, and house screenings!), which keeps it feeling fresh.
Applying our ethics to our tech choices, we chose the free, open-source Wordpress, which I installed on our MayFirst hosting account. (MayFirst is an affordable membership-based tech organization that's a great hosting solution for progressive folks with a lot of websites.)
To save on labor time (and, if this were for a client, costs), we used a free Wordpress theme by Eric Crooks, slapped a header on it that echoes our poster design (thanks to Joe Fisher for the amazing photography!), changed up the colors and fonts a bit to work with the film's look and feel, and put most of our efforts into careful content creation, fleshing out the site with essential pages and carefully-chosen, useful sidebar links. A few hours later: Presto, a website. Hardly any coding to speak of. We ♥ Wordpress.

My Life in Pictures

By Shira | Nov 14, 09 01:59 AM

Ari's Brother Was Car-Jacked...He's ok Now!

By Shira | Oct 21, 09 07:44 PM

For real!

VIDEO: How to make a simple print block

By Ari | Oct 13, 09 10:36 AM

Our friend Lea enlisted me to show how to do some simple block-printing in this short video for About.com. Yay Lea!

What the Frac?!

By Shira | Oct 12, 09 12:59 AM

Behold the teaser for Frack Attack, a short environmental zombie thriller that we're making with the Dacha Project:

Frac Attack Teaser from Shira Golding on Vimeo.

New Videos for freeDimensional

By Shira | Sep 24, 09 02:08 PM

More shorts from the freeDimensional Wasan retreat...

Providing for Artists in Residence Through Sharing and Bartering in the Community from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

Negotiating the Balance Between the Roles of Artists and Facilitators from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

Defining Community from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

Fundraising for the Arts from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

Connecting the Arts and Human Rights Worlds and the Role of Emerging Art Spaces from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

Zombie movies, folk music in living rooms, swap meets, activist meetings, and an online dialogue

By Ari | Sep 22, 09 09:49 AM

We've got a lot going on lately! Here are a few events and things happening in the Ithaca area - and one that anyone can participate in, from anywhere...

Production Meeting #1 for Shale Shocked Zombie Movie
Community Swap Meet #5
New Tactics & fD Online Dialogue: Art Spaces Hosting Activism & Strengthening Community Engagement
Shira's playing some tunes at the installment of Emily's Ithaca House Show Tour that's being hosted at our place
We're doing a Share Tompkins event at the Finger Lakes Bioneers We Make Our Future Conference

I just finished making this movie for the Ithaca Area Poets

By Shira | Sep 15, 09 09:39 PM

Our friends Josh and Jeci organize monthly open mics/slams for Ithaca Area Poets. They're applying for a local arts grant and thought having a video of one of their events might strengthen their submission. So they asked me to make a 5-minute piece and in exchange they hooked us up with many beautiful baskets of fruits and veggies. Yay for swapping! Here's the video - I hope they get the grant!

Another Jam-Packed Weekend

By Shira | Sep 1, 09 11:46 AM

Yay updates

By Ari | Aug 30, 09 04:03 PM

New stuff just posted:

Other places we're blogging:

Isaac is moving in!

By Ari | Aug 22, 09 10:27 AM

Our friend Isaac is moving in with us today! I kind of can't imagine a better housemate (the bag of bread pictured here is one of many delicious things he's left in our mailbox), and am very happy about the change. We've known him for a long time - we lived with him one summer at a coop he ran at Cornell, Prospect of Whitby. And he was part of the Ahimsa ecovillage project when we were having meetings, so we've been thinking about living together in some way again for a while now.

We're still working on finding land we can lease or buy affordably. Once we do that we'll start collecting a grubstake of salvaged, traded and found building materials, and will gradually build ourselves a cabin. (That's the current plan, anyway.) In the meantime, we wanted to save money on rent so we can pay off my school debt and work up some more savings, and we've seen how much fun many of our friends have living in group houses. Having a housemate (who we know and love already) join us in this place we dig so much is far nicer than having to move elsewhere!

We prepared for this transition by moving all of our furniture around to clear out the room Isaac is going to move into, and our apartment is now denser and cuter, which is a happy surprise. I thought we'd have to put some stuff in the basement, but somehow it all still fits up here. (We have a lot of stuff.) We moved most of our books into our bedroom, and now it feels cozier, homier, a place I want to hang out in more often. I'm excited to spend more time with our friend, and to see how our lives will change as we adapt to this new arrangement.

Photos from NYC and New Paltz

By Shira | Aug 19, 09 09:56 PM

I went down to NYC on Thursday for Meg's bachelorette party. Ari joined me Friday and on Saturday we drove up to New Paltz for Meg and Kevin's wedding. It was a great weekend!

Pumpkin Cheesecake with the Vegan Cooking Skillshare - Ithaca Freeskool Distance Learning Video

By Shira | Aug 8, 09 09:19 PM

As part of D.I.Y. Movie-Making, we're filming other Ithaca Freeskool classes and making them available online for anyone who wants to participate.

Sharon of the Dacha Project taught us how to make vegan pumpkin cheesecake at the "Thank You America" House in Ithaca on July 29th, 2009. Watch the video to hang out with some Ithacans while they collaborate on a recipe, share vegan tips and chat about strategies for sustainable living. Join the Facebook group to find out about future Vegan Cooking Skillshares.

Pumpkin Cheesecake with the Vegan Cooking Skillshare - Ithaca Freeskool Distance Learning from Shira Golding on Vimeo.

fD Outreach: Wasan Retreat 2009

By Ari | Aug 5, 09 04:15 PM

fD outreach: wasan retreat 2009
Originally uploaded by arimoore

Shira and I work for freeDimensional, an international network that fosters collaboration and resource-sharing between activists and art spaces. I recently became its Director of Communications. Fun! One of my first big projects has been helping to coordinate the follow-up documentation and outreach of our Wasan Retreat 2009.

We used Flickr and other social media including the Ning I set up for fD to record the happening, and to digest all we learned there so that it will be of use to a wider audience. Over time we'll be posting more and more videos and texts, but even now, you can see photos, videos, info on the amazing people who were there, and other coverage online. Check it out and join the Ning if you too care about free expression and the power of culture to change the world!

Hosting Activism in Art Spaces - A New Video for freeDimensional

By Shira | Aug 4, 09 09:39 AM

Working with footage from freeDimensional's 2009 Wasan retreat, I put together this 8-minute video, which has been submitted to the Commonwealth Foundation's Group on Culture and Development:

Hosting Activism in Art Spaces from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

Learning to Make Pumpkin Cheesecake with the Ithaca Freeskool Vegan Cooking Skillshare

By Shira | Aug 2, 09 10:54 AM

So much fun, so delicious! Stay tuned for the video...

Thanks for teaching us the recipe, Sharon!

Join us for the next class, every other Wednesday beginning June 3rd at 6pm. Check out the Facebook group for the latest info.

Mushrooms - Earth's Natural Internet!

By Shira | Jul 31, 09 05:23 PM

Yes, we have mushrooms on the brain. Here's a great video that our friend Isaac sent us:

We're planning on going foraging for mushrooms again this weekend...

Photos from the Ithaca Freeskool Outreach Board Decorating Party

By Shira | Jul 28, 09 10:58 AM

We're planning on doing some tabling in the hopes of getting more people involved in Ithaca Freeskool. So we got together at Lily/Sharon/Marina's place to create an outreach board, science fair style. Check out the photos below...

Summer Bounty

By Shira | Jul 27, 09 11:46 AM

Last weekend we went blueberry picking in Dryden and mushroom hunting at the Cayuga Nature Center. We didn't find any edible mushrooms in good enough condition to take home this time, but we learned a lot, thanks to Danila! The blueberry place was amazing - the bushes were heavy with big, delicious berries and they were only $2 for a pound! Check out photos and videos below...

Food for the Planet Opening Weekend - A New Vegan Restaurant in Ithaca!

By Shira | Jul 27, 09 11:02 AM

While there are a lot of vegans in Ithaca and many accommodating vegetarian and omni restaurants, there is not a single vegan restaurant. There was a little raw joint by The Commons which had weird hours and closed after a few months, and back in the day when we were Cornell students Susie's Seitan had a stand at the Ithaca Farmers Market where she made vegan reubens and other amazing sandwiches with a panini press. ABC Cafe, my favorite vegetarian spot in town (and also the site of some of my first music gigs) sadly closed a few weeks ago due to economic woes, and while Moosewood is delicious, they serve fish and are quite pricey.

There's been a renaissance of vegan desserts in recent weeks with the opening of Emmy's Organics and Free Critter Baking Co. at the market, but where can a lady go to get a solid vegan brunch? The answer is here! Our friend Maija Cantori just opened the aptly-named Food for the Planet, an exclusively vegan restaurant serving dinner Thursday-Sunday and brunch on the weekends. While the grand opening is August 8th, they started welcoming diners last weekend and Ari and I stopped by for Sunday brunch. Our friend Frank's photos were on the wall, there were living plants in pots on every table, the staff was extremely welcoming, and most importantly, the food was soooo good. Check out the photos and stop by if you're in town - you won't be disappointed!

Ithaca Freeskool Distance Learning Videos

By Shira | Jul 24, 09 12:43 PM

The Ithaca Freeskool brings people together to equalize the distribution of knowledge and confidence with an emphasis on skills and issues of local importance. As part of D.I.Y. Movie-Making Class that I'm facilitating, we're filming other Ithaca Freeskool classes and making them available online for anyone who wants to participate. We're hoping this will inspire people across the world to start Freeskools in their communities.

This first class I video-taped in full is D.I.Y. Tooth Care, a discussion of tooth care strategies including diet, pain relief, cleaning and preventive care facilitated by Lily Gershon at the Umi House in Ithaca, on July 16th, 2009. The last part of the class is a collaborative experiment in making tooth powder - you can follow along and make your own! For more information on tooth care Lily recommends paradisenow.net/healing.html.

D.I.Y. Tooth Care With Lily - Ithaca Freeskool Distance Learning from Shira Golding on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for more videos...

Foraging for Mushrooms

By Shira | Jul 22, 09 03:20 PM

We went foraging for wild edible mushrooms with our friends Lea and Danila from the Dacha Project in the Robert H. Treman State Park. Thanks to Ari's keen eye, we discovered a huge patch of chanterelles. In addition to enjoying them in salads and stir-fries for the last few days, we gave some to friends and traded some for sprouts and a zucchini from Dancing Turtle Farms at the Share Tompkins Swap Meet. Yay for foraging!

This is what is up

By Ari | Jul 21, 09 10:22 AM

Our garden is thriving, but slowly - all we've harvested so far is some little kale leaves. But there are little green tomatoes growing larger, and everything is huge and leafy and healthy, so I hope vegetables are on the way. In the meantime, we've been getting veggies from the coop, the farmer's market, the Share Tompkins swap meets, and friends. We hope to get more into foraging, too - we just got a big bag of chanterelle mushrooms from a walk in Treman State Park with Danila and Lea.

Housing-wise, I'm still obsessed with yurts. I made a spreadsheet outlining a three-stage budget that would allow us to buy a 20' yurt and hook it up with hot water and a woodstove and all that good stuff. I think it's doable, though it would take longer to make it livable than I'd like. But I'm impatient, and even this slow staging is faster than building a house out of wood.

Sometimes, I think: wouldn't it be easier to just get a mortgage? Yes, it would. We could do that. We could buy an old fixer-upper or a very small house, and move right in. But then we'd be selling our souls to a bank, and we're just not into that idea. We want self-sufficiency, independence, autonomy - and I don't think a 30-year commitment to a capitalist institution would help us accomplish that goal.

Anyway, we have to take it slowly, because we don't have land. We have two beautiful, wonderful, exciting possibilities on that front, and are slowly figuring out if either of them will work. And in the meantime, we're thinking about how to make our renting life cheaper - do we take in a housemate? Do we move into a group house? We're not sure, but it's nice to have less pressure as we figure it out - there are no real timing crunches here, just slow thinking and exploring.

Work is going well - we're busier than we've ever been, but on a limited number of very exciting projects. The folks we're working with are lovely and amazing, as always. And we're still managing to spend a lot of time working with our activist friends on volunteer projects. Really, a lot of time. I'm actually feeling a tiny bit burnt out (I blame it on my lyme disease...) and am having to scale back somewhat, take fewer things on. But I feel like we're reaching a sustainable level of activity.

Even so, I can not wait until we're rent-free! This is what the housing thing is all about. How do we avoid paying rent (or mortgage payments)? Imagine how much money that is in a year. Imagine you don't have to make that money, or that if you do make that money, you can put it toward whatever else you'd like. That's freedom. You shouldn't have to pay to live.

Before they settled on a name for it, our friends at the Dacha referred to their venture as their "freedom project." I think that is so apt - here we all are, figuring out ways to buy our freedom. It is hard work, but a beautiful journey.

Video Interviews from the 2009 Emerging Art Spaces Retreat on Wasan Island

By Shira | Jul 20, 09 03:54 PM

Meet Alma Khasawnih of the Makan Art Space in Jordan from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

Meet Pierre Mujomba of the Kamalenga House in the Democratic Republic of Congo from freeDimensional on Vimeo.

As I mentioned a few posts back, Ari and I recently helped facilitate and document a retreat for emerging art spaces which explored the intersections between the arts and human rights. As part of the video documentation I filmed interviews with all the participants, which are now online thanks to Vimeo. You can watch all the interviews on the freeDimensional Ning and check out pictures on Flickr.

With Ten Dollars, a Bag of Clay or Three Straw Bales

By Ari | Jul 16, 09 04:53 PM

The Pay It Forward Contest Entry (made by Lea, shot by Shira) on behalf of The Dacha Project, submitted to The Alternatives Federal Credit Union in Ithaca NY. Go Dacha!!

Photos from freeDimensional's Emerging Art Spaces Retreat on Wasan Island

By Shira | Jul 11, 09 12:55 PM

Ari and I went to Wasan Island in the Muskoka Lake region of Canada to help facilitate and document a retreat for people working in emerging art spaces around the world. Organized by the nonprofit network freeDimensional and supported by Breuninger Stiftung Foundation, the week-long convergence provided an opportunity to connect, relax and delve into the interconnections between art, freedom of expression and human rights.

Despite my role as documenter - I was taking photos and shooting video for a large part of the time - I was still able to connect deeply with the group and with the island. It's a beautiful place that allows people from very different geographies to find common ground.

Check out the photos and stay tuned for video...

This one's for you, animal family

By Ari | Jun 22, 09 09:27 AM

I've realized recently that I don't speak up enough for animals. I fear bothering people. I know that for me, going vegan was a long and sometimes jarring process. I remember feeling afraid and guilty and very challenged and uncomfortable at times. I remember that the idea of changing my life in what felt like a very drastic and unpleasant way (I really loved eating animals and things they make) was very threatening. So, being someone who likes to be liked, who doesn't like to make people uncomfortable, I've moved away from more confrontational advocacy. I do a lot online, where distance eases discomfort, but in the brick-and-mortar world, I sometimes hold a lot back. I'll be in situations where someone will say something or do something that is so, so oppressive to animals, my cousins, my family, my kin, my friends - and I'll say nothing. Out of fear, I won't leap to their defense, I won't say what needs to be said. If someone says something sexist or homophobic or racist I usually speak up, but with animals - I'm sorry, animals. I sometimes am just not the best ally.

So, I think I should write more about it here. I sometimes don't want to barrage our few blog readers with too much animal rights stuff, but it's a daily part of my life, so I think I need to start being more forthright about it. Maybe through writing about it on our blog I'll find more of a voice to speak about it offline.

Why is this so important? Here is one reason. Right now Snow is in my lap. She's a tiny sweetheart, my baby, my furry little darling. She's not a pet, she's family. She's an individual, a person. I respect her and her needs as I respect the personhood and needs of human beings. I can see that she's not a plant, that she's nothing like one, not an object but a person - she has gingivitis, and her gums hurt, and eating is difficult for her right now. Because she's not feeling very well, she's rather low-energy and is sleeping a lot. And because she's a very lovey, cuddly person, comforted by hugs and other physical contact, she likes to lay on me and hold onto my shoulder.

Some folks might balk at calling an animal a person, but they're certainly not places and they're certainly not things. They are definitely thinking and feeling. They definitely have desires and needs and wants. They hurt, and they cry, and they get hungry, and they love, and they play, and they have dignity and silliness and dreams and games. They get bored. They have fun. They are not things, but people. They may be very different from us, but there is nothing at all about them that is so different from humans that they deserve to be treated differently. Fuzziness or smallness or a lack of ability to speak English or Spanish or do math, does not justify their oppression.

So Snow is a reason why it's important I be able to talk about animal rights. She's one very important reason, and Sid and Zora, our other cat housemates, are also very important reasons. But there are even more reasons - billions and billions of reasons. All of the animals all around the world who can't cry out in words that we can understand, whose cries are ignored because we can't understand them, all of those animals are reasons why I need to be a better ally, why I need to wear my solidarity on my sleeve.

I can't forget them, and I never do. When I'm sitting at a table with human friends, and someone is talking about some delicious eggs, how can I be silent? How can I not speak up in defense of my sisters, the chickens? When I remember every moment that billions of you soft, sweet, helpless ladies are captive, making egg after egg until you're too old and too weak and you're killed and turned into soup, how can I say nothing? How can I pretend that everything is okay? How can I smile at my friend and swallow my discomfort? My discomfort is nothing, nothing compared to the suffering that animals all around the world are experiencing because human beings still believe that might makes right.

So, I'll try to be better. I'll try to speak up for my furry, feathery, scaly family. I'll remember they have no way to speak up for themselves, not even the awareness that freedom from oppression is possible. I apologize in advance if I make my human friends uncomfortable, but as a friend said to me online recently, transformation is painful.

And beautiful. The lovely, amazing, delicious thing about stepping away from exploitation and toward solidarity with other species is that it is a joyous thing, a homecoming.

If you feel uncomfortable when you remember where your food comes from - when you recall that it is a dead body, or that it came from someone who is confined, not free, a slave to human desire - if you feel that way, try not eating that food item, replacing it with something healthful and delicious that came from the earth and the warm sun and a seed, something that didn't cry out when it died. See how you feel. I don't mean physically, though it does feel good, physically, to eat healthful plant foods. I mean morally, ethically. See how it sits with your soul. See how your conscience feels about it. See if you feel better when you know that your food came from the sun and the earth, and not from a living, breathing, feeling person, against their will. That you can be nourished without their suffering is a beautiful thing, freeing. This is the feeling that we and our family are at last at peace, reconciled. That is a homecoming.

Fresh websites, hot off the Wordpress

By Ari | Jun 19, 09 10:04 AM

Recently I've made the switch to Wordpress, where I used to use Movable Type. I like that they've been committed to Open Source from day one, whereas Six Apart, the company that makes MT, has always seemed more profit-driven to me. I was shocked at how easy WP is to install, and at how deliciously comfortable it is to use. I'm able to search for, install, and configure plug-ins from within the WP admin area. Same with themes.

Many of the folks we work with are on a very tight budget, or have no funding at all, so being able to create an inexpensive or free site very quickly is something I've been wanting to learn to do for a long time. With WP, I can make a beautiful site that anyone can keep up-to-date in just a few hours. Finally.

What this has meant is that suddenly I'm able to do much more work for many more people, much more quickly. Here are a few recent sites I've made or worked on. These folks are really cool, visit their sites to find out more about them!

Service Women's Action Network - SWAN needed a new logo as well as a new site that they could update easily and use to reach out to potential funders. This site is the result - it features a Vertical Response mailing list, Google Analytics and AddThis sharing. Before it was even online they were talking to Congress with their new logo printed on new business cards. Go SWAN!
Using Their Words - This site is an activist effort by a woman we've worked with over at NYCORe. I initially helped her polish a Google Site and created this new illustrated header for her. Then we found out that her radical web host, MayFirst (to whom Shirari Industries is now migrating!) wouldn't even support her domain pointing to Google, since they're so commercial. So we moved the site onto their server and installed WP. I set up the front page to look less bloggy since the site's primary function is serving up radical curricula - and I used tags and categories to help visitors find the kind of lesson plans they're looking for.
AEI Convergence 2009 - This site was particularly fun because it was a barter! In exchange for making my friend Emily's logo and putting together this quick WP, I got my bike fixed and she and Shira and I had a lovely meal together that she cooked and brought over one day. I love the little site, too - it's simple but it does what she needs it to do, and she can keep it updated easily, herself. And what a cool convergence she's planning! I love the photos she's adding to the site.
Share Tompkins - This one was particularly fun because I wrote the resources page, too. Well, the first edition. Now others have been invited in and hopefully the page will grow and evolve. The site is made using the free, hosted version of WP, in keeping with the Share Tompkins ethos of making life more sustainable and affordable through sharing resources. Using the free version of WP gives us less control over the site's appearance and functionality, but the important thing is to get this content out and usable - not to have it be 100% beautiful and customized. That might come later - this is only the beginning for this fledgling mutual aid network. Our friends Jason and Joe are working on an even more useful sister site, where members of the network will be able to list haves and wants, to facilitate easier sharing and bartering. In the meantime, folks can check out the many trade networks listed on the resources page, or they can come to our community swap meets.
freeDimensional - This site is still evolving, and has made some real progress lately! It's the only one here that's not a WP site - I built the splash page with some simple HTML, and the rest of the site is a Ning. Shira and I are very organizationally involved with these folks - we're both on their steering committee and we may soon have staff titles. Not sure - it's a horizontal network, and we're still discussing as a group how to best handle roles and responsibilities. But what all of this involvement means is that Shira and I have been intimately involved not only in the visual design of the site, but in creating the content on it, and even in making the organizational decisions that go into how the network presents itself and how it functions. It's an exciting process, with all of us volunteers and freelancers and staff people figuring out how to share power and how to talk about it. Mad props to Tricia Wang for her feedback on the site - I think we're making more and more sense, and becoming more and more easily navigable and comprehensible, and useful to everyone in the network that depends on the site.

That's it for now! Many more sites are currently in the works, and I'll share them when they're complete. Also on the table is a massive overhaul of this site right here, Shirari Industries. We're experimenting with a very new, flexible, open-feeling site navigation that we hope will be easier for us to keep up to date, and which will give a much better idea of all of our current projects. If there's anything you want us to keep or change or add as we do our redesign, please leave a comment with your ideas! We'd love to hear from you.

Rooftop Films: Spread the word

By Ari | Jun 3, 09 12:38 PM

If you're in NYC this summer, go check out Rooftop Films, a film series dedicated to showcasing new, independent films and emerging bands in unique outdoor locations. This weekend there are a couple of screenings coming up that look great - one has free beer, and both also feature live music. Good times!

Fri, June 5
Trapped Inside the Machine (short films)
A fun, frantic, fantastical program of films about losing your grip on reality, and reality losing its grip on the world.
Venue: on the roof of the Open Road Rooftop
Address: 350 Grand Street @ Essex (Lower East Side, Manhattan)
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix presents live music
9:00PM: Films
11:30PM - 1:00AM: Open Bar at Fontana's (105 Eldridge St), courtesy of Radeberger beer
Tickets: $9, http://newyork.going.com/event-602721;Rooftop_Films_Trapped_Inside_the_Machine

Sat, June 6
Stingray Sam (Feature length film)
A dazzling six-episode musical-western comedy that takes place in outer space, written, directed by and starring Cory McAbee, the creator of The American Astronaut. The filmmakers will be in attendance. Watch a trailer at http://stingraysam.com/trailer.html
Venue: on the roof of the Brooklyn Tech
Address: 29 Fort Greene Place (Fort Greene, Brooklyn) MAP
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix presents live music
9:00PM: Films
Tickets: $9, http://newyork.going.com/event-602737;Rooftop_Films_Stingray_Sam

Human Scale Living

By Shira | Feb 24, 09 03:28 PM

A big part of why living in Ithaca has been so good for us is its small-but-not-too-small size. With a population of 60,000 (30,000 of which are students at Cornell and Ithaca College), there are plenty of people to create culture and innovation. But at the same time, it only takes a few social events to realize that this is a "small town." When I meet someone new, I'm no longer surprised to find out they know at least one other friend of mine, or that they've even "heard of me" - which always makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

ari teaching a freeskool class on web design
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

When we were living in New York City we had a lot of great friends and yet we didn't ever have a sense of community. Part of this was that we dabbled in a lot of different subcultures - independent filmmakers, freegans, socialists, lesbians, radical marching bands, artists, academics, recreational volleyball players - instead of choosing one to call our own. These groups rarely overlapped and I found myself doing a lot of code-switching. Our friends were ideologically and geographically dispersed. The distance between a Red Hook freegan and an Upper East Side grad student is a lot greater than a few subway transfers.

milk with teresa, jeremy and some other folks
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

Back in college I took an amazing course called Architecture as a Cultural System in which we explored, among other things, the concept of Human Scale. This is the idea that humans are best suited to live in an environment that is designed to meet their spacial needs. This means walkability, easy access to necessary resources, closeness to the ground and appropriate population size.

meara and serena jamming in the library
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

According to Wikipedia, "Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150."

raw vegan potluck!
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

Ari and I counted, and in just the last week, we've had 25 different friends over to our house, some of them more than once (you know who you are...Joe). Our friends Jeremy and Teresa came over for dinner on Sunday, Ari taught a freeskool class on web design on Wednesday, we had a ton of extra veggies from our CSA share so we had a potluck/cooking party with a bunch of folks on Thursday, more friends stopped by on Friday after watching Milk together at Cinemapolis (the art house theatre on The Commons), on Saturday the Phillips family came to stay with us for the weekend and Ben and Grace stopped by to join us for dinner and on Sunday we had our second official founders' meeting for Ahimsa Ecovillage with eleven guests, including three kids.

looking at our future
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

The amazing thing is that there are numerous ways in which all these folks are connected outside their relationships to us. This makes for a very tangible social fabric and a feeling of interdependence that I haven't truly experienced since sleep-away camp as a kid (I went to the socialist Jewish kibbutz-like Camp Moshava for six summers.)

this is what feminists look like!
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

As we move forward with Ahimsa, our sustainable, vegan ecovillage project, human scale will be a key concept. How can we create a community that is big enough to create innovation and cross-pollination, but small enough to maintain accountability and trust? How many people does it take to be self-sufficient? How will our size and location (rural vs. urban) impact our connection to the broader Ithaca community? I don't know the answers yet, but I'm loving the process of finding out. In the meantime, I'm enjoying being part of the monkeysphere.

Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #6: Economies

By shirari | Feb 4, 09 02:33 PM

Tune into the Wednesday, February 4th edition of our podcast to check out our snappy new format! We've broken the show into three segments to make it easier for folks to selectively listen to parts they're interested in:

Local Updates, in which we tell you about wonderful and exciting new developments in our local area, the Fingerlakes region of New York. You'll hear about permaculture organizing, the new Ithaca Freeskool calendar, and a new vegan group. (We can't wait to go to their pizza party on Friday!)
Be the Change, in which we give you two tips, both of which, now that we think about it, are pig-related. (And yet, somehow, relevant to a general audience. We think.)
Discussion: Economies, in which we look briefly at some issues with non-profit funding, venture capital, microlending, and global capitalism, as well as with socialism and other isms, before giving an overview of different interesting alternatives (featuring copyleft, coworking, freeganism, CSAs, relocalization, and other awesomeness).

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Vote for us at Podcast Alley!

Links mentioned in the show:
Hook up with other Fingerlakes Permaculture folks at flxpermaculture.net
Ithaca Freeskool
Ithaca Zine
Ahimsa Ecovillage
Ithaca Vegans Yahoo Group
Vegan Chai is so over bacon!
Ari's Twitter
Find a local CSA at localharvest.org

If you listen to our podcast, tell us what you like about it, and what could be improved! And if you don't listen to our podcast, why not? Tell us what you might like to hear, so we can do a better job of it. Thanks and peace to all who tune into this edition!

Previously:
Previous show notes

Our Friends at The Dacha Project Are Awesome.

By Shira | Feb 1, 09 05:20 PM

Our friend Lea makes videos for About.com. She's also part of The Dacha Project, "An unlikely band of six, creating a more sustainable and autonomous existence somewhere in upstate New York." These awesome instructional videos were made on their sixteen acres...

freeDimensional: Birthing a web 2.0 child

By Ari | Jan 12, 09 06:44 PM

I hope executive director Todd Lester of freeDimensional doesn't mind if I quote him with the title of my post here, but this is how he described the collaborative experience of launching fD's new site this weekend, and I think it's particularly apt: We all birthed a web 2.0 child. You can go meet it here: freeDimensional.org.

freeDimensional is an organically-growing, partnership-based organization that links activist culture workers (journalists, artists, writers, and the like) who are facing repression and censorship with support services, including safe haven placements in artist residency programs. The power of the organization is in its social networks around the globe. These programs, these services, these people, are all out there - the challenge is only to connect everyone so we can all engage more effectively in mutual aid.

I met Todd way back at the end of 2005, through Shira and their work around the Media That Matters Film Festival. He needed a site, and at the time, I remember seeing that they'd need something much more interactive in the future, but that for now, I could make a small, informational site to give them a web presence while they built their organization. For a long time I thought that in the future we'd hire some big web design firm to come in and create some perfect glittering website for them that would magically fulfill all of their many needs.

In the interim, I had a bit of an awakening about the internet, via my understanding of web 2.0 (collaborative, online) technologies. The internet can be an extension of our physical lives, a way for us to transcend space and time. Our blogs and Flickr photostreams and Tweets and Delicious links and Facebook updates are extensions of and aids to our imperfect human memories. Email and messaging and Skype and the like allow us to connect with each other across great distances, often instantly. We're all learning how to use the internet most effectively to meet these great needs, and in the process, I believe we're gradually realizing our commonality, and creating new solutions to age-old problems that formerly seemed unsolvable. (I have a theory about web 3.0. If anyone reads this and is interested, comment and I'll write about it!!)

So when fD finally outgrew their little site and was ready for something new and more useful, Shira and I were ready to craft a solution for them. It was time for them to clarify what they were all about, explain it well, and then provide an online platform for the incredible social networking that had been happening in the real world. fD was ready to go web 2.0.

Shira made a short video intro for them and helped them rework and refine their mission statement and other organizational copy. I helped them look at their many technology options and to select free services that will allow them to grow and extend their reach with minimal cash outlays. The site is built on the Ning custom social networking platform (the free version for now). We're transitioning the mailing list to Vertical Response and their lovely nearly-free non-profit program. Shira chose the beautifully high-res-capable video service Vimeo to host fD's intro video. We integrated Twitter, Flickr and YouTube feeds into the site. We'd settled on Network for Good to collect donations a while back. fD also has accounts on other social networking sites, which we've been using to meet and collaborate with even more people around the world.

These free and low-cost services have limitations - you're fitting your own complex self into a sometimes-imperfect template, and you don't have the same level of control over your content that you'd have if you were hosting the whole thing on your own server. However, they make an extraordinary array of sophisticated communications features accessible to organizations that don't have tens of thousands of dollars to drop on a new custom-crafted interactive site every few years. The internet is changing so fast that production cannot keep up with the technology if we follow old models of design and interaction. This solution can and will grow and evolve, flexibly adapting to and taking advantage of new technologies as they come.

This project would not have been possible if Shira and I, or fD, worked in a more mainstream and less openly collaborative way. Shira's and my cooperative approach to design problems and fD's trust and willingness to experiment made for a very organic design and production process that drew on the strengths and knowledge of everyone involved. This web 2.0 child we've birthed together reflects that process, and is stronger for it.
freeDimensional.org »

Just Seeds - Cheap and lovely art

By Ari | Dec 13, 08 03:58 PM

Just Seeds has a new sale page and it's awesome. If you're looking for something to give someone for the holidays, they've got some great prints up there, and they're really affordable.

Shale Shocked

By Shira | Dec 6, 08 03:05 AM

There are many factors that contribute to the fertility and productivity of land that are beyond a landowners' direct control. One of the major issues we need to consider in New York State is natural gas drilling. Ever since the development of more commercially-viable drilling techniques around 2000, major oil companies have been going to town on the Marcellus Shale. One of the main ways they get access to the land is by leasing land and drilling rights from local landowners. While this can be a good source of income for struggling farmers, there are numerous environmental impacts including the distribution of toxic chemicals into the soil and water table.

We've been getting involved with Shaleshock, a local resistance group, and we recently designed their logo and a new website. Check out the site to get up to speed on the issues and take action. One thing you can do now is comment on the DEC's draft scope...

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has released a draft scope document that outlines how they will regulate natural gas drilling of the Marcellus Shale. In addition to commenting at public hearings around the state, you can submit your comments via letter or email by December 15th.

Submit comments to:
Attn: Scope Comments
Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation, NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources
625 Broadway, Third Floor
Albany, NY 12233-6500

Or email to dmnog@gw.dec.state.ny.us with "Scope Comments" as the Subject

Download the pdf of the scope

Tortillas and Cider, Delivered to Our Doorstep

By Shira | Dec 5, 08 12:43 PM

A lot of people have been talking about eating local, and the arguments are pretty straight-forward: when you eat local you save energy/fuel, build community, and develop your local economy. Not to mention, your food is a lot less likely to be processed with preservatives and other nastiness.

Eating local in Ithaca is pretty easy and it seems to be getting easier every day. The Ithaca Farmer's Market is open April through December and has amazing produce - plus local crafts, live music and hot food. A lot of the stands are organic and there's even one place where everything is veganically grown - Unexpected Farm from Watkins Glen.

the glorious ithaca farmer's market
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

live music, local food
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

veganically-grown!
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

breakfast at the farmer's market
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

We've been getting most of our produce from the Farmers Market since we moved here three months ago, and supplementing from Greenstar Cooperative Market - where we're members. Greenstar is definitely not 100% local, but they have really great signage, which makes it so much easier to know the distance food has traveled. But as winter sets in, the Farmer's Market closes up shop and buying local produce at the coop gets too expensive, so we decided to join a winter CSA. We just picked up our first share last week and it was an amazing bounty - carrots, potatoes, leeks, cabbage, turnips, garlic, kale, squash, radichio, bok choi, and salad greens.

ithaca chocolate!
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

The cool thing about the CSA model, is that it enables the farmer to get paid up front so that they have the money when they need it most for buying supplies, paying laborers, repairs, etc. And usually, by paying a fixed price at the beginning, the individual CSA member gets a really good deal on a lot of fresh, local food. It is probably the best way to eat seasonally, if you're not growing your own food.

What's really exciting right now is that all these small grassroots distributors are popping up to fill holes in the local market. A couple of months ago, it wasn't uncommon for us to go for a walk and pass by an unsupervised produce stand in front of a house on a quiet residential street.

there's a can where you can leave a quarter
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

Recently, our friend Emily was thinking about how there are no local tortilla makers, so she started making vegan, organic, wheat tortillas and delivering them to people on her bike. And then Travis and Ellen announced on the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute's email list that they had pressed a huge amount of cider and could deliver a half gallon or gallon to any one who wanted some.

beach or tortilla?
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

gaia tortilla
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

sunrise apple cider - delivered to our door!
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

And these projects are inspiring new ones. A couple of guys who got Emily's tortillas one week, made some hummus to put on them, and it was such a tasty combination that now they're planning on making and delivering hummus. I sampled some of their recipe at the hat band party and it was amazing. I can't wait for them to start distributing!

All this activity has gotten us brainstorming like crazy, especially whenever we meet up with our new friend Joe. He's a true renaissance man - a guy who knows how to build his own house, convert engines to run on vegetable oil, code websites and play death metal. We've been talking about collaborating on a vegan baked goods enterprise in the future.

But with all these microbusinesses launching, it seems like we could take this whole thing a step further. What if once a week, we all met up in one centralized location (maybe a rotating potluck at different people's houses) and we just swap stuff - no money involved. So Emily could bring her tortillas, and Travis brings his cider, and Ellen brings tea, and Dusqkee brings hummus, and Ari brings vegan cookies, and Joe brings vegan muffins, and Danila brings garlic, and Mer and Uriel offer massages, and Rachel teaches yoga, and I bring knitted hats and cozies etc. etc. And instead of paying each other, we would just swap in a mutual aid, take as you need kind of way. And maybe it's one big coop and we all put in cash when we can and take it out when we need it. And there's a local community center with an industrial kitchen and craft studios and workshops. And before you know it, we're a totally self-sustaining community.

This is where we are heading!

The Scenarios USA 2008 REAL DEAL Film Premiere - Dec. 10, NYC

By Ari | Dec 3, 08 11:38 AM

Shira and I have been working with an incredible Brooklyn non-profit, Scenarios USA, for years now, and are currently helping them to promote their 2008 premiere. If you'll be in NYC on December 10th, this is your chance to meet the award-winning teen writers and Hollywood directors of the organization's three new sex-ed shorts - and to see the new films. You can catch Scenarios USA's earlier films online at the site we designed for them, scenariosusa.org.

Cool folks we're working with in Ithaca: Ithaca-Area Vegan Meetup Group and Shaleshock

By Ari | Dec 2, 08 03:05 PM

Are you in the Ithaca area, and either vegan or vegan-curious? Come check out the Ithaca-Area Vegan Meetup Group - we have a weekly coffee and tea hour at Autumn Leaves Cafe, 3pm on Sundays. Lately folks have been talking activism, which is awesome! Come over and get involved if you're in town and love animals. Whoo! If you want to help promote, here are handbills and a poster. (Designed by me.)

Another project Shira and I have been participating in is Shaleshock - the site was hacked before we arrived in town and so they haven't had a very good online presence. We're helping to get content up there and organized. It's my first time working with WordPress (I'm usually a Movable Type girl), and it's a lot of fun. Big thanks to Joe for setting this thing up!

Lioness in the New York Times

By Ari | Nov 6, 08 10:17 AM

The documentary Lioness has been featured in the New York Times. We did the website, branding, posters, and other outreach materials for the film, and are happy to see it getting out to a wider and wider audience. It offers a rarely-seen glimpse into the lives of female combat veterans, and the challenges they face when they come back home. Read the article, and visit the film site to get involved and take action on the issues.

Countering the badness with peace and love: No on Prop. 8, yes to equality

By Ari | Nov 6, 08 08:06 AM

My good friend Josh has written a beautiful, positive call to action for equality in California. Read it, and get excited!

Hey folks,

Damn I'm jazzed!

5 Great Things YOU can do about Prop 8!

1) Start feeling good!

The vote on 8 won't be certified until next month. Start visualizing and Secret'ing it to lose! The trick is to visualize it to the point where you feel REALLY good, like it's REALLY happening!

Also, remind yourself that while if Prop 8 does pass, it will be but a momentary setback in the civil rights movement... while at the same time, we are celebrating the groundbreaking civil rights victory of having for the first time a black President! Civil rights moves forward inexorably. We will prevail!

(If you don't understand how people of color and queers have more in common than less, talk to me.)

2) Feel REALLY good!

Novel lawsuits are already being filed, on the grounds that Prop 8 misused the amendment process to undermine the constitution itself. Other lawsuits are also being filed. It might be even MORE FUN if Prop 8 wins and then gets struck down in the courts! Hah! So if that feels even better to you, Secret that!

3) Fight FOR your equality, not AGAINST Prop 8, conservatives, or anything else... not even in your mind.

What you resist, persists. Fight FOR your equality, your right to be treated equal under the law, and your acceptance in our culture for who you are.

4) Shift to not fighting at all.

Resist the urge to see this as a war, an us versus them dynamic with winners and losers.

This is what many conservatives actually want. If your head is making war, then you are actually participating in the global war machine they support.

If you want peace on this planet, do not expect it until you can figure out how to assert your equality in peace.

Take action, certainly... but do it in a way that does not divide you from others. Stay connected to your friends and family members that are so wrapped up in their own fears that they could vote Yes on 8. Be an agent of change in their lives.

Create this change through love and unity, not war and separation.

5) Know what Prop 8 is really about and respond to that.

Realize that this is not really about marriage at all, but about keeping queers invisible, discriminated against, oppressed. So, be visible... be yourself, fearlessly, powerfully, and encourage others to do the same.

Examine your experiences to see if there are any ways, even little ways, that you still hide who you really are AND/OR allow others to express their homophobia without letting them know how their actions affect you.

Do you refrain from talking about your relationships at work even though straight coworkers do? When was the last time you let a homophobic joke go without saying something? Are you still hiding from any of your family members to some degree? Can you meet new people, spend any significant amount of time with them, and make it so they leave without really knowing you're gay/queer/trans/etc?

Even if you're "fully out", do you modulate it down sometimes? Under what circumstances? Are you living as queer as you actually are? If you're heterosexual, are YOU living as queer as you actually are?

Remember, if someone has to be uncomfortable or unhappy, it doesn't have to be you. :-)

BONUS! 6) Forward this message on!

Please feel free to mail, email, or repost this text. All I ask is that you include the original link: http://bunnykitteh.livejournal.com/155593.html

}{ugs,
Josh

Ps. In my rush to excite and empower you, I forgot one little thing... you may not be ready yet! (Thanks Ben, for reminding me!)

If you are feeling angry, sad, hurt... going through the stages of grief... or whatever process you're in, stick with it! Those feelings are sooo important. They are messages that your needs are not getting met.

It was through my own process of getting deeply in touch with the pain of being seen as less-than-a-person by people I grew up with, really getting what that means, that I was able to take back my power and choose my response.

Know that you are loved and surrounded by good wishes for your well being as you go through whatever you are going through right now.

Transgender Day of Remembrance and TransAction!

By Ari | Nov 5, 08 03:36 PM

My being born genderqueer has come with a dose of oppression, from psychologically-damaging pressures to conform to the binary gender system as a child, to having people shout at me in the streets. Throw in being a woman and being queer and I'm never sure what part of me people are shouting at. I don't know that I can complain, though - many people have experienced far, far worse, and even lost their lives.

Coming up on November 20, 2008 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day for us to remember and honor those folks who have been killed due to anti-transgender bias, hatred, and prejudice. See participating groups or organize a commemoration of your own. GLSEN and TDOR offer the following ideas:

Candlelight vigils / marches
Visual representation of the number of deaths with:
- Cardboard tomb stones of remembered people
- Paper cutouts of remembered people
- Body outline chalkings of remembered people
- Art / photography displays

Also, save the date: on February, 27, 2009, GLSEN is holding a student-driven event in support and celebration of trans and gender non-conforming people, TransAction! Visit their site for info on workshops and speakers - and to set up your own event.

If you want to know more about us folks with interesting genders, check out Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, the Transgender Law and Policy Institute, Gender.org, and good ol' Wikipedia.

Do Not Leave Unattended!: New design launched

By Ari | Oct 23, 08 04:52 PM

The site I designed for Jude of Randomly Run4istRun, for her new collaborative writing/art project, Do Not Leave Unattended!, has launched. Visit the site to see current contributions and to sign up if you'd like to participate. I'm particularly happy with this design, which put my handwriting and illustration style to good use. Thanks to Jude for the support! It's nice to work on projects that allow so much creative freedom. Thanks also to Krissy for the logo collaboration, and to Barbara for the excellent WordPress coding skillz.

A fun fact: the notebooks that appear in the layout (in the navigation and the background) are photographs I took of actual notebooks and handbound books I've made and filled. Which is cool, because this is the first time they've appeared publicly outside of my "i made this" photoset on Flickr.
Do Not Leave Unattended »

Previously: Do Not Leave Unattended: Dispatches from Ithaca

Lynn Love Thinks: Ari's mom's new blog!

By Ari | Oct 21, 08 09:52 AM

lynn was enamored with this crocheted garfield
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

My mom, Lynn, is a pretty cool lady - she's traveled the country selling her own handcrafted jewelry and watercolor paintings, lived on a commune, built and lived in a rural homestead, lived it large in Miami and Provincetown, had three children (one of whom, my late older brother, was lost to heroin addiction and alcoholism), and most recently, has gone independent and begun making a living selling vintage clothing on eBay and in her own fledgling shop, Vintage Lucy.

She's an awesome mom because she always treated us kids as her equals, allowing us room to grow into our own people. I've always thought of her as one of my best friends; she's someone I can learn from and who is willing to learn in turn. Now I'm happy to call her a fellow blogger! She's just begun her own blog, Lynn Love Thinks, where she's writing about the books she reads, progressive politics and social change, art and craft and collecting, and spirituality.

Fun fact: The name of the blog uses her middle name rather than her last name. "Love" was her mother's middle name, and Mary gave it to Lynn, and Lynn gave it to me. It's not a hippie thing (though my mom was a hippie!), but an old Swedish thing, I guess.

Check it out and comment on a post to give her some encouragement - she's new to blogging and I want to keep her at it!
Lynn Love Thinks

Cool vegan travellers

By Ari | Oct 15, 08 02:04 PM

Milo Likes the Bus
Originally uploaded by fourvegans

We've met some awesome people through our vegan ecovillage project, including Sugati and Chris, who are about to travel the U.S. in a bus converted run on waste veggie oil. It's got solar power, and they're going to run workshops on mobile sustainability as they go. These are their kids hanging out with a friend, whose parents are hosting the bus while it's parked, pre-journey.

You can follow their odyssey on their blog, and here's a link to their Flickr photoset about the bus.

It's Ally Week

By Ari | Oct 15, 08 12:50 PM

It's Ally Week this week, a nationwide chance for straight allies to speak up for their queer friends and family at school and in their communities. I know that as a queer person, having straight allies has always been a very warm and fuzzy feeling. Thank you for all that you do, straight but not narrow folks!

I helped design GLSEN's Student Organizing site as well as MySpace and other materials for Ally Week. The Ally Week materials themselves were designed by someone else - not sure who but they look great!
Ally Week Website
Sign up to participate - GLSEN Student Organizing site

Do Not Leave Unattended: Dispatches from Ithaca

By Ari | Oct 3, 08 05:06 PM

Recently I've been doing some work for a fellow blogger, at Randomly Run4istRun (that illustration at the top is based on a photograph by Dorothy O’Connor). She's just launched a new collaborative notebook project called Do Not Leave Unattended, and I'm working on that site too. She sends out notebooks and the recipients get two weeks to fill the next page (or pages), before passing them on. The results so far display a delightful hodge-podge of writing and art. I got one, and passed it on to Shira, and I'm very happy to report that our friend Angela is taking it next. Who knows where it'll go after that?

Yay internets! This is the first time I've done one of these mail-based collaborative projects and it was a lot of fun. I see photos on Flickr all the time of people sending out color-coded packages full of candy and collectibles and art, and other interesting projects, and I always wondered what it would be like to have something like that arrive in my in-box. The answer? It's pretty awesome. I feel like I'm in good company, and I can't wait to see what the finished books look like. Kudos to Jude for creating such a cool project.

Click here to see all of the submissions as they come in... and stay tuned, a new design is coming soon!

Old photos are fun

By Shira | Aug 12, 08 11:23 AM

That's me on the left and my dad on the right. Our friend Tricia posted some awesome old photos of her and her family to flickr a while back, and it inspired me to do the same. Check out my new family album set on flickr.

Announcing Lionessthefilm.com

By Ari | Aug 1, 08 02:36 PM

Just launched today, Lionessthefilm.com. We worked with filmmakers Daria Sommers and Meg McLagan, along with consultation from Working Films and Matt Syrett, to craft a comprehensive online outreach tool for this exciting new documentary. The site was built on Movable Type 4 (open source, baby!), uses Google Analytics to track traffic, and dovetails with accounts on YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Google Calendar, to provide soldiers, veterans, and those providing support services with ways to engage with the film and with each other - and to help get their stories heard. We also designed the film's branding, as well as posters, postcards, email graphics, and other outreach essentials.

Through beautiful footage shot by our friend Kirsten Johnson (Farenheit 9/11, Deadline), Lioness tells the story of the first women in American history to be sent into direct ground combat. The interviews with the Lionesses are gripping; as anti-war activists we found watching the film to be an invaluable learning experience that really helped us identify with soldiers who are putting their lives on the line in armed combat. It movingly shows both the combat experience and the impact of it on people's lives, after they've come home.

Visit the site at Lionessthefilm.com to view the trailer, find screenings, get involved, and sign up for updates.

Support healthcare for all - TODAY, NYC

By Ari | Jul 30, 08 12:37 PM

Via our friends in the Coalition Against Privatization:

Wed. July 30: Rally to Stop Healthcare Privatization

As the healthcare crisis deepens, people are searching for alternatives to a corporate-driven system that leaves nearly 50 million Americans uninsured. Not surprisingly, the healthcare industry's solution is even more privatization. GHI & HIP are two of the latest targets of this privatizing campaign. But what if the solution - or a partial solution - to this dilemma already exists?

Continue reading "Support healthcare for all - TODAY, NYC..." »

Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #3: Travel

By shirari | Jun 30, 08 06:26 PM

Get ready for an hour and twelve minutes of non-stop queer vegan rambling! Wait, that didn't sound particularly attractive. Rest assured it'll be worth a listen - in this third installment of Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast we talk about our recent trip to Israel, Amsterdam, and Iceland, and how we attempted to take best advantage of the fuel used to have a experience that was as low-impact and culture-rich as possible. You'll hear about a kibbutz that turns soda cans and other trash into eco-friendly buildings, bikes by the boatload, naked showers with Europeans, friendly ducks interrupting breakfast in a tent, a town where street art is loved and not hated, and delicious, delicious falafel.

Shira's voice is kinda quiet in this one, sorry about that! We're still working out the technical kinks here. If you're actually downloading and listening to these, please comment and tell us what you think! Thanks to those of you who've written to us or commented already, we're so happy folks are giving these a listen.

Shirari's Peace and Love Podcast #3: Travel »
June 30, 2008 - 72 minutes - 32.9MB

Show links:

Previously:

Camp it up with Rude Mechanical Orchestra - Party tonight, NYC!

By Ari | Jun 27, 08 02:18 PM

Folly Day 2008 - RMO Horns Advance
Originally uploaded by LarimdaME

If you've never seen an activist marching band perform, and you're in NYC, tonight is the perfect opportunity to catch an amazing show. Our friends in the Rude Mechanical Orchestra are having a big benefit party, and we're bringing along some hand-drawn peace and love buttons and a poster in a hand-made frame for auction. We'll post photos of the stuff we made later on Flickr, or you can come see it in person tonight! For more info read on:

CAMP IT UP! with the RUDE MECHANICAL ORCHESTRA
Friday, June 27th at DCTV
87 Lafayette Street, NYC (just south of Canal)
$0-$20 suggested donation - $20 gets you a special gift!
Doors open at 7pm
Wear something CAMP-y!
HELP US GO PROTEST THE RNC! ***
Bike valet! Silent auction! S'mores! Stripes! Khaki shorts! Fun!
Buy a raffle ticket and win your chance to have the RMO perform at a personal event of your choosing! Yes, we're serious. 1 for $3, 2 for $5, 10 for $20. Available now until the party. Your event must take place after our tour and be in one of the five boroughs.
Also featuring:
Veveritse
Inner Princess
Melora auf Rasputina
Frank London
Jennifer Miller of Circus Amok!
DJ Dusty Walker
And, of course, the RMO
*** In August 2008, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra is taking our show on the road - in a low-impact, environmentally-friendly manner (no stretch SUV limo for us). We will be converting a school bus to run on waste veggie oil and traveling cross country for a two-week adventure -- to cross-pollinate with progressive grassroots organizations and other amazing movers and shakers, and to loudly register our dissent at the Republican National Convention. Along our journey, we plan to raise awareness about and support groups and individuals fighting against racism, sexism, homophobia, war and violence in all its forms. So come party with us and help one of the hardest-working bands in town send our rabble-rousing brassy selves to speak music to power!

Previously: Send the Rude Mechanical Orchestra to the RNC

The Effect of Flickr on My Israeli Grandmother

By Shira | Jun 20, 08 03:12 PM

the effect of flickr on my israeli grandmother
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

My grandmother in Israel, Savta Margalit, got a computer this year and is a voracious and exuberant emailer. Every Friday afternoon, in a flurry of "Shabbat Shalom!" emails cc'ed to everyone in the family, I try to send some links to photos or videos that Ari and I have taken in the previous week. This is how she responded to the most recent batch. Thank you flickr...If only you weren't owned by Yahoo!

Rustie, the Fluffy Interruptor

By Ari | Jun 18, 08 12:11 PM

I first got to know the Socialist Party NYC when Shira and a friend and I went to their screening of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Halfway through the screening a big friendly orange cat came wandering in to watch with us. During the follow-up discussion, he was dissatisfied with the amount of attention he was getting, got up, walked right over in front of Tommy, who was facilitating, and plopped down - rather cutely and awkwardly, on his back or butt if I recall correctly - right there in the middle of the conversation. That helped get our attention where he wanted it.

Here he is! I was introduced to him properly at my first SP-NYC meeting, and ran into him many times afterward. This shot was sent to me by the amazing activist David McReynolds, who I also met at my first SP-NYC meeting, and who writes, "here is Rustie (named after Bayard Rustin), the War Resisters League cat (he lives in the office)." Thanks Rustie, for helping me become an anti-capitalist.

Happy List

By Shira | Jun 5, 08 07:20 PM

There is a cat posse in our apartment, same-sex marriages are going to be recognized in New York State, my cousin Amir starred in this Borat spoof (it's a video for his high-school graduation party in Haifa), crop circles on google earth, using skype as our land line, Senegalese hip-hop at the eighth annual Media That Matters Film Festival Awards Ceremony, visiting Ithaca last weekend for a co-housing workshop at EcoVillage, looking for an apartment in Ithaca and finding an awesome one!!!, the plants in our window pots are starting to bloom, Obama is the democratic candidate for president, sharing our art and music this weekend as part of Bushwick Open Studios, picking up our first Hearty Roots CSA share of the season in Williamsburg, women's turkish oil wrestling at Galapagos, Renegade Craft Fair at the McCarren Park Pool June 14-15, Pineapple Express at BAM with Director David Gordon Green, tank tops, summer...

Send the Rude Mechanical Orchestra to the RNC

By Ari | May 15, 08 02:13 PM

DSC_8744.jpg
Originally uploaded by dogseat

Our friend Hugh (the gentleman in very short shorts in this photo) is part of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, which is AWESOME and currently raising funds for a wonderful project. Check it:

After 4 years of inspiring political work in New York City, this August the RMO is taking our show on the road - in a low-impact, environmentally-friendly manner. We are collaborating with the students and faculty of the Brooklyn-based Automotive High School to convert our recently-acquired school bus to run on waste veggie oil. Our goal is to go across the country for a two-week adventure, to cross-pollinate with progressive grassroots organizations and other amazing movers and shakers and to loudly register our dissent at the Republican National Convention. Along our journey, we plan to raise awareness about and support for the groups and individuals who are fighting against racism, sexism, homophobia, war and violence in all its forms.
Every penny counts, and we have raised almost half of the money we need to go on our tour! The government is investing in a temporary "solution" to systemic problems; the RMO is investing in the long-term fight against them. Please help us in reaching our goal! Please go to our chip-in page at http://rmo.chipin.com/rmo. For more information please see our webpage www.rudemechanicalorchestra.org or our Myspace at www.myspace.com/rudemechanicalorchestra.

March to Save Our Healthcare this Friday - NYC

By Ari | May 7, 08 05:01 PM

Every Teacher, Transit Worker, Librarian, and Public Worker will be impacted!
5/9 FRI, 4:30 pm - Protest: "March to Save Our Healthcare."

Join the fight to prevent GHI-HIP from converting to a for-profit company & jeopardizing the healthcare of 4 million policy holders, including 500,000 NYC workers (93% of the workforce) & retirees. Mainstream politicians & union leaders support the change, hoping to benefit from the nearly $3 billion windfall profits of such a sale. Help send a "no privatization" message to the NYS Sup't of Insurance & GHI-HIP. Bring friends & signs.

At Office of the NYS Superintendent of Insurance, 25 Beaver St
(4/5 to Bowling Green, J/M/Z to Broad St , R/W to Whitehall St,
1 to Rector St, 2/3 to Wall St, A/C to B'way-Nassau).

Info: (718) 869-2279, noprivatization-at-yahoo-dot-com (request flyer)
http://www.consumersunion.org/conv/
http://www.metrohealthcare.org/html/hcoa080116.html [video]
http://www.myspace.com/saveourhealthcare
http://going.com/saveourhealthcare
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/05/96895.html

Spread the word!

Travelling the land and opening the mind

By Ari | May 7, 08 12:49 PM

A friend of ours is traveling to a jungle in Peru to take ayahuasca and is getting ready for the trip in his usual thoughtful style:

What helps us plug in, and stay plugged in, to stories of reality that disempower us? Certainly all forms of media, including advertisements and billboards. But I'm guessing that on a deeper level the very structures of our lives, the very things I'm supposed to miss such as electricity and toilets, keep us plugged in to a "modern American" reality that is simply our story, a story not shared by everyone on the planet.

I really identify with this idea. I found that the trip Shira and I took to India was eye-opening in ways I never expected. There's something about flushing your toilet with a bucket, taking cold showers, and being sold handmade items in bags made out of recycled newspaper instead of plastic, that makes Western environmental activism and "conservation" look woefully inadequate. It was that trip that made Shira and I get into low impact living, waste reduction, and drastically reduced consumption with more depth and enthusiasm and understanding than we ever had before. Today these practices are a huge part of our lives, but it was traveling and seeing different ways of living firsthand that turned everything around for us.

Combine a trip like that with ayahuasca and I imagine the effects must be even more profound. Keep an eye on Bunnykitteh's blog for updates.

Hawai'i Needs You: An open letter to the US left from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement

By Ari | Apr 13, 08 08:47 PM

The Nation has published an open letter from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, addressed to us in the U.S. left: Hawai'i Needs You. We're with you, Hawai'i! Via Jesse Lokahi Heiwa of the Hawai'i Solidarity Committee.

For more info, meet some of the folks in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement:

E-waste recycling event at Tekserve Mac shop - NYC

By Ari | Apr 10, 08 03:55 PM

Our favorite Mac shop and my one-time employer Tekserve, who recently sold us our new and amazing video editing system (THANKS!), is having their second annual Electronics Recycling Event, together with the Lower East Side Ecology Center. These sorts of environmentally-friendly shenanigans are just what I'd expect from Tekserve, home of "Fair Weights and Square Dealings." The event will be April 26th-27th, right here in NYC.

More tips on recycling things you just don't know where to recycle:
GrassRoots Recycling Network
EcoCycle
GreenDisk

Celebrate Foodswings' birthday - Sunday, NYC

By Ari | Mar 26, 08 10:24 AM

yet more foodswings deliciousness
Originally uploaded by arimoore

On Sunday, March 30, the delicious and amazing "vegan fast food joint" Foodswings in Williamsburg, Brooklyn will be hosting an anniversary party. If you are in NYC and like fake meat and french fries and milkshakes, you must go! There will be three menus to choose from: their mighty-fine regular menu, the midnite munchies menu, and the elusive, long-cancelled brunch menu, which you can only take advantage of during parties like this one. Foodswings catered our vegan wedding and we still get compliments about the tasty, tasty food from our mostly-omnivorous friends and family, over a year later.

Plus, you can't beat the atmosphere, or the neighborhood. You've never seen such tight pants, or such decked-out bikes, or such fun hats. Foodswings is a great place to pick up hand-drawn punk show fliers and read a copy of Arthur Magazine or the Onion. It's also right around the corner from Cinders Gallery, one of our favorite galleries in NYC, and from The City Reliquary, home of the Giant Pencil Collection and numerous labeled chunks of cement from exotic locations like Coney Island. In short, it's one of our favorite corners of NYC. See you on Sunday?

OFF THE WALL - Opening tonight in NYC

By Ari | Mar 21, 08 02:13 PM

I've had the privilege to work with freeDimensional on an event called OFF THE WALL: Celebrating Arts and Human Rights, opening tonight at Casa Frela Gallery in Harlem. Click here for more info and be sure to check out freeDimensional. They're a growing non-profit that's doing some very important work for artists in need of asylum, all over the world.

Vegan Treasures from My Mom

By Ari | Mar 17, 08 06:05 PM

My mom runs an online business selling vintage women's clothing: Vintage Lucy. I wanted to help her make the leap from eBay to her own shop, and I thought I could make her a PayPal shop using Movable Type - but I don't usually do jobs that involve animal exploitation, and Mom's amazing collection happens to contain some wool, leather, and feathers. I did end up making the site, and am now helping her do some outreach.

I have to admit that I'm really glad that I compromised my ideals to work with her on this site! 100% vegan though it may not be, it can help my mom make a living. And it so happens that Mom has become increasingly open to animal rights ideas over the years. She dabbles in vegetarianism and veganism and is constantly educating herself and changing; she cares for and loves many animals, and recently has done a little animal rights activism. She added a new category of items to her site called Vegan Treasures - as she points out, "wearing vintage & pre-worn is recycling, saving precious animals & the Earth." Check it out - there's some very beautiful stuff in there (all of the photos above are from this category): Vintage Lucy Vegan Treasures (No animal products used in these beauties.) Who knows, maybe this is only the tip of the vegan iceberg for my mom...

Fight Military Recruitment in Schools

By Shira | Mar 1, 08 07:21 PM

The New York Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) have recently released a curriculum that helps teachers educate their students about military recruiting tactics. The goal is to empower students with concrete information and to make sure they know about alternative ways to access education and career-building tools after high-school.

Ari and I had the pleasure of designing the cover for Camouflaged: Investigating How the U.S. Military Affects You and Your Community, which you can preview and buy online through Lulu.com.

If you're a teacher who want to get involved, you should come to the meeting this week...

NYCoRE's Counter Recruitment Project Meeting
Thursday, March 6, 5:30-7:30
CUNY Graduate Center 34th St. & 5th Ave., Room 5489
Please bring ID

Topics of discussion include:

Bringing teachers together to develop a workshop for other teachers around unpacking military recruitment in New York City Schools and across the country
Outreach to bring teachers and administrators from Upper Manhattan neighborhoods to the workshop
Strategizing ways to share the ideas developed by New York City teachers in NYCoRE's recently released curricular guide Camouflaged
Developing ways to be a voice in the events acknowledging the anniversary of the war in Iraq

If you are interested in attending or getting involved, email Edwin at NYCoRE.

And here are some great videos about recruiting and the impact of war on veterans from Media That Matters: No Child, All That I Can Be and Night Visions

Shirari Industries