Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Happy Birthday, Malcolm X!


Today I went along to a demonstration for Picture the Homeless in Brook Park in the South Bronx, NYC. It was really charming, a lovely place, little grove of trees, broad sunny area for plots of vegetables, and Mexican dancing group and singing group performing. Rebel Diaz arts collective also, rapping about the banks. PtH is moving on some vacant properties -- dropping banners on them, calling for their occupation by homeless families. I was up to their HQ earlier working on one of the banners. I did the sketch for the one with the words "BLOOM BERG" on it! (From an idea by a young woman, painting by many kids, and letters by Seth Tobocman, a great political artist.) Sebastian was there with his camera interviewing, and mentioned the strike in Puerto Rico at the university there. This news is BLACKED OUT in North America, but looks like it's building to an island-wide general strike... (I am embedding the links as an experiment, now -- the English sources on this story are Occupyca blog and Studentactivism.net.) Me and Matt Metzgar of the Loswer East Side Squatter Archive project and artist Carla Cubit are going to Philadelphia on May 29th, to talk at Wooden Shoe Books about political squatting. It's a roundtable, organized with Basekamp. Drop by if you are in town! We need to hear about the Philly story...