Boomcrash

George Carlin on Michael JacksonGeorge Carlin on Michael JacksonGeorge Carlin on Michael Jackson

and that’s all i’m gonna say here.

SlamundrumSlamundrumSlamundrum

A reply to “Is Slam in Danger of Going Soft?”

I became reluctant of slamming – but not performance poetry, that’s in the mix to this day – when I realized how adept I was at pandering to the audience. As in slam-winning, audience in my palm adept – but I was risking sacrificing the poetry in my work for crowd-pleasing, which after spending decades honing craft and voice alike, is a form of creative soul death that I’d rather not have to live with. So I shifted gears into smaller, more open venues, which is where things remain. Now when I read my work, the message gets heard loud and clear (which is more than I can say for some of my less fortunate slam gigs) and more often than not, that message is understood with an equal clarity. Not that smaller venues are a letdown – at core, I’m a poet who spent years cutting her teeth in the sorts of postage stamp-sized dive bars that Marc Smith talks about, starting back in the mid-1970s. While I miss hitting up larger joints on a regular basis, it’s more important to have an impact as well as a crowd.

The challenge is how to hold forth in this size and sort of venue while not becoming obscure. This more than anything is the cross-generational curse of “serious poetry” – many a decent poet gets overlooked (or is completely off the cultural map) due to the semantic opaqueness of their work, not to mention their rather stunning ability to not be able to read in front of an audience. (While I love many modernist poets, I am completely with Marc here when it comes to Ezra Pound, and the failing of many poets when it comes to oration of their work in an approachable manner speaks for itself.) When you consider this in light of the reality that most beginning practitioners of any art form are lacking in polish, if not possessing a truncated relationship with their creative voice as well, it becomes very clear why slam arose – it was out of necessity as well as desire, as well as a wholesale need to break free of the constraints of overly academicized forms of poetic expression, which are notorious for being both obtuse and lacking in a requisite degree of performativity when misfortune strikes and well-heeled practitioners dare to foist said work on the public. In short: poetry had to break itself free if it was not to risk a tragic demise at the perennially dull and the as-yet inexperienced.

Despite my decision to shy away a bit from more mainstream audiences, when I do venture forth into larger venues, there are slights-of-hand that can be enacted to get the message into the mix, although I do tend to shy away from this approach whenever possible. One of the things that I learned from my bordering-on-pandering days is that it is possible to slip in a social change message into an otherwise standard “love is bullshit” slam poem. This approach requires playing a bit of poetic trickery, such as inserting an overtly political declaration mid-line well after the audience thinks all you’re doing carrying on in a fit of laugh-grabbing frustration about dating snafus and drunken one night stands – an admittedly devious (or at least somewhat awkward) form of cultural detournément. As such, I prefer the more direct approach mentioned above, even if it costs me some in terms of audience size.

It’s important to note that my present body of work came galloping forth not from continuing on with my poetic journey throughout the 1990s, but following years of neglect during that period, which thankfully wound to a grinding halt at the century’s close. In specific, the re-emergence of my poetic stride was conjured forth after seeing Saul Williams perform in the film Slam. (My sistas and brothas, that scene in the jail courtyard? Oh my god.) As such, it’s hard at times for me to wrap my mind around the seeming conflict here within the slam community between old and new – and let’s say it, post-beat and hip-hop – which while not racial per se in this case, is most definitely cultural, if not generational as well – while at other times, said conflict becomes painfully clear, in which case it’s ALL about race, don’t listen to anybody who tells you otherwise. Don’t even get me started on the relationship of queers within slam to slam itself.

That being stated, I will fight to the death for slam to be taken seriously as art, when in fact it is such a beast. The problem however is reflected quite succinctly by Marc Smith – the popularity of slam is turning it, at least in a noticeable number of cases, into a homogenized if not pandering form of expression. While some slam poems are amazing, life-transforming embodiments of personal expression that do, in fact, deserved to be called art – others are not quite the cat’s gravy. While the commercialization of slam has given rise to poets who juggle both art and popularity with amazing finesse – Talaam Acey, Patricia Smith, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Saul Williams – others compromise and settle for self-indulgent or simply mundane forms of audience ass-shout-kissing to get more points, which really serves nobody, including the poets themselves. It is simply not that case though that all slam poems are solipsistic drivel – I know, I’ve seen otherwise many a time. What slam’s critics (and in particular, slam’s culturally conservative critics) need to realize is simple: life did not stop after 1947, and neither did poetry. Furthermore, this kind of struggle has been going on for as long as there have been sanctioned (or archaic) schools of artistic thought and discourse; as such, it is somewhat disingenuous to act as if slam is the first movement to rebel against such constraints.

Nevertheless, it is true that there is a sort of watering down of intention in the transition from old school to new, at least in some cases. For example, regardless of all that I have been through in this life (quite a lot), I don’t fit neatly into some audience member’s predetermined entry price for authenticity – which is the lifeblood of being successful at slamming, if you’re not going to settle for being the popular kid with a mic in her hand. Everything I have ever heard about old school slams flies in the face of this sort of gatekeeping, which also happens to map to the experiences I had when I was a teenager. (While the venues I read at were not officially slam ones, they nevertheless were part of the rise in performance poetry’s popularity at the time, and any poet who actually gave a damn about the form – and in particular, about contemporary poetry of the past 30 years or so – was welcome.) Consider this: when I performed as a feature act at The Green Mill a few years back, I brought down the house – a very jaded, poetry-savvy Chicago audience at that – for keeping things real while being completely myself, warts and all, and as always, with the poetry first and foremost. But when I performed at a certain not-to-be-named popular venue that is more representative of many mainstream slam audiences these days? I could not get a chunk of them to stop laughing – and by this, I unfortunately do not mean “laughing with”. Intersexed queerdyke autonomist mixed-race latina experimental poets aren’t supposed to slam? I guess I didn’t get the officially sanctioned cultural inclusivity memo on that one. It’s their loss, but there you have it.

What remains to be seen though is if slam can continue to flourish creatively despite its popularity, or if it will gradually become a cultural footnote, as with many art movements that eventually became rote as they grew in scope. If that turns out to be the case, it will be poetry’s loss – but it most assuredly will not be poetry’s death, either. I for one will welcome the return of our beer-stained intimate venue overlords if that turns out to be the case, and will happily perform my work for whomever happens to show up, until a new generation of poets begin to wonder why everything sounds the same, and seek refuge within the underground hideaways yet again.

Are we actually starting to be in control here?

Rush job Twitter transcript follows below, with minor cleanup for continuity; much cred to Rebecca Walker for saying “more please” at just the right moment. <3

Solidadrocks The problem w/ the old school publishing system is that it constantly feeds off of a writerly underclass; poets are a prime example. (more)

solidadrocks However, Amazon isn’t the solution; open source models + p2p is. If coders can do it, so can writers – musicians already are.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks What’s that mean? Just distribute our writings by bittorrent and the like?

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon In part, yes. I think what’s still emerging is a means to capitalize on social media for writers specifically (more)

solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) but look at open source software — small distributed model as a result of deflated costs. why publishing (more)

solidadrocks why *old school publishing models don’t work is that

solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) is that digital media has flatted the costs of creating infrastructure, aka distribution. making that model (more)

solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) work is our job. /fin

solidadrocks the irony here is that by pushing the costs of distribution off onto artists, it’s given us the ability to recoup profits directly.

Solidadrocks It’s as if we’re at the stage of building an audience. The expectation is “where’s the money?” but you need to build audience first.

Solidadrocks and fwiw, i have a much bigger audience on the web than i did without it. it’s the first step, but definitely not the last one.

Solidadrocks now, if you already have a large audience, this can seem like a pain. what folks need to consider is how much is getting opened up here.

Solidadrocks a very large, indeterminate number of artists who were heretofore under the radar suddenly have both a broadcast and a distribution model…

solidadrocks …for free. so i’m not exactly sweating copyright, if you get my drift, y’all.

solidadrocks all i know is that the #hustle is my new currency. less of it means more slack = more time to write. sounds good to me

rebeccawalker @solidadrocks more please.

solidadrocks @rebeccawalker will do – just getting started thanks

elliotharmon @solidadrocks It seems like it’s a much older question sans technology – the freedom of DIY vs. the polish of an established press.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks Ultimately, the writers I’m most attracted to sort of straddle that fence.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon like most upheavals in culture, it definitely has a history; as you said, it points back to DIY. free software mvmt, too.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks The connection to open source is interesting, I hadn’t thought about that.

Solidadrocks I mean, consider the impact of this on an intersexed mixed-race lesbian author w/ radical politics. No longer just a whipping post 4 BillO.

Solidadrocks re IS mixed-race etc. author: not that I’m naming names here or anything. seriously, it changes things.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks But most attempts I’ve seen to directly monetize online literature are pretty – dopey?

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon I think that’s because 1) digital distro is still new, and 2) consider who is making the platforms.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks I’d rather to the monetizing in person; i.e., touring.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon see that’s just it. the same thing is happening w/ musicians — you sell in concert, not through brick and mortar.

Solidadrocks It’s like that poet who is supporting the pirate bay — he’s famous, hell, seemingly he would have a lot to lose. but he notes…

solidadrocks…that audience is the first step. the existing models stifle creativity more than nourish it en masse. Winterston talks about this as well

elliotharmon@solidadrocks Yeah, I get you, and the internet has a pretty amazing ability to nurture marginalized communities, no question.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon which in turn, opens the possibility for nurturing for everybody, not just the marginalized.

Solidadrocks re the platforms: i think free CMSes such as joomla and drupal, as well as semi-open platforms such as Ning, are the first step in what…

solidadrocks …is going to be a long process. writers and developers collaborating is a critical step in this process imo.

Elliotharmon @solidadrocks This is really interesting, I’ll try to send you an email, but now I gots to work.

Solidadrocks @elliotharmon coolness, please do.

Solidadrocks none of this is to say that people shouldn’t organize for better contracts – they should! but what if you have “the stuff”, but never get 1?

solidadrocks most of the writing contracts i’ve signed over the years have been shit – either $$ but work for hire, or shitty pay w/ some (or no) control

solidadrocks also, the work for hire contracts were for doing things i absolutely hate, like tech writing. UGH. still, i’m fortunate, rel. speaking.

Funk it with feeling, y’all…it’s the Friday wrap-upFunk it with feeling, y’all…it’s the Friday wrap-upFunk it with feeling, y’all…it’s the Friday wrap-up

KKK gets pwnd by…clowns. Twitter props to @FeminaPotens and numerous others in the blogtwitterosphere.

Havana times: Homophobia is the problem, not gays.

Wired gets it more or less right this time: The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online. They even break down Clay Shirky’s steps for online collaboration and action! Yay. Serious props to “Anarch” in the article’s comments for pointing out that this isn’t the New Socialism, but is the New Anarchism. You said it compañera/o. Boo to the idiot who said that libertarian socialism contains “a high degree of coercion” because every system that has used the term socialist is coercive, and therefore, he can’t be bothered to look up its history, even when numerous examples of said history were contained within the thread. Kronstadt, hello? /ostrich, FAIL Also, see: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/82/tactical_briefing.html

Joss Whedon on Humanism. A lovely meditation on the need for compassion and intellect over ideology.

Really great guest blog by @Jesimone on walking as healing and the complexities of race.

#win of the week: Sotomayor. Stay strong, Boriqua, we’re counting on you.

#fail of the week: CA supreme court prop8 decision. While I’m glad that they respect the rights of CA residents to make their own decisions (no matter how backward), the whole thing smacks of compromise and politicization. Can’t wait for this shit to get overturned at the ballot box; yet another example of how California is nowhere near as liberal as its reputation suggests.

The extended spring of my happy discontentThe extended spring of my happy discontentThe extended spring of my happy discontent

An epiphany in honor of Jeanette Winterson

It was the spring of 2007 when the work began to dry up. I had been working as a freelance copy writer, as well as doing a bit of work grading ESL papers. Money was tight, but manageably so. Then slowly, things turned to a trickle. The workload was cut, wages were slashed in half. It was quickly becoming pointless, so I walked into the future, into a vast, welcoming sea of…

…total brokeitude.

I have been here before, many a time. Consider 1993, when I was four months behind in rent. Thanks to a landlord that was flexible enough that I’m still convinced that she was not quite of this world, I didn’t end up on the street. Things did turn around though, and before I knew it, I was waist-deep in a solid income. Lo and behold, I even had the approval of my parents, who as much as they love me, have never really got the whole artist deal. I was acceptable, almost normal, even.

I was miserable.

So when things tanked again in 2001, I walked away from moderately well-heeled despair to attempt to undo the horrendous mistake of it all, this time with a bit of severance pay to soften the blow. This in turn led to graduate school, as well as more time protesting than probably was in my best interests. As noted above, a smaller but noticeable amount of regular income came back into my life for a bit, but things soured again.

Would it shock you if this state is where I find myself still, two years in, ever-so-slowly finding my own way, eking out something well beneath what most people in the US would consider to be a stable income – and yet, even the worst days are vastly more sane, balanced and in tune with the world then the best days previously were? If you are confused by my sense of priorities here, consider this: the “best days” during my corporate years were the days where I had a glimpse of my former happy existence as a broke artist.

If this still puzzles you, let me refer you to a white paper, it may help a bit. “A liminal existence.” That’s what the white paper from AWP said about the post-graduate life of people like me. “Liminal.” See? It’s official. What was formerly the exclusive domain of visionaries and other mad people (I’ll leave it to you to decide which one I am) is now a demographic. You can rest easy in the certainty that I have my place on the spreadsheet now.

This certainty of course is preposterous. All they can offer up is what not just any post-MFA student knows, but what any serious aspiring artist knows as well – that the path of the artist is treacherous, frequently full of failure, and further, that a sizable number of the so-called successes fail epicly to a degree that only Guy Fawkes could fully appreciate, with trashed hotel rooms, fits of mania or suicidal tendencies, and various forms of train wrecked existence in lieu of gunpowder plots? Please. Apologies all around, but forget the white paper. What saved my rounded bottom somewhere between the work drying up and the work drying up yet again was Jeanette Winterson.

Listen to her for yourself:

A work of art is abundant, spills out, gets drunk, sits up with you all night and forgets to close the curtains, dries your tears, is your friend, offers you a disguise, a difference, a pose. Cut and cut it through and there is still a diamond at the core. Skim the top and it is rich. The inexhaustible energy of art is transfusion for a worn-out world.

And:

The artist imagines the forbidden because to her it is not forbidden. If she is freer than other people it is the freedom of her single allegiance to her work. Most of us have divided loyalties, most of us have sold ourselves. The artist is not divided and she is not for sale. Her clarity of purpose protects her although it is her clarity of purpose that is most likely to irritate most people. We are not happy with obsessives, visionaries, which means, in effect, we are not happy with artists. Why do we flee from feeling? Why do we celebrate those who lower us in the mire of their own making while we hound those who come to us with hands full of difficult beauty…what would happen to us if we could imagine in ourselves authentic desire?

These quotes are from a magnificent work of hers called Art Objects, and while it would be a stretch to say that it saved my life, it did save me from a very hazardous toying with a return to the death that is corporate america when the ramen ran out yet again, and the cheap rent started to look insanely expensive.

“Objects to what?”, you may ask.

Being constrained, moulded, packaged, lectured, cajoled. Put into a box for safekeeping. Shrink-wrapped. Lied to, sat upon, mistrusted, misunderstood, ignored. (The former activist in me has to find humor in how closely this resembles Proudhon’s admonishment of government – which is no accident or mere coincidence at all.) In which manner does it do so – the protest, the direct action, the takeover? No. It does so through art itself – not the “I’d like something in green to match the sofa” sort of art – which is more a form of interior decorating – but the kind that takes hold of you and refuses to let go. A tempest that devours the teapot and leaves you bare and Awake. It’s what I live for, and while I would never be so rude as to say that it’s what you should do as well, if you do find yourself in fits of despair, you may want to look at where the creativity in your life resides. If the answer to this is “under a rock,” it may be time to get into the mud a bit.

It should be noted though that none of this is meant to romanticize poverty. The rather dismal state of affairs for artists (and increasingly, for everybody who needs to work for a living) has led to a truncation of the inherent need for creativity in people’s lives by war and economic uncertainty. As Winterson points out, “Ours has not been an easy century for art…Two World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, the General Strike of 1926 and the Depression of the 1930s cut short those experiments in language and in thought that human beings perpetually make and perpetually need.” What she specifically is referring to here is Modernism, but this could be applied to present day realities as well. How much has remained unsaid because of famine, disease and the cultural wars against drug users (actual or suspected), against queers, against pretty much anybody who disobeys? Quite a bit – but consider how power always has two sides; while I think that hip-hop would have emerged with or without the drug wars, consider also how the necessary resistance to power on the part of those who were oppressed led to some of the best works of Hip Hop’s first generation. As Hardt and Negri note repeatedly throughout their work, the price that Empire pays for utilizing biopower may be Empire itself. Do be aware though that for those of you who think that “The Work” is fine and all, but that it’s not social change work, and that it’s not even close to being revolutionary? Please do not project onto artists your own failed attempts at fomenting an uprising because we have the ability to charter the chaotic with greater finesse than you. It makes you mundane, and the last thing the world needs is yet another sorry pack of trifling, artless insurrectionists.

Meanwhile, while we all wait and wonder if capitalism is finally done for good, let it be known that what saved me was not the trade organization, not work (definitely not work), and dear god, don’t even get me started about activism. No, it was art, as in The Work. And my Work objects. Frequently and loudly – but more and more as I recover from activism, from the streets, from that anything-but-liminal form of soul death that I used to call a life? Subtly as well. Art resists – but with a sense of style.

It’s the Friday wrap up, y’allIt’s the Friday wrap up, y’allIt’s the Friday wrap up, y’all

Courtesy of Rebecca Walker, The Great Illmatic‘s amazing YouTube blog on post-racism, Asher Roth and the racial crossroads.

The funny as hell Stimulator is on a west coast tour – the show is called “Hopium: Confronting Fascism in the Obama era”, and promises to be both lively and informative.

Happy birthday to Malcolm X and Harvey Milk! You both are missed, and frequently in my thoughts. <3

Gaurav Mishra on why he writes about social media.

Noam Chomsky on torture memos and Obama.

Lastly, a wink and a nod to @mmrohrer over on Twitter for noting that yes indeed Virginia, there are sex toys in the bible.

That’s about it! Until next week, be well, stay safe and as always, stay in trouble. ^_^

Hello, activism? I need my life back.Hello, activism? I need my life back.Hello, activism? I need my life back.

I ran into a friend of mine from grad school a while back, and as part of getting caught up, I mentioned that the people I was spending time with were holding up the works – I was starting to flounder a bit in terms of my creative process and life direction, and as a result, I was ready to pack up and move to LA or NYC. After pointing out the obvious fact that it’s far easier to change who you hang with than where you live, she asked who these meddlesome folks were.

I replied sheepishly, “Um, activists…”

Her jaw dropped. “Oh, honey…”

Needless to say, activism is not her game; she’s more into a combination of art and deal-making – but it definitely was mine. I got my head or other body parts banged around a few times, got arrested a few times more than that, sat through an endless procession of meetings, and pretty much was living the life on-again, off-again just prior to the first US-Iraq war, and all but full-time since 1999. I had paid my dues, and thoroughly was in the mix — between organizing and living collectively, my day-to-day life looked like a cross between The Real World and Battle in Seattle. I loved it tremendously – after a long period of vacillation between counter-culture and corporate “culture,” it was very refreshing to be true to myself and to my politics.

Then? I walked.

It wasn’t for lack of trying to make things work; if anything, I was stubbornly trying to hold it all together, as if activism was some sort of dysfunctional-but-the-sex-is-great relationship that was starting to spin out of control. The minor disagreements that had occurred over the years started turning into pitched confrontations with increasing regularity, and conversations were taking that “Sweetie, perhaps you should not mix Vicodin and Hennessy” tone in both directions. When I got booted out of yet another collective house, I packed it up and moved to LA…

…where I found myself in the middle of the May Day cop riots. I managed to not get my head beat in, but just barely. That sort of ended it for me right there, not so much because of the risk involved, but because I was putting it all on the line – and I do mean it all, people do die or end up with permanent injuries on occasion – for what, exactly? It felt like I was increasingly running counter to my life’s purpose; while I managed to make time for both art and activism, I was doing so at the expense of everything else, and was stressed to the eyeballs as well. So I stopped for good.

After I had packed up yet again and moved back to the Bay Area, humbled yet strong, I went about rebuilding my life without activism as a central fixture. I stopped going to protests, and gave up on meetings. I even managed to shrug off the resulting I’m-abandoning-the-movement feelings of guilt – which may seem uncalled for, until you realize that I had been involved in campaigns and organizing since the 4th grade – and set to work on finishing up a poetry manuscript, followed by designing social community sites. I also vowed to live with fewer people, even though that meant risking higher rent, which thankfully didn’t turn out to be the case. Life started to feel like something that was uniquely mine, rather than time-shared with an ever-changing cast of characters, all with hard-won opinions about everything. I was less stressed, and definitely a lot more happy. I was becoming human again.

So what’s the lesson here? Peoples, listen. The world needs more activists, and badly does it need them. But what the left seems to miss out on with a frightening level of consistency is that activism takes many forms, including things that don’t typically get labeled as activism at all – and socially-minded arts and media creation are two of those things. (Spirituality, relationships and in some circles, community building/organizing frequently get placed this way as well, which pretty much leaves activism as the primary option for social change agents, in terms of collective power. See how this works?) Never mind that activists are frequently active consumers of socially conscious media – but in my experience, activists in the US are as guilty as anybody else when it comes to entertaining the mistaken notion that music, writing, poetry, art, performance, social media and so on just create themselves out of thin air while also being tremendously important, which paradoxically enforces the supposition that creators of art and media are completely on the wrong foot and of critical importance at the same time. It’s a losing battle, and one that I got tired of fighting. I’d rather be creating it than debating it – so that is what I’m doing. End of story.

And yet…I still feel conflicted about it all. It’s as if I’m wanting approval from a tribe that I’m still a part of, but that I have a fundamentally different relationship with, post-capital ‘A’ activism. The problem with this line of somewhat irrational thinking on my part is that it tends to cloud the void-like well that creativity springs out of; in other words, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I do what I always do when pernicious doubt tries to sneak into the equation and suck my creativity dry: I ignore it, but make sure to throw it a bone on occasion (chocolate works, but long meandering walks work better) and tell it to pipe down when I need to. I also make sure to give it the love that it desperately wants, while not being ruled by it.

So let this serve as a warning to y’all, as the economy continues to spin and reel, and we all continue to look for answers – the solution that you find may just be the one that most closely mirrors your true desires, and not what your superego-like conscience tells you to do. Don’t listen to anybody who tells you otherwise! Trust yourself, trust your instincts, and together, we artists, activists, visionaries and so can start to build a sustainable future together, free of being ruled by guilt and shame.

Is this a technology blog or a political blog? Yes.

Back in early 2006, I had recently graduated with a MFA in Writing, and my life was on fire. My dad had died, I was increasingly at odds with my political community, and in a sign of things to come writ large, all my editing work was drying up. With the exception of a few crazed years during the 90s, I had careened between the lower rungs of the middle class and the upper rungs of poverty for quite some time, but this was looking downright scary in its proportions. I was crazed with grief, and struggling to hold my life together at a time when everything seemed to be coming apart.

Nevertheless, I managed to keep going -– keep writing, keep performing, always, always making music -– and then? I fell back into the technological soup in a way that even moi could not have foreseen.

Understand: After several years of juggling the tech industry, social justice politics and writing, I got laid off three weeks after 9/11. Still reeling from both that and a canceled east coast spoken word tour, I counted my blessings that at least I got a chunk of change from the process and went on tour elsewhere. As a result, while the whole social networking thing was taking shape, I was more concerned with getting from Chicago to Kalamazoo than musing over the benefits of fiber optics over DSL. As the corny joke goes, I was much too busy having a first life to worry about a second one.

In the two years and change that followed, I had gone through more stillborn “movements” than I could count, learned and relearned a whole slew of webtech, and last but not least, gave the aforementioned political community the heave-ho. After all that struggle, I was reborn…as an open source software/content nerd? It works for me, and in my own still-in-recovery way, I’m happy as well.

So, that’s the online story. Here’s the personal is political one: webgeek, author, musician, performer, sometimes video artist; feminist, queer, intersexed, black-and-brown-centric, all with a thick dose of open source advocacy. I also design and administer the new open source publishing platform Sharebook, which should be public any day now. (If you want to beta test, I’m still looking for help with the final touches, so drop me a note.)

Lastly, a few words about what to expect out of this blog. I’m envisioning this as a wedding of the more social/political aspects of online life with a varied range of issues and struggles on the real life tip, with a lot of commenting on events as they unfold. Sort of like Angela Davis meets Gonzo journalism, with a good dose of Huffpo for the measure, as well as a fair amount of Twitter integration. It’ll all reflect my overarching politics, but always with room for dialogue and discussion. Can’t get change without mutual support, amirite?

So that’s about it! Lucha sigue, peoples. See you soon.

All my best,

solidad