Sunday 19 August 2012

The Riot Grrl Manifesto

BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own moanings.

BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.

BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.

BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can't play our instruments, in the face of "authorities" who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and

BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary "reverse sexists" AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.

BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.

BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards.

BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.

"The Riot Grrrl Movement began in the early 1990s by Washington State band Bikini Kill and lead singer Kathleen Hanna. The riot grrrl manifesto was published 1991 in the BIKINI KILL ZINE 2"
Via

Manic Pixie Dream Dissidents

Imagine this: The three men sit in court, awaiting their verdict. The youngest, a experienced dissident described by the media as a “sultry sex symbol” with “Angelina Jolie lips”, glances at his colleague, an activist praised by the Associated Press for his “pre-Raphaelite looks”.  Between them sits a third man, whose lack of glamour has led the New Republic to label him “the brain” and deem his hair a “poof of dirty blonde frizz”. The dissidents – or “boys” as they are called in headlines around the world – have been the subject of numerous fashion and style profiles ever since they first spoke out against the Russian government. “He’s a flash of moving color,” the New York Times writes approvingly about their protests, “never an individual boy.”
If this sounds ridiculous, it should – and not only because I changed the gender. These are actual excerpts from the Western media coverage of Pussy Riot, the Russian dissident performance art collective sentenced to two years in prison for protesting against the government. Pussy Riot identifies as feminist, but you would never know it from the Western media, who celebrate the group with the same language that the Russian regime uses to marginalize them. The three members of Pussy Riot are “girls”, despite the fact that all of them are in their twenties and two of them are mothers. They are “punkettes”, diminutive variations on a 1990s indie-rock prototype that has little resemblance to Pussy Riot’s own trajectory as independent artists and activists. “Why is Vladimir Putin afraid of three little girls?” asked Huffington Post columnist Ron Galloway, intending it as a compliment...
MORE
(Thanx Josh!)

Viona, Pussy Riot, and the Russian Winter

Pussy Riot trial gives Russia 'the image of a medieval dictatorship'

Steve Reich - Drumming





The Cole Conservatory New Music Ensemble (Directed by Dr. Dave Gerhart)

Inside Scientology's Rehab Racket

Josh Bryan: Einstein

(Click to enlarge)
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Bombin' (1987 Documentary About British Graffiti and Hip-Hop Culture)


First broadcast in 1987 on the UK's Channel 4, Bombin' was directed by documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine and was a sequel to his earlier 1984 documentary "Beat This!", once again taking a look at how American hip-hop culture was making its way over the pond to the UK, this time using the lens of the graffiti and tagging subcultures.
The documentary offers a fascinating look at 1980's UK hip-hop and graffiti culture and specifically for Massive Attack fans, 3D during one segment is also featured tagging alongside future Drum n' Bass/Jungle musician Goldie in Birmingham. The two had already at this point setup the Trans-Atlantic Federation, a collective of UK/US based graffiti artists.
Perhaps the most interesting element of the Bombin' documentary, is when we see some of the British establishment's dismissal and even disdain to the tagging ethos and how that further alludes to the social implications of ethnicity and poverty, and their relationship with the hip-hop culture before it became widely accepted.
NB: sound improves after a couple of minutes
(Thanx DevHool!)

HA!

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Water Light Graffiti

The "Water Light Graffiti" is a surface made of thousands of LED illuminated by the contact of water. You can use a paintbrush, a water atomizer, your fingers or anything damp to sketch a brightness message or just to draw. Water Light Graffiti is a wall for ephemeral messages in the urban space without deterioration. A wall to communicate and share magically in the city.
More pictures and details on Digitalarti : bit.ly/O2v7aw
Water Light Graffiti is a project of Antonin Fourneau (atocorp.free.fr/)
Engineer : Jordan McRae
Via

Gay parades banned in Moscow for 100 years

Moscow's top court has upheld a ban on gay pride marches in the Russian capital for the next 100 years.
Earlier Russia's best-known gay rights campaigner, Nikolay Alexeyev, had gone to court hoping to overturn the city council's ban on gay parades.
He had asked for the right to stage such parades for the next 100 years.
He also opposes St Petersburg's ban on spreading "homosexual propaganda". The European Court of Human Rights has told Russia to pay him damages.
On Friday he said he would go back to the European Court in Strasbourg to push for a recognition that Moscow's ban on gay pride marches - past, present and future - was unjust.
The Moscow city government argues that the gay parade would risk causing public disorder and that most Muscovites do not support such an event.
In September, the Council of Europe - the main human rights watchdog in Europe - will examine Russia's response to a previous European Court ruling on the gay rights issue, Russian media report.
In October 2010 the court said Russia had discriminated against Mr Alexeyev on grounds of sexual orientation. It had considered Moscow's ban on gay parades covering the period 2006-2008.
@'BBC'
Image: Blue Noses Collective - Kissing Policemen (an Epoch of Clemency)
Mark David Chapman Up For Parole Again

The evolution of NYC’s skyline (1876-2013)

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♪♫ The Yardbirds - Heart Full Of Soul (Shindig 1965)


What's gone wrong at The Guardian?

The dishonesty deepens: Guardian demotes Joshua Treviño but hopes we won't notice

Hitch

Via

Houria Aïchi - Festival Les Suds in Arles 13.08.2012

Saturday 18 August 2012

Berlin

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There should be no immunity for Julian Assange from these allegations

Don't believe in climate change?

Putin Lit Fires


State more time in prison
more arrests - more happiness
And every arrest - with a love of sexist swaying cheeks, as the chest and abdomen , but we can not be resealed in the box security officers overthrew a better and more often ignites fires Putin revolutions him terribly boring and the people in the silence Whatever punishment he had - that rotten ash, With no time in many years - is a subject for wet dreams...

There's no democracy – Putin is the Tsar of Russia now

An Unexpected Ass Kicking

Alexander Kosolapov

This Is My Body (2002)
This Is My Blood (2002)
In the works This is my body and This is my blood by the SozArt artist Alexander Kosolapov, the standardised representation of Christ becomes a brand and the Eucharist an advertising message by Coca-Cola and McDonalds. One of the fundamental questions in capitalism relates to what unites consumers – Kosolapov's works gives one answer to it: religion. Both works are an ironic commentary on consumer culture, where products become fetishes and advertising becomes the Bible. Kosolapov combines Christian elements with the graphic language of commercial advertising and in this way draws attention to the parallels between the communication of religion and advertising strategies.
Via

Witness to Pussy Riot's activist beginnings

Me Want!

These are the teeth of a Crabeater Seal. The holes in the teeth are to allow water to drain out of their mouths when they suck in krill.
Photograph courtesy of The Academy of Natural Sciences
Via

Thelonious Monk - Straight No Chaser


Bonus:


Herbie Hancock's Headhunters - Live 1974


Putin VS Punk

You are the president of a large country with a growing economy, intent on keeping your name up there in the lights. You pride yourself on your popularity, your sense of history, and the fact that you personify the destiny of your country (or so you keep telling yourself). A criminal court sentences three young women, two of them mothers, to two years in prison for staging a 40-second punk feminist stunt inside your country's official church and the world's social network sites go mad. Two years of gulag for Vladimir Putin's enemies, they scream. Demonstrations erupt on the streets outside your embassies. Ageing celebs queue patiently to condemn you. There is even someone offering knitting patterns for Pussy Riot's balaclavas. The punk feminist band becomes a global brand before it even releases its first album and you a pariah so sullen that not even botox conceals your scowls. Mr Putin did not so much shoot himself in the foot on Friday, as fire a Kalashnikov into his size 8s.
Pussy Riot must have offended many Russian Orthodox believers by screaming lyrics such as "Shit, shit, the Lord's shit" behind the iconotasis of the Church of Christ the Saviour. An opinion poll released by the independent Levada research group found that only 6% of Russians polled sympathised with the women and 51% felt either indifference, irritation or hostility. Similar umbrage would have been taken inside St Paul's or the Vatican. And those who doubt that may well wonder what tension would have been caused by a flash-mob invading a mosque at Friday prayers.
How many museums around the world would have looked the other way as a number of couples – including a heavily pregnant Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the three convicted on Friday – were filmed having sex to illustrate how Muscovites were being screwed by their government? The British Museum? The Louvre? The Metropolitan? The wish to punish anarchists is not Russian alone.
But the wish to crush political dissent, in this way and at this time, is Mr Putin's alone. Pussy Riot had two points to make, both of them valid: that the Orthodox Church provides intellectual and religious cover for Mr Putin's increasingly messianic political brand; and that this man is driving Russia straight up a cul de sac. The agent of stability is becoming the obstacle to change. The omens are not good. Mr Putin has no policies to offer a generation that has been politically awakened. He is not ready for dialogue with any part of country, and he is all about reinforcing central control. He has lost his grip on his popular image so he is forced back on an essentially conservative base. The result is that in his third term as president, Mr Putin has a real problem re-establishing himself as a leader for Russia as a whole.
The Pussy Riot trial will not be the last. Criminal prosecutions will become the weapon of choice against political activists like the anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny, journalists who face stiffer penalties for libel, websites, or foreign-funded NGOs. Of course the world reaction is selective and partial. Would that Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer whose corruption investigation led to his death in prison, have produced the same reaction as the Pussy Riot verdict. That does not change the verdict that all Mr Putin has to offer the next demonstration, called for September, is a bigger stick.
It need not be this way. Mr Putin still has time to climb out of the hole he has dug himself into. He could call early parliamentary elections, because it was the rigged Duma elections last year that triggered the current crisis. He could let a popularly elected prime minister run the country. He could retreat from the political frontline, and still fashion a role for himself as father of the nation. To continue as he is doing, as the only and increasingly unsteady hand on Russia's tiller, spells disaster.
@'The Guardian'

Putin Pissed Himself

A mutinous column marches on the Kremlin
Blowing up windows of FSB offices
Bitches piss on the Kremlin walls
Announcing a riot, Abort the System!
Act at dawn? Don’t start to question
For our and your freedom we’ll whip them to submission
The glorious Madonna will teach us to fight
The feminist Magdalena stood up for democracy
Revolt in Russia! Charisma of protest!
Revolt in Russia! Putin pissed himself!
Revolt in Russia! We exist!
Revolt in Russia! Riot! Riot!
Walk out on the street!
Live on Red Square!
Demonstrate freedom
With citizen rage!
Dissatisified with a culture of masculine hysteria
An uncontrolled autocracy devours our brains
The Orthodox religion is a hardened penis
Coercing its patients to accept conformity
Soon the regime will censor our dreams
The time has come for the battle to explode
A band of bitches of a sexist regime
Asks for forgiveness, armed with a feminist spike
Revolt in Russia! Charisma of protest!
Revolt in Russia! Putin pissed himself!
Revolt in Russia! We exist!
Revolt in Russia! Riot! Riot!
Go out on the street!
Live on Red Sqaure!
Demonstrate freedom
With citizen rage!

Translation
Image
(Thanx HerrB!)

Pussia

Via

Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes (BBC Arena)


Broadcast BBC Four, 17 Feb 2012
2011 was the 82nd year in the extraordinary life of arguably the greatest saxophone player in the world, Sonny Rollins. Four decades ago, as a young filmmaker and aspiring musician, Dick Fontaine followed Rollins up onto the Williamsburg Bridge in Manhattan during one of his legendary escapes from the perils of 'the jazz life'. Today, still resisting stereotype and compromise, and revered by a new generation of young musicians, Rollins continues his single-minded search for meaning in his music and his life. Dick Fontaine's film is built around the explosive energy of Sonny's 80th Birthday Concert, where legendary figures Roy Haynes, Jim Hall and Ornette Coleman join him to celebrate his journey so far, his music and its future for a new generation.
Dick Fontaine's film, made for the BBC's prestigious art series Arena, is built around the
explosive energy of Sonny's 80th Birthday Concert, where legendary figures Roy Haynes, Jim Hall and Ornette Coleman join him to celebrate his journey so far, his music and its future for a new generation.

Sonny Rollins / Jack DeJohnette / David Murray - Jazz Jamboree Live (1983)

Sonny Rollins:
SONNY ROLLINS - tenor sax
MARC SOSKIN - piano
JEROME HARRIS - bass
AL FOSTER - drums

Jack DeJohnette Special Edition:
JACK DeJOHNETTE - drums
RUFUS REID - bass
MARTY EHRLICH - bass clarinet
JOHN PURCELL - alto sax
HOWARD JOHNSON - tuba, baritone sax

David Murray Octet:
DAVIDA MURRAY - tenor sax
JULIUS HEMPHILL - alto sax
ROY CAMPBELL - trumpet, flugelhorn
BAKIDA CARROLL - trumpet
CRAIG HARRIS - trombone
CURTIS CLARKE - piano
WILBUR MORRIS - bass
BILLY HIGGINS - drums

Greece: 25 trans women detained during large-scale police crackdown

Via press release from the Greek Transgender Support Association:

Composite image of transgender symbol and Greek flag from images found at Wikipedia. Both original images are public domain and so is this one. If using elsewhere, please ensure correct attribution.Subject: Police detention of Transgender Individuals during 'Xenios Zeus' Operations

The Greek Transgender Support Association, a recognized NGO for the support of the rights of the trans community in Greece, is hereby strongly condemning the massive police detention of twenty five (25) trans women on Thursday, August 9th, during the crackdown police operation "Xenios Zeus".

Specifically, on the night of Thursday, August 9th, during a massive police crackdown, 25 trans individuals were taken and detained at the division of Central Police Station of Athens. They were not given sufficient explanation why they were being taken. They were forced to undergo an HIV test, administered by a Center for Disease Control (C.D.C.) doctor, were subsequently found to be HIV-negative and released afterwards.

We, the Greek Transgender Support Association, express our deepest concern, and outright condemnation of the C.D.C.-assisted police crackdown operations. Especially since they target, among others, one of the more vulnerable minorities, namely trans individuals, who are deprived of basic human rights such as the right to work, be insured and access the health services, owing to the Greek State's refusal to protect trans rights.

We also deem the forced and obligatory tests by the C.D.C. to be in breach of basic human rights. This is because the way the tests are performed, coupled with the complete lack of deontology and the specific conditions under which they take place, are not those of a European country nor of a just State.

At the same time, we question the recent ruling of the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (HDPA), according to which the HDPA calls itself unauthorised to judge the recent and obvious violation by the state of personal data, in the case of the publicization of the identities of hiv-positive people. The HDPA invoked the Spearation of Powers, but at the same time countradicts itself by proposing amendations to the legislature.

We, the Greek Transgender Support Association, express our solidarity towards the hiv-positive individuals who are being prosecuted, and condemns the police crackdown operations, as well as the involvement of the CDC, for endangering and creating abject conditions for the trans community. Furthermore, we express our complete opposition of all police operations that violate human rights based on nationality, race, gender, religious or other beliefs, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We demand that greek legislation protects gender identity by aligning with the Ruling 2008/913/ΔEY regarding the fight against all kinds of discrimination and racism.

We are in active cooperation with grassroots and NGO organizations inside Greece, as well as European organizations for the rights of the trans community. We will defend, in every legal way, the dignity and human rights of trans people.

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Greek Transgender Support Association
Athens
17 August, 2012

From news reports, it seems that this was part of a large-scale operation during which some 6,000 people were detained.

Officers stopped mostly African and Asian people in the street for identification checks. Most were only briefly detained, but about 1,600 were arrested for illegal entry and sent to holding centres pending deportation. [Source]

It should be remembered that this comes at a time when the Greek economy is facing its most severe crisis since 1974, and the consequent austerity package demanded by the EU and the IMF has resulted in rioting and social unrest. Against this backdrop, there has been a worrying rise in popularity of the Golden Dawn, a right-wing extremist political organisation. In this light, it is perhaps no surprise - although still by no means acceptable - that there should be a backlash which combines racism, transphobia and sexism on such a large scale. I was going to close with a smartass remark about the fate of a country which, for over 2,400 years, has taken pride in claiming it invented democracy, but my irony meter broke.

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Image made by Helen from images found at Wikipedia (here and here). Both original images are public domain and so is this one. If using elsewhere, please ensure correct attribution.

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[Cross-posted from The F-Word]

A Russian hooligan speaks...

"No normal Russian would support these cunts. The only ones for Pussy Riot are emigrants, fags and kikes." - Eduard Bagirov (Pro Kremlin blogger)

Smoking #124


How WikiLeaks Blew It

♪♫ Pussy Riot - Putin Lights Up The Fires (New Single)

Фуцк ёу Путин


Friday 17 August 2012

The Cure - Vieilles Charrues 20.07.2012


1. Push
 2. Inbetween Days
 3. Just Like Heaven
 4. From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
 5. The Hungry Ghost
 6. Wrong Number

31 minutes
Today we are ALL hooligans

Billy Bragg says:

Via
(Thanx Joe!)

Pussy Riot found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred

The Pussy Riot punk group singers, who have been found guilty by the Khamovnichesky Court in Moscow, were motivated by hatred and religious enmity, the court verdict says.

"The Pussy Riot singers colluded under unestablished circumstances, for the purpose of offensively violating public peace in a sign of flagrant disrespect for citizens," the court said in a verdict being pronounced on Friday.

The women were motivated by religious enmity and hatred, and acted provocatively and in an insulting manner inside a religious building in the presence of a large number of believers," the court said.

The court also has found that the Pussy Riot activists realized that their actions during the "punk prayer" in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior were insulting and intended to communicate information on the stunt to a broad range of believers.

"Intending to make the planned actions public and ensure that they drew public response, to draw the attention of the public to their illegal actions, and to communicate the expressed disrespect not only to the clergy and people in the church, but also to other citizens who were not present in the church at the time [of the punk prayer], but shared Orthodox traditions, Samutsevich, Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina, and their unidentified accomplice informed various media assistants and active bloggers on their action," the sentence read in the Khamovnichesky Court on Friday says.
Via
Image
Livestream