After Corbu

Detroit’s beautiful/desolate architecture makes me want to buy an old Kahn building and turn it into an urban commune. In honor of the coming Detroit resurrection, Sufjan Stevens playing Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWen_lkrM1k

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Urban-ism has a nice roundup of some standouts from culture jamming genre, the best of which are the Homeless street signs in Toronto by Mark Daye, a graphic design student.  My favorite sign is at right.
Culture jamming actually being practiced in the world (as distinct from that practiced in glossy mags) makes me extremely […]

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Vani at Shape of Now makes a convincing argument for rehabilitation of existing structures rather than constant new construction, an excerpt:
Modern construction methods are incredibly wasteful of resources. Up to 25 percent of the total waste generated in the United States, India, and other countries is directly attributed to building, construction, and demolition activities. These […]

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is what I originally wanted to call this blog, as I’m a fan of Lucien Kroll, who used the term to describe his work.

Shown above is La Meme, a medical student dormitory in Brussels that is pretty amazing.

Internal partitions are movable so that spaces can be rearranged to match residents’ taste and allow for large […]

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I’m turning out all my lights for an hour as part of a Lights Out LA energy conservation project.  This is a big sacrifice for me, because I’m afraid of the dark.  And I don’t really believe in individual action to fix structural social ills.  But I’m feeling generous tonight (and I need to balance […]

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No, it’s not a new catholic rock band. Father Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, whose mission is to:
…to assist at-risk and former gang involved youth to become contributing members of our community through a variety of services in response to their multiple needs. Free programs — including counseling, education, tattoo removal, […]

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Ezra Klein on Code Pink’s protest of a military recruiting station:
Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin says “We feel that it’s our obligation because of this war to shut down the recruiting station.” That’s silly. When you focus your protesting on the military, you distract from the argument over the war. It’s a staggeringly bad idea.
True (the […]

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There’s an easy solution to the controversy over evangelical churches hosting Halo Nights:
Left Behind: Eternal Forces
Teens can get their kill on in a Christian way. Everyone wins except Satan! Unless you play as the Satanic forces. Slight bug there…
More Seriously, Zeitlin’s actual point in the above-linked commentary was that there is a […]

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There have been posters for “The Gamekillers” around my neighborhood for a long time (years?), but I’ve never known what it was about.  Apparently, it’s a strange deodorant-sponsored show, part of the continuing Axe campaign to ensure I realize that chemicals = girlz.
Which reminds me of my favorite page of Days of War, Nights of […]

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I hadn’t seen this video of an irritating questioner being tasered/arrested/abused at Kerry’s U of Florida speech, but it reminds me of nothing so much as the lengthy death scene in the first Austin Powers movie. Also: who gave this guy enough activist training to know to be loud and pained under arrest but […]

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From Metroblogging LA,  the directions to the free “Aversion Therapy” 3-wall screening of 300 at Betalevel, starting in 6 hours:

Find yourself in front of “FULL HOUSE RESTAURANT” located at 963 N. Hill Street in Chinatown, Los Angeles
Locate the narrow alley on the left hand side of Full House.
Walk about 20 feet down the alley (away […]

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is my newest blog find, discovered amidst the mixed bag that is the resistance tag at Technorati.  First, it too links to the ParEcon page.  Second, here’s an excerpt from its about page:
A voice crying in the postmodern wilderness amidst the cacophony of bells, buzzers, whistles, flashing lights, flash videos, animated images, billboards, pop-up ads, […]

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LA Times does a profile of Freegans living in…New York! Similar to the NY Times longer, better article from back in June. Now I’m a fierce defender of LA against the New York evangelists, but the LA paper makes it hard when they get scooped by 3 months. Plus, I know LA […]

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I looked down at the calendar to check the date and, lo and behold, it’s September 11th, the 34th anniversary of the US-backed coup that toppled President Salvador Allende and brought Pinochet to power in Chile. That act of terrorism resulted in thousands of deaths and made political prisoners of thousands more.
Of course, 6 […]

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These beliefs are probably why I don’t have very many anarchist friends. Collaborating with liberals to bring about an incrementalist “revolution” is hardly an orthodox approach among the libertarian socialist set. Voting and holding down a bourgeois job in a skyscraper is just plain heretical. I’ve mostly made peace with my “radical […]

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Mike Meginnis cracks me up:
…my preference would be the version that doesn’t require murdering the ruling class and anyone else who gets in our way. At least we could fail humanely.
My alternative would be capitalism with limits — allow people to seek profits, but under serious guidelines and with tremendous, progressive taxation.  A hybrid of […]

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