A break from painting–working on two pieces, 379 and 380. The last of the broken plywood–these are 6 feet high or more. I have to stand on a milk crate to work on the top, even when one is on the floor, and the other, on the lowest rung of my easel.
Being poor is a material factor in choosing my color schemes. When I have paint left on my pallet from one, I use it on the other rather than let it go to waste. I have several pieces like that–as variations on a color scheme.
Weather Max and Min temps
10/16 – 66-50
10/17 – 57-45
10/18 – 53-38
10/19 – 55-35
10/20 – 71-47
Saturday
10/22/11
Day 17
If someone told me there was a full moon tonight I swear I’d start to take the folklore seriously.
…brought a proposal to the facilitation meeting—CoCo seems not to have met. With inexperienced facilitators, he virtually hi-jacked the GA—or tried to. A very frustrating, exhausting evening.
Already convinced, now doubly so, that we have to reconvene the noon GA—and get Tent City involved to bring us together.
Tomorrow morning—write for Tent City… newsletter—appeal to join working groups & help with the GA [which does nothing but generate petitions anymore].
Email concerns to Fac. list.
10/23/11
Day 18
Wrote piece for Camp newsletter.
12/24/11
Sunday
Day 19
First thing in the morning—begin day with email, gather info—correspondence—one to three hours. Did laundry. Red: Marx. Geo Oppen—wrote a poem. Back at City Hall at 4:00. Take the pulse. Talk. Listen. Gwen of Labor worried about losing Union Support if we oppose the construction. She goes to CoCo & takes the whole hour. No time to pee or get supper. Fac. super-efficient—15 minutes & we’re set for the GA. Time to pee—put no food left. GA went well. Discussed the arrests. Discussed the letter—a damn fine piece of writing & done by a committee—Droopy eyed young man grabs the Mic (the loud speaker Mic) goes on and on –after a woman hi-hacked it before him—when everyone else was doing People’s Mic. gonna propose for discussion—specially when not a big crowd—we turn off the Mic—NO mic, if someone has trouble with the rhythm of the People’s Mic—a facilitator goes out to help. Can’t let lone-rangers commandeer the mic for their personal agenda. Gives one person all the power.
Tuesday
10/25/11
Day 20
Down to my last $3.00—till next week. Another poem. Didn’t get off the computer till noon—not even time for breakfast–& lotta stuff I didn’t have time to read. Need to get up earlier.
Another poem. Came here (City Hall) at 2:30. About 20 after four now—crisp fall day, clear sky. Sitting at the Fac station. Rest for 30 minutes—go to Suburban Station restroom—Coco/Fac/… then GA.
Yes, we have made them… the glass towers, the stone monuments to every principle we have ever betrayed a billion messages rising invisibly… what we choose to ignore has chosen us the glass towers, the billions— how they in turn have made – are making us their shadows growing new powers the planet turning on its seasons reaching hand to outstretched hand raising one another from our knees taking up again the burden the terrible lightness of freedom
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
Time to go into sleep mode. Whadeye do today to justify my existence?
I worked at making art.
I did drawing exercises… anatomy–working on the arm. I finished #178, made progress on another in that sort-of-figure series (like 176, 177)–on the tall pieces of plywood.
I try not to think past doing. Like.. what is going to happen to all these pieces? Where am I going to put them? I played out a fantasy as I walked to the wine store… getting a commercial gallery to give my stuff a show, and they make a bunch of money… and the gallery peeps tell me when i show them new pieces that seem to have no relation to what was selling–that I have to make more like the one’s in the show… it always ends on that kind of note. Different downer, but always, that going that route would be wrong, wrong, wrong. Why I refuse to sell
Fuck Capitalism!
..and not think past but I have this deep down thing about growing in what I’m doing. And I’m encouraged in the sense that, yeah… I am getting better.
But what does better mean? What does it matter? That’s what channels my dreams. If I could only admit that it doesn’t matter–but then… in saying that about my work, am I saying that ART doesn’t matter? So am I an artist? Is the stuff I’m making, ‘art?” If it is–if that’s what I’m doing–how can I say, it doesn’t matter? But then… the stuff I make, piles up, gathers cement dust in the basement. But then… the Universe doesn’t give a shit about us. And soon, the Sun will go Red Giant and consume all the inner planets. All it comes down to in the end.
Interesting… a top down view needs access to a “leader,” that is, someone assumed, through organizational position, perceived popular acclamation.. or just magic (appearance in Top media venues), to have access to and therefore, to represent, the amorphous otherwise undifferentiated mass “down there” (I like the sexual play on this–that makes the unknowable Mass ‘feminine’ ) It’s only through the mediation of such a ‘leader’ that Top Down observers can know or understand that mass blob. He (less often, she) becomes the personification of what they are believed to represent… or .. um, “lead.”
Where power enters in–the leader, then, becomes the means of manipulating, using and controlling that mass. No wonder the upper echelons in the Chain of Being become so befuddled by things like Occupy… or the current not quite yet, because still leaderless) intifada–or Black Lives Matter!
In dealing with hierarchal organizations, this would seem to be weak point–a “lack” that can be occupied and developed–an inside-outside position, like a space between the walls, to attack and pervert striated power structures.
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
Wednesday Day 14
10/19/11
Weather: temp max 66, min. 60.
rain – .93 inches
11:02 Slept late kicking last of cold. Dreams of eviction—Occupation from… where Where Job Chillaway Pottery used to be. ½ hour responding to Occupy email. Shower & breakfast.
Rain.
Need to check weather. Wrote in time of International meeting on remaining 35 or so fliers to pass out at GA tonight, and tomorrow afternoon.
Can I get in 15 minutes reading time before I go?
—
I did.
It’s a start
GA in Friend’s Center –rain. (This is the Friend’s Meeting House, but photo looks like it was take at the Dec. 10, Occupy Together Meeting. Very hard to match the photos with particular days or actions–I do it when I can.)
Deputy Mayor Negin [asshole of the first order] dropped by the Media tent & caused a bit of a stir. City not happy that it’s taking so long to set up communications. [this is classic colonizing strategy: it’s what the US did in dealing with First Nation peoples, bribing, cajoling, intimidating, forcing them to create internal judicial and governing structures that resembled the colonizers if they were to deal with them at all, weakening their own traditional structures by setting up competing power centers—the one’s authorized to negotiate with the outside power, and those that more closely followed their traditional roles. (The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty. Vine Deloria Jr & Clifford Lytle, New York, 1984) Later, like following a script, people in Occupy took it on themselves to play the same game, becoming the Occupy Philly that the city wanted them to be, and creating distracting and artificial divisions like those endless debates about applying for permits]
Tomorrow—Occupy International (or Global) first meeting.
Need to address/acknowledge Messaging’s call for a Regional Assembly: concern that while a call for such a meeting is welcome—in absence of any concrete proposals for how this is to be done, by whom, & what it’s to look like—it remains a rhetorical declaration. This committee would like to join with Messaging, Tech and perhaps other WG’s to begin discussing/exploring what actual implications might evolve.
In this light—need someone to begin gathering info on what other Occupations are doing—establish communication (with help of Messaging) with corresponding WG’s.
Translation Team
This could be itself a cross-Occupation effort (Tech help)
Goal: establish regular exchange of bulletins/news—(an inter-Occupation News Service?) Multi-lingual!
Meta-discussions: transition from local consensus to representative assemblies—models for consideration, how this might work.
Set up on-line forums for meta-concerns—that might segue into conferences—emphasis, as local democracy depends for success on ample scope for conversation—open mics etc – before decisions can be made in assemblies,
so larger organs need space to sound out ideas preceding decision making bodies.
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
10/14//11
Monday
10/17/11
Day 11 Sick yesterday—much better today. Home early last night—watched GA live-stream. Went for a process meeting today at 4:00. Me & Alex. No one else showed up. Went to CoCo—facilitated, then came home. Watched GA again livestream–& monitored chat on the side—try to counter mis-information. Tomorrow a reading. Hope my voice is back. Expect I’ll be called on for facilitation team at GA.
Tuesday
10/18/11 11:04 AM Day 12
Two days ago felt quite sick. Yesterday (after a bad night—waking every 15-20 minutes to clear my nose), considerable improvement. Today—somewhat congested, but pretty much over it. Voice coming back. Leave in few minutes to confirm Friends Center for our inter-occupy meeting Thurs. at 6:00. Come home. Back for poetry reading/performance at 3:00, probably stay through the GA.
Make Glossary of Occupy Terms?
Proposal at GA: support requested from Occupy DC for a National Assembly [this turned out to be a can of worms… there were two groups claiming to be Occupy DC] –couldn’t respond in discussions cause I was on facilitation team—made announcement after proposal was over. Philly’s cross-Occupy working group taking on these same concerns. DC letter said nothing about how this was to be accomplished. Things moving so fast its hard to keep up. Occupy camps in Taipei, Tokyo, Iceland, Paris…how to build structure with so little time? Neither NY—nor DC should be World centers for this—maybe a rotating central point more consistent with horizontal power structures.
Skeleton team on facilitation. Need to extend education-outreach internally to get more peeps involved. We’re at a transition point—finding who’s in it for the long run. Why aren’t more campers involved in process? Why only Alex and me at Monday’s process meeting? Have to get there for the noon camp-site meet.
A proposal to restore noon GA—but for proposals specific to those living on the site & site conditions… We are all sanitation? No we’re not.
422 tents as of this AM. That’s nearly 1000 living on Dilworth Plaza now.
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
10/14//11
10/15/11
Saturday
Day 9 Getting to be work. The celebrity fizz on the stage don’t last long—it’s a job to be done. 5 hours of meetings. Process at 5:00. Facilitation at 6:00. GA at 7:00… over early tonight—9:15. A scary proposal from CoCo—that they should relay proposals submitted by WG’s directly, no longer select which one’s were ready for prime time—all would come to the GA for the GA to vote on which ones should be presented for decision. Generated by criticism of the GA as elitist, lack of transparency. how can you get more transparent—anyone can go, sit in, vote on what the WG’s bring. Deep breath… relief. Proposal rejected. Only a handful were for it. GA’s would have gone on till midnight.
I did stack.
Very tired but less than last night—way less than night before. learning to find my pace.
Almost every day, Direct Action takes the streets.
Hundreds of Occupy movements across Europe. Sooner or later, the big crush will come. Power don’t give up power without a fight. Think they may be counting on winter to thin us out, wear us down. As though we’re gonna all go home & forget about it.
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
10/14//11
Friday 11:02 AM
Day 8 Up at 7:00.
Feel somewhat rested.
Morning spent on circulating idea for Occupy International –already have a Working group meeting scheduled so can send bottom liners to CoCo, get on stacks to announce at tonight’s GA.
Off to Liberty Plaza
Occupation – International
We would like to see an Occupy Philadelphia Working Group to
1) Begin plans to establish a regular, trans-Occupation WG
2) 2) … to set up communications & Tech infrastructure
3) 3)… to plan for Regional
National
International
Occupation conferences to discuss Meta issues
… and begin the process of how to formulate
Cooperative Plans of Action
we can bring back to our local sites.
We are already an international movement.
It’s time to take the next step.
Peace & Solidarity
Jacob Spirit-Stick
New York – they canceled the scheduled “cleaning” … crisis postponed. Bloomberg is a fascist asshole.
[What eventually came of this was a regional day-long
workshop at the Friend’s Center in December—which was
a total flop. Nothing but Power Point bullshit run
by corporate trained, if well meaning, “leaders”
who took the thing over and squashed every spontaneous, creative, radical impulse.]
Came home for nap. Made a difference. Another long GA. I never would have imagined being in a group this big where nearly everyone was more militant than me…
an impression that grossly misread the temper
of those who were there… as it became more apparent
that most people favored appeasement and compromise,
and the GA’s came to be increasingly dominated by
liberal moderates, while the anarchists and radicals
began to abandon the decision making process, leaving
the GA’s to those who used them, more and more,for
making useless petitions.At this point, I hadn’t caught on to what was
happening—still caught in the euphoria (OP was only a week
and day old). I was late in recognizing how
poorly our process had kept up with how things had
been developing. Joining the facilitation team likely
contributed to that. The whole thing was pretty much
on its way to fragmenting into different affinity
groups with no center, or desire for one. ]
… the city wants to talk… they don’t understand our decision making process. We’ve become in a week, a different culture—nonhierarchical, inclusive.
[… another misperception. By this time, most of the few POC who had been there at the beginning, had left]
Spend so much time—if not on site—answering & writing email, responding to posts & comments on web pages—that I have no time or mental energy left to write.
Occupy International now an official WG. This is how we keep the revolutionary potential alive. We’re ants in a herd of elephants [grossly overestimating our outside support]—but there’s way more ants than elephants—and we can crawl into holes where they’re too big to follow.
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click: 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
Monday
10/10 Day 5
96 tents last night. Encampment still clean and orderly.
Tuesday
10/11/11
6:00 PM Day 6
Clouds closing over.
Facilitators meeting (went to training at 4:00). Blanket stolen yesterday—discovered when I went to my matt to sleep.horns and chants
Process unchanged.
10/12/11
Wednesday Day 7
Leave for KWH in 5 min. Jerome Rothenberg. Took late evening & ½ dy off for R&R. Facilitated Porta Potty proposal at GA last day.
Slept till 7:30 this morning.
Straightened & organized writing space & computer table. Working out schedule to give time to read and write.
Lucky 13
10:00 PM – one glass of wine—try to get up at 5:00 AM—gonna be a long day. Maybe not. I’m really tired & the food group seems to be managing. Gil worked for a while there today. I bottom-lined the GA. Light rain at first—when it began to come down hard we moved to the Friend’s Center. Met in the 1515 Cherry Street Meeting house.Jerome Rothenberg looks so stern in his photos—a dear sweet man in person. Began the reading with a soda-can-rattle—chanting an Amer-Indian song.
Thursday
10/13/11 One weekGlass towers lost in fog … searching for facilitation so many cops today red arm bands announce civility(?) Affairs of state bear arms A quarter to 12 (noon not midnight) and still no sign no final word no end in sight7:55 PM
Temple Center City.. poetry. (across 15th Street) I left the GA early—a contentious issue coming up on the agenda. I’ll have to find out what happened tomorrow. I can’t find words for how tired I am. While waiting for the facilitation meeting, I lay down on one of the wet marble benches—on my back, and fell asleep almost as soon as I closed my eyes. Hallucinate half-dreams. Poetry. I needed a break—not sure I can stay awake.After the reading I went back across the street. They were only beginning to vote on the response to the City’s second ‘liaison’ proposal – 7 amendments. Three hour GA, not over till 10:00
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, Click 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
10/8/11 Day 3. No journal entry,
but an article, CBS News
Notice the quotes around “Occupy Philadelphia,” and “Occupy Wallstreet”
and photos from CK1 Photography
March through Center City, in the Metro
Sunday Day 4
5:35 PM
10/9/11 The drum circle begins. The end of my nap. /with a break for the General Assembly they’ll keep it going till midnight. 75 tents last night—a new row of them in front of City Hall. The Occupation gradually expanding, spreading out across Dilworth Plaza. 22nd day for OWS. Cut back hours on Food Working Group—exhausted. Try to do the morning pre-breakfast set up—6:45. Hope I can keep it up after it gets cold & I have to sleep at home. This will be my 4th night. I wake each morning wondering whether I can do another day. I walk through the camp in the pre-dawn dark.Last night’s GA – fragmented—sound problems with the speakers and the people’s mic—those speaking more than usual—who didn’t know how to project their voices. The sound system drives people away from the speaker creating a physical disconnect. Too many there unfamiliar with the process—or the discipline required to make it work
The people’s mic more than a substitute for amplification-it’s a marvelous learning tool.
I sign my name: Jacob Spirit Stick… so people here will know where/how to find me.
Pale blue sky between glass towers. Two men play chess—argue whether our electoral system can be saved. The Food station well staffed now—and has overhead canopies. There was a scramble to move to the North, along JFK. People blocking traffic dropping off supplies.
Finally arranged a pick-up for the foam. Medical emergency truck pulls up on Broad in front of /city Hall—take a gurney from the back, head north on Dilworth Plaza. A fight between two old men. Plain clothes cops locked one up, says a toothless man standing near by. The rescue team takes a man who’s lying on the ground. It’s unseasonably warm. Winter looms.
Jacob Russell's Magic Names 