Belated Jingle Bells

ProtestKid and I joined with several other Occupy Astoria friends a couple of weekends ago to serenade workers at our local McDonalds, Taco Bell and other fast food restaurant chains on Steinway. It was organized at the last minute but we still had enough people turn up that we were able to fill the establishments with our rousing songs.

The only place we got grief was at the McDonalds, where someone (a shift manager? He clearly believed himself to be an authority figure) told us to leave... but we still finished our song and left under our own volition.

Some people just stared at us, and some people smiled. I got one very quiet, "Good job" muttered at me by a passing customer and nobody heckled us.

I enjoyed caroling to the staff and patrons, but my favorite part was caroling on the street corner, and singing, "Deck the jails with Wall Street bankers! We know you're all crooks and wankers!" outside an HSBC branch.

My least favorite part was when ProtestKid asked me what a wanker was. (For the record, I said it was a really rude word for a jerk, and he shouldn't say it at school.)

Afterwards, I asked ProtestKid a couple of questions.

Me: Why did you want to go caroling (for the 99%)?

ProtestKid: Because I care about people! And I don't want anyone to suffer because of the 1% not noticing them and not giving them human rights. Caroling is a good way to convince the 1% to actually realize, 'Oh, my workers are underpaid. Better make up for that!'

Me: How did caroling make you feel?

PK: I felt really really good. I only got a little nervous when we found the cop in the bank.

Me: How did you think people around you felt?

PK: A lot of them smiled. The cop looked a little scared and tense, ready to pull off an arrest.

Me: Anything else you want to say about it?

PK: I also liked singing the songs. ... I want to be a man of many talents; I enjoy singing when there's a chance and it doesn't embarrass me. And singing with the rest of Occupy Astoria, I didn't feel embarrassed, I felt special.

I have to say, I really like the idea of singing truth to power.

Happy New Year
from the Protest Family

Official announcement: Ta-Da!

A little over four and a half years ago, I got totally freaked out about climate change, swine flu, corporate control of everything, and the fact that my babies were being held hostage by this really scary future.

Then I found a book that claimed to be a "third wave feminist steampunk novel" and I was so excited! Because this! This was what I wanted to read! Adventure, romance, a little steam! But also alive to intersectionality and nuance and not ignoring privilege and colonialism!

...only it wasn't. It wasn't any of that at all. I was so pissed off (and, if you will recall, frightened by this daunting future two years before Occupy was a glint in anyone's eye) I wrote a 456 page book. ("I write big books and I cannot lie, all you other readers can't deny...")

I wrote a book (Original title: Whiskey and Sympathy) about a world affected by pandemic, peak oil, and privatization... But populated it with a wide range of people who still managed to have joy and create beautiful lives... and then I threatened their solar-powered, consensus-driven airship community with pirates.

Because that's what authors do!

So if you, too, want to read a cheerful dystopic story that loves intersectionality and passes the Bechdel test in the very first scene… Have I got a novel for you! Really, right here at Booklocker.com...

**The publisher’s website includes the first 9 chapters, so you can really get a sense of whether you (or someone you know) might like to read it**

Or here at Barnes & Noble who have it cheaper and eligible for free shipping if you spend more than $25...

Or even here at Amazon who have it cheapest and eligible for Prime.

Honestly, I don’t really care from which place (or even if) you order Suncatcher: Seven Days in the Sky, but it would be wonderful if you could check it out (as Amazon tracks who looks at it and what else they like) and maybe let your friends who are into speculative fiction know about it.

Cheers!

Alia

IT'S HERE!!!

I'll update the Red Button Press site soon, but in the meantime:

Suncatcher: Seven Days in the Sky is now available for purchase direct from the publisher:

At that link, you can read the first 9 chapters for free.

Barnes & Noble:
(eligible for free shipping offers)

Amazon:
(Prime eligible)

...and you can order it from your local bricks and mortar bookstore, too. (If you order it from *my* local bookstore, The Astoria Bookshop, and let them know you'd like an autographed copy we can make that happen!)

...and electronic versions for Kobo, Nook, Kindle, and all your favorite electronic reading platforms should be coming very soon.

Happy New Year!

So if we flash the cover of Suncatcher it counts as Marketing, right? Because this NEEDS to happen. On youtube.

I like big books and I cannot lie
You other readers can't deny
That when a book opens up with an itty bitty font
And a round type (in your) face
You get hooked, wanna pull out your card
Cause you notice that book was stuffed
Deep with symbolic meaning
I’m hooked and I can’t stop reading
Oh volumes, I wanna digest with you
And your illustrations
My librarian tried to warn me
But that series you got makes me book-wormy
Ooh, Dump-o’-info
Let’s burn the candle at both ends
Well read it, so epic,
Cause you ain’t the average blog post
I’ve seen them typing
Heck with Skyping
It’s purple prose
Got it goin’ like Romance de la Rose
I’m tired of webzines
Tweeting the novel is dead
Take the average reader and ask her what
She gonna fit in her backpack…

So, readers! (Yeah!) writers! (Yeah!)
Has your novel got the volume? (Hell yeah!)
Tell 'em to read it! (Read it!) Read it! (Read it!)
Read that heavy book!
Baby got back issues!

A brief word from our sponsor

Hey there. Still alive. Still protesting... we were out on September 17th, in fact, and Little Man skipped Kindergarten to join me and ProtestKid. He came for the McDonalds, but he stayed for the balloons and photo ops.

Besides regular life, I also finally did something more proactive with my novel than wait to hear back from the slush pile... *sniffle*...

So now it's going to booklocker, and should have a life outside this blog in the next 6 weeks.

This blog may start to have more about revolutions in writing than writing about revolutions, but... eh, maybe not. Anyway, I wanted to add this post and remind myself it existed. (Sorry I forgot. I've been busy.)

Will try to post more often; I can claim it's marketing. Yeah. That.

Love to all,
me

Molly Crabapple Part Two

Squee.

*cough*

I  mean, Molly Crabapple's The Shell Game installation is a lovely confection of....

Drat.

Look, if you want a review of her show (bubbles! fat cats! whimsy and devilish details!) I'm sure there will be a dozen artful reviews of them... soon. Probably already, and the opening night won't be over for another 20 minutes as I'm typing this sentence.

But I don't know the craft well enough to judge hers, and I'm a terrible judge of characters anyway, so I'm just going to tell you what I saw: Large winking women, representing everything from the American Dream (painted like a delicate clown, fat cats tempted mice to climb her ladder and step off her hand... and drop to their deaths to make more gold for the machine) to Liberty Square (wooo!)... I saw the People's Library and the food tent in her skirts...

From a distance, it's easy to see the rhythms as repetitive... but standing there it reminded me of tarot cards, actually, because sure there's the big obvious image but there were enough references and in-jokes to make you stare for a while, trying to suss out the symbols and their meanings... if not for your own life, then for the past two years which became history much faster than I can articulate, or one of her images can express.

So anyway, what I came away with was a glass of lemon ginger gin and tonic (yum!) and glee because not only did I see a fellow Occupier there (I raise my plastic glass to you, A!) but it felt like I made a new friend--

See, mostly it was images of arch ladies, but there was also a wheel of (mis?)fortune (I so wanted to see if it could turn, but I clasped my hands behind my back and was a good little consumer of art) and also a mostly-naked woman in a bathtub.

It turns out the mostly naked lady's name was/is Stoya, and we shook hands because I can't very carefully not stare at a mostly naked lady in a bathtub, after staring at a bunch of images, without feeling uncomfortably hypocritical. If she was art, I should experience it, but I also don't feel right consuming a person as objectively as a brush stroke.

So I sat down next to her bathtub and made sure she wasn't cold (she wasn't) and we asked about her wig-- I knew going in that she was styled as Marie Antoinette, and my covert glances indicated that she was lounging in a bathtub filled with fake money--but the wig was fantastic and slightly pink, with tiny protest signs in it.

What caught my attention was the red, chopstick-like things stabbed into it, but as soon as I asked I realized that it was The Big Red Thing at Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park, and that made me so happy that I suddenly felt quite comfortable chatting with a beautiful mostly naked lady in a bathtub, and I told her about taking food to the protestors and she laughed with me as I told her stories about ProtestKid.

Maybe she was a consummate actress, and she didn't find him totally enchanting (though, all motherly modesty aside, how could a person *not* find stories about ProtestKid delightful?), but I'd like to think I didn't totally bore her and that we *did* make a connection of sorts. (I didn't do quite all of the talking, but I also don't feel right revealing what she said-- it was a conversation and it was nice and that's all.)

See, not only did she sign a copy of Molly Crabapple's book for us (woot), but as I got up to leave her to her soak, she grinned and gave me one of the crumpled bills she was surrounded by.

Later, !ProtestDaddy and I giggled as we read it-- as you may have guessed, it too had lots of details (it had printed very clearly on it "not for legal tender, you dope" and it was signed by "Rob Anybody" not the current head of the US Dept of Treasury)-- but mostly we were delighted then and now because on this special night, a professional naked lady gave *me* a tip.

I shall be dining out on this story for weeks. The other professional moms are going to be sick of it... tee hee hee...

Dear Stoya, may you never be cold and may you always have something to smile about. You certainly made me happy tonight.

Molly Crabapple Part One

So !ProtestDaddy and I are going to the opening night of Molly Crabapple's show tonight, and I'm really nervous. In my head, she's one of the cool kids (I'm pretty sure her 6 degrees of separation are higher quality than mine...), and I've become middle aged and tired... so while I want to be part of the art and the glitter, it's not for the likes of me, etc etc...

But then the fantasy of art and glitter is just a fantasy. Glitter and paint create an illusion, and I think that the whole point of Shell Game is that it is an illustration of the Wall Street illusion.

Like the quote I just read attributed to George Box, “all models are wrong, but some are useful.”

Maybe if I go in with the understanding that all art is wrong, but some is useful, I will be ok.

Because here's the other thing: for all that my art is inferior to hers (and certainly my artistic connections are), the thing about Liberty Square was that the experience was intensely personal. I will not say that any other person's lived experience was wrong, and their portrayal might be useful...

But I was there. I fed and was filled and I listened and was heard and I fear that attending an art show will somehow change my own experience, privilege the artful muse over the angry voice. And yet I think that she loved/loves Occupy and its manifestation(s) as much as I do.

I fear that, surrounded by beautiful images, I will not be seen. And I suppose we are going to look, not to be seen... but that wasn't what Occupy was to me, so I'm not sure if I will find Occupy there.

I guess I just need to see, and then we'll see what it is that I saw?

Yeah. That.

...Did I mention I want to be a writer when I grow up? Doo dee doo dee doo.

More later, after I have seen the show.

We're Ba-ack

Occupy Astoria LIC walked and stood with the locked out butchers of Trade Fair, today. We easily doubled their numbers, and added fresh voices to the fight. I handed out 7 flyers to passersby, give or take. ProtestKid, in his persistent way, handed out over 100. (He even successfully pursued the grocery guy who was hand-trucking produce through our picket line.)

But, my sore throat will attest, no one-- whether or not they took a flyer-- could be in shouting distance and not hear us shout, "Trade Fair, Unfair!"

R composed a new chant, in honor of Local 342: "Hey Hey!" "What what?" "342 deserves a cut!"

The butchers and meat carvers can't even claim to be on strike-- after getting their hours slashed from 34 to 24 hours, they were locked out of negotiations. Scabs have been hired to replace them, and I've heard an unsubstantiated but plausible report that these unqualified replacements are putting "halal" stickers on meat that isn't.

That's a problem.

Besides being all solidarityish, just increasing the numbers of the group really did help them-- people in cars rolled down their windows and asked what was going on and took flyers.When I mentioned this to K, a union organizer who has been there several days, she said it was the first day that had happened. Because we were such a big group, more people were paying attention. Success!

I was cold, and my throat hurt-- but helping people get their story heard... that was awesome.

Some people were curious, some didn't stop-- several people said they had stopped shopping at TradeFair because of the way they were treating their workers. One passerby approached in her walker: she grinned at me and started shaking her booty in time to our chant. That was even more awesome.

I took up the challenge and danced up and down the picket line for a couple of rounds. The folks standing still grinned and pumped their fists in the air. (Moral of the story: Next time you want to show solidarity with an action-- I highly recommend shaking your booty.)

As ProtestKid and I waited for our train home, we could still hear the lilting call and response of the folks down on the street. They have one shift that stands out there from 7 am to 7 pm, and then another twelve hour shift that covers the quiet evening hours. Despite their exhaustion, they didn't stop making noise, making their presence known and their grievances aired.

As the union guy with the bullhorn called as loudly as his abused voice could, "Trade Fair!" ProtestKid and I grinned at each other and shouted to our confused fellow travelers,  "Unfair!"

Neighbors

I've been nervous about posting actions I take and thoughts that I have, ever since I watched someone's blog post be used as evidence against them in a court of law.

But.

Taking action in the aftermath of Sandy is not (yet) illegal, and I need to write to process it for myself.

The first few days I was in shock and struggling with flu and two bored kids out of school. But by Saturday I had a big pile of dry goods I had purged from my own emergency stores that I needed to donate, like a bulk-goods island in the middle of my living room. I rationalized the total devastation of our pantry by saying that it was an emergency, just because it wasn't *my* emergency didn't mean that the gallons of water and multipacks of batteries weren't being used in the exact way they were intended when I first bought them.

One friend took a few lightweight items away that Saturday afternoon; he's a runner and while he hadn't planned on running the marathon this year, he had decided to run across (and up and down flights of stairs in) Staten Island to bring supplies to those in greatest need.

Sunday, a friend with a half-filled SUV filled up the rest of it with my donations for a local drop off point. There were several in our neighborhood, she wasn't even sure which one she would end up at-- just compelled, as I was, to gather and to give, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

That donation satisfied me for about 48 hours. Watching Twitter and Facebook and my more flexible/less physically limited friends helping out brought the itch back, though. I started pursuing other venues: Thursday I cooked up 3 gallons of split pea soup, chock full of barley and vegetables, and donated it to the Astoria Cooks for the Rockaways project a local woman started. I had disposable trays because of my earlier experiences cooking for OWS, and even gave tips to a drinking buddy who was worried she didn't have enough pasta, on how to bulk her dish up with vegetables.

The next morning a very dear friend took her shepherd's pie and my soup (and LittleMan and me!) to the hot food drop-off location. I actually met one of my new neighbors there (we moved at the end of September. Another reason this blog has been quiet), and suddenly I felt tied into the community in a way I hadn't before. The street was full of double parked cars and women with trays and boxes and bags, trying to help out our larger Queens' community. Some were strangers, but most were women whose kids went to school with my kids, who were friends of friends, who I had nodded politely to before when our strollers passed on the sidewalk. My casual community, suddenly connected on a deeper level... for a higher purpose. It made my heart go up and down a little.

Friday afternoon, ProtestKid and I stood outside our local grocery store with other members of his scouting group (Navigators Chapter 13) asking for food and money donations. I don't know yet how much we gathered (a mayonnaise jar's worth of cash and coins, two cardboard boxes full of non-perishables), but it felt meaningful even if it was only one hour.

A lot of people stopped to chat; one woman paused after her donation and said she really understood, she had lost everything in an earthquake in her home country. Others apologized that they didn't have any money on them, but we pointed out there would be more opportunities to give later. It's not like the aching need is going away any time soon.

But the most meaningful interaction for me was with a friend-- lots of friends passed by, actually, as we were in a great location just off the last train station on the N line-- but she hugged me and said, "Thank you for everything you're doing." It turns out this is not just a good but distant cause for her, as Katrina was for us. Her mother lived in the Rockaways; she lost her home and is now living with them. Her mother is devastated, her community is devastated. Her community is changed; she will never be the same.

This isn't a platitude or a homily or a Hallmark card. Structures broken, networks torn, there aren't enough metaphors to describe the feeling of loss when you lose everything... Houses, yes, but routine and comfort and the people you nod to when you walk down the street.

When you lose everything that defined your place in the world, because that place is gone.

Today I went out in the backyard barefoot, to feel my new garden's potential between my cold toes and plant daffodils that my favorite flower company sent me free, as a gift to all their customers affected by Sandy. I caught my neighbor also out for a quiet moment, and I thanked him for sweeping the snow off our stairs after the nor'easter.

He shrugged, "That's what neighbors do," he said. Then caught himself, "It's what I was brought up to do." I gave him one of the two daffodil bulbs I had left, and he ran inside and gave me a bottle of home-pressed wine, from the yellow grapes he grows at the end of his yard.

Then I had to run inside, and give him a small jar of raspberry gin that I brewed earlier this year.

Glowing with gifts and good neighbors, I went inside. I've been happy all day, despite my kids having their first sleepover last night. (They were up until 11 pm. And then again at 3 am. And 4. And 6. Twitch.) We love them and their parents, though, so we didn't harm anyone. For the record.

I keep thinking about community--  my garden community, the Astoria community, the Sandy-affected community... even the parents of unslumber party participants community. (You know who you are.)

I am learning a lot about what community means, and it is hard watching some powerful people and organizations turn their backs on huge swathes of what should be their community, too.

But I am deeply affected-- even changed-- by the realization that my neighbors are part of my community. As someone who has felt isolated in one way or another for most of my life, Occupy Wall Street was a validation that strangers across the country- the world-- were interested in joining me in a loving, healthy community with a capital C.

Occupy Sandy is a wondrous discovery that, shaken by events or just delighted by the opportunity, my neighbors and acquaintances, friends and bosom buddies, also want to participate, to share gifts of love and moments of sweet communion with me.

We are a community, we are sharing the love and the pain and I know that this moment cannot be sustained, living in the light takes more effort than most of us can spare-- but I am grateful that I can participate in this pain-wracked, dark and bright and ethereal and real moment.

I hope that the dramatic changes we all are living through can make true neighbors of us all.

Sandy and Storm: How to help

I've been posting and re-posting on my Facebook wall. Going to make it more simple by putting everything I know here:

(Edited to add: Occupy Sandy Relief NYC just posted a big shout-out to their partnering organizations. Have added the ones I didn't already list)

VOLUNTEERS

Occupy Sandy
This is most useful for people who want to/can physically help, whether that's making peanut butter sandwiches or helping pull out damaged carpets

Just added: "Do you want to help with #SandyAid but can't make it in person? We need researchers! Email OccupySandyResearch@gmail.com"

NEIGHBORHOOD SPECIFIC/COMMUNITY BASED ORGS:
I've either heard good things about these orgs from Occupy ppl I trust, or I've used them myself. ;)

Astoria Recovers (Queens)
This is a clearinghouse for local volunteers, donations and news specific to my/our neighborhood. (It has some info in multiple languages. Woot!)


Red Hook Initiative (Brooklyn)
 

Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (Brooklyn)


CAAAV
"pan-Asian community-based org"
(Sorry, the others' names were self-explanatory, but this one wasn't... They've been helping especially in the Lower East Side of Manhattan)


Good Old Lower East Side www.goles.org

Rockaway Youth Task Force www.rytf.org

Restore Red Hook http://restoreredhook.org/

Coney Island Generation Gap www.cigg11224.com

596 Acres http://596acres.org/

Time’s UP! http://times-up.org

LARGE ORGANIZATIONS

NY Communities for Change http://www.nycommunities.org/

350.org www.350.org

 

CHURCH/RELIGIOUS: 

The Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew in Brooklyn http://stlukeandstmatthew.org/

Crossroads Church in Staten Island http://crossroadsny.org/

Saint Jacobi Church in Brooklyn http://www.lutheransonline.com/servlet/lo_ProcServ/dbpage=page&mode=display&gid=01286001361022961633745993

 

GROUPS UNAFFILIATED WITH OCCUPY IN ANY WAY BUT STILL DOING IMPORTANT WORK IN THE AREA:

http://www.masbia.org/ 

They're running a soup kitchen, according to Facebook 

 

 

HOW TO DONATE

I think all of the above orgs accept donations, but you can also donate through:

Occupy Sandy Wedding Registry
This is awesome, verified, and getting a lot of (local) media attention. Donations are delivered to a church in Brooklyn, but are being passed on through the community from there.

Occupy Sandy New Jersey
These guys also appear legit and organized, and NJ got badly hit, too. (Hoboken and Atlantic City in particular)


Firedoglake Blanket Drive
They were involved in "Occupy Supply" to get warm winter clothing to Occupiers across the country last year. Using those contacts and bulk purchasing power, they are focusing on getting blankets to cold people. All the blankets are American made, and some of them are also union made.

Coney Island Donation Site
Friend on Facebook posted this.

NEWS/INFO

Occuweather 
He is a livestreamer and weather geek (in the best possible way) and he has been great at getting word out about the storm before, during and after


Penny Red's Collection of Useful Articles
Hasn't been updated lately, but lots of early eye witness accounts.

Occuprint's Bulletin
Useful info for folks affected (or in prep for next hundred year storm); encouraged to print out and pass out

New York Legal Assistance Group
 Are helping people with FEMA paperwork, etc.