Building off long-standing successes like the 16-year-old Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, new anarchist bookfairs have appeared in cities worldwide in recent years. And this coming weekend, the Twin Cities hosts one of its very own at the Powderhorn Park Recreation Center.

On Saturday, September 11, featured speakers at the fair will include Cindy Milstein,  author of the new AK Press title Anarchism and its Aspirations, and Diana Block, prison abolitionist, feminist and author of the memoir Arm the Spirit—A Woman's Journey Underground and Back. Workshops will be led by groups including the Experimental College, Twin Cities Avengers and Twin Cities Indymedia, and participants are coming from as far away as the Beehive Design Collective in Maine, Oakland-based PM Press and Edmonton's ThoughtCrime Ink; regional groups like the Cream City Collectives and Wisconsin Books to Prisoners; and a slew of local organizations and individual mediamakers.

In the interview below, two Twin Cities Anarchist Bookfair organizers talk about the purpose of the fair, what anarchists and non-anarchists will find, and the state of anarchism in the Twin Cities.

read more

In a small, crowded theater in New York's West Village the night of August 8, a group of thirty indigenous women from central Mexico finally got a chance to perform their play before a U.S. audience.

According to [cast member Yolanda] Mendieta, 30 percent or more of the villagers have taken the dangerous journey to the north. But why do so many people leave?

Here comes Labor Day! Its our annual Labor Day Picnic and celebration brought to Southern Oregon by the Southern Oregon Central Labor Council.

These times of economic strife see Corporate America "sitting on" 8 Trillion dollars of accumulated wealth while hard working families are losing their jobs, their homes, and in way too many cases their belief in the future. We have a National Jobs Emergency!

This year's picnic celebrates the enormous contributions of the working class. The only real turnaround for this recession will come from America's internal engine, the people who do the work from sea to shining sea. Labor Day never meant more than it does in 2010.

Please join us this Labor Day Monday, September 6, 2010 for our annual picnic here in Southern Oregon-

* * * LABOR DAY PICNIC 2010 IN SOUTHERN OREGON * * *
*Starts at 11:00 a.m.
*Tou Velle State Park
8425 Table Rock Rd.
Central Point, Oregon

A swarm is coming! The Beehive Design Collective heads to Portland to release their long-anticipated "True Cost of Coal" graphics campaign!

Two years in the making, the "True Cost of Coal" is an elaborate narrative illustration that explores the complex story of mountaintop removal coal mining and the broader impacts of coal in Appalachia and beyond. To create the poster, the Beehive interviewed hundreds of community members throughout the Appalachia region. In their interactive picture-lectures, the Bees lead audiences through an engaging, larger-than-life banner version of the graphic, interweaving anecdotes, statistics, and history.

Several events in Portland
* Friday, August 27th, 3-5pm at the Ecotrust Building, Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center, 2nd floor (721 Northwest 9th Avenue)
* Sunday, August 29th, 7pm at Autonomy (316 Northwest 4th Ave.)
* Tuesday, August 31st, 2pm - 6pm, Special Art Workshop & Presentation at Tryon Life Community Farm (details below)

Molly Pettit a Northeast Portland musician, sound consultant and long time volunteer for the Last Thursday street fair on Alberta Street in Northeast Portland chronicles how the City has repeatedly and purposefully stifled any attempt to use space creatively for entertainment purposes combining art and politics. Portland, Oregon, 25/08/2010.

In February 2010 a vacant lot at 20th and Alberta Street was eyed up as a location for festivities on Last Thursday - a street fair which occurs on the final Thursday of each month where vendors and performers from the local community transform an already funky street into a festival like atmosphere during the space of an evening. Miss Pettit secured permission to borrow the land and proposed a solid plan that would involve music combined with the distribution of political literature from local and national groups such as the Beehive Art Collective, Climate Ground Zero, Indymedia and the Jericho Movement. She would also organise a stage and beer garden whilst following strict codes imposed by the City.


Copyright for the story and pictures remain with the creator © Alex Milan Tracy 2010. All Rights Reserved. Story and pictures not for use without direct permission. Contact  Alexmilantracy@gmail.com

Peace Village 2010 Summer Concert Series August 20-22 2pm-11pm (Sunday 10:30pm) ---- Presented in association with WellSprings, CultureWorks, & Earthdance

Peace Village 2010 kicks off on August 20th-22nd with a new format — a three-day concert series (think mini-Tanglewood or Britt Music Series, along with spa and mineral springs) — replete with a wide variety of music including Reggae, World Fusion, Rock, Folk, Kirtan, Gypsy, Latin, Funk, and Electronica, and with a common goal of uniting in the spirit of peace.

World's First Udderbot Recital:  Jacob Barton preforms new xenharmonic music by local composers on a unique instrument

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Jacob Barton presents his first full-length concert featuring the udderbot, a unique slide woodwind instrument invented in 2005. A joint project of OddMusic-UC and UnTwelve, the concert will feature adaptations of pre-existing compositions and new music commissioned especially for the occasion.  Sixteen composers, half of them Champaign-Urbana residents, participated in the commissioning project.

Ashleyfest will run from Thursday July 29 through Saturday July 31 and will feature over 20 bands performing at Class Act Interactive Education and Event Theater Company in Champaign.  Music will start early evening and go through the night.

Around the corner at Indi-go Artist Co-op, the art gallery will feature local artists as well as pieces from all over the world.  All art will be made available in exchange for donations to The Ashley Ames Scholarship Fund. There will also be video game collectors items, autographed MLB World Series memorabilia, Cartoon Network collectibles, and more available through an auction.

The gallery will be open all three days from 2:00 PM to 11:00 PM.  All donations will be treated as gifts to the fund and are NOT tax deductible.

All information for this event as well as a flier can be found at www.supportashleyames.com

 

were looking for bands, artists, performers and resources.
Star E rose cafe is looking for some great talents to come play at the cafe. Were looking for bands, circus freaks, belly dancers, acrobats, artists anyone who can make a crowd happy. were open to new ideas and concepts. were looking for folks who are energetic and excited about performing in a place that is known for its offbeat attitude and unwillingness to conform to the norm. Were unable to pay you but in exchange we will try and draw a crowd and give you a beer and a bite to eat and we will support you in all your artistic endeavors. were a struggling locally owned and now wORKERS COOPERATIVE business on a street that once catered to circus folks and art freaks but is now struggling amongst the growing gentrification.

we've been around for almost 15 years and we've refused to change and become just another cafe in a city of cafes. if you want to be a part of community space , a safe space, a space that wants YOU to be you then email us and we will get you on our stage !

 http://www.facebook.com/starerose

Mississippi Street Fair is the largest street fair in Portland and benefits local schools. Attractions include over 30 acts on four stages; the "Local Brew Garden" with 7 craft breweries; over 100 Street Fair Vendors presented by Dreamer's Marketplace; "Whole Foods Local Bites" Pavillion; and Grandfather's Rib-Off Competition. Special attractions for kids include: "High Noon Parade", The Boise-Eliot Kids Corner, and kid music programming presented by Legacy Emanuel Hospital & The Children's Hospital at Emanuel.

 http://www.mississippiave.com

On Thursday, July 8th at 7pm in Watsonville, the Brown Berets are hosting a workshop by acclaimed Bay Area artist and activist Favianna Rodriguez. Favianna will discuss the process of developing art in collaboration with community-based organizations. She will also discuss steps for designing visually engaging posters for social justice campaigns.

No politics in this post, just a pleasant day. The concert and then the fireworks occurred at Penn's Landing, overlooking the Delaware River.

Learn to swing dance or polish you skills! Get ready to dance to great bands at the Champaign Music
Festival......or just have fun learning a classic couple dance!!!! $ adults $2 kids. Proceeds to
benefit Community Center For the Arts (C4A) www.c-4a.org (Donations als welcome to
support C4A's music camp scholarship fund.
Time: July 6, 2010 7:00pm - 8:30pmContact Name: Jennifer CartwrightContact Phone: 352-2803Event Contact Email: jencart7@yahoo.com

In this chapter of the series "Hidden in Plain Sight," Indybay volunteer Peter M writes about Greg Landau. Landau is a record and film music producer living in the Bay Area. He learned filmmaking from his father, Saul Landau, while traveling throughout Latin America. Greg spent most of the 1980s in Nicaragua, where he was baptized by fire working for the Ministry of Culture in the Sandinista government. He relates the experiences that formed the cultural perspective informing his career today.

COMMUNE is a film about Olympia, Washington, and was a gift to the denizens of that small city. It's a street-level exploration of the Olympia social commons?a shifting space that erupts on street corners and bubbles up from an underground well of potential. Through casual interviews with strangers, the film dives into the depths of desire and unveils new uses of the spaces Olympians all share. It was meant to be a looking glass, a lens, and a thief's gaze directed at Olympia's own terrible community.

A terrible community constitutes itself in opposition to an opponent and, in that opposition, closes in on itself and begins to rot. Olympia, once home to ELF cells, the diffuse network of Port Militarization Resistance, and a broad community of anarchists, has become little more than a stale, dusty closet, a cafe-to-show circuit, a green-washed, gentrifying haven of the left. In short, a terrible community. COMMUNE exposes that Olympia runs business as usual despite its high activist-per-capita ratio and radical reputation. But the film also reveals the existence of different communes, spreading on their own, outside of anarchist or radical circles.