8/6/2022 #75
Here & Now (Neocities, Mike Davis), Art (Fire), Freeports, ShadoMag, Angelarium, Hoopa Tribe, Gabriela Lena Frank, Baker Beach sounds, Gombak Hillbillies.
HERE AND NOW
I just discovered Neocities and decided to try creating an old-school style website. To do that, I have to brush up on html and learn CSS. I have to laugh at myself, because a few months ago I was complaining about how complicated Wordpress was getting, and how I needed a website that’s easy to put together (which is now the current jeanvengua.com). Yet here I am learning how to code an entire website and calling it “fun”—which it is. Check out my little proto-website.
One thing I like about the Neocities platform is that websites are not constrained by a limited collection of templates, which is usually the case on commercial websites. This results in some pleasantly oddball sites, like the following art pages:
Gilded, by Isabel Kai
Anti-matter Zone (no name given)
Art is a State of Mind, by NyKanen
Via artist/poet Stephen Vincent, I read an interview in the L.A. Times with writer and political activist Mike Davis, who is in his last days, but still sharp. About our current “situation” he says:
MD: To put it bluntly, I don’t think hope is a scientific category. And I don’t think that people fight or stay the course because of hope, I think people do it out of love and anger. Everybody always wants to know: Aren’t you hopeful? Don’t you believe in hope? To me, this is not a rational conversation. I try and write as honestly and realistically as I can. And you know, I see bad stuff. I see a city decaying from the bottom up. I see the landscapes that are so important to me as a Californian dying, irrevocably changed. I see fascism. I’m writing because I’m hoping the people who read it don’t need dollops of hope or good endings but are reading so that they’ll know what to fight, and fight even when the fight seems hopeless.
This resonates with me a lot. “Hope” has become cliché. If I continue on, it’s because of love and anger. There are many things about this life and planet that I love (despite all the dark stuff), and many things that make me angry. If you love something, you want to do your best for them/it. You want to help them survive.
ART
I’ve mostly been doing drawings on paper since the beginning of the pandemic. And those drawings seem to be getting smaller and smaller. I haven’t done any acrylic paintings on canvas for perhaps five years. Below are two from a series I did in 2016 in response to the Soberanes wildfire. Today, when I check Watch Duty for California, I see there are two major fires, the McKinney and Yeti fires north of Klamath National Forest, and a cluster of fires—the Six Rivers Lightning Complex—near Six Rivers National Forest, just south of Hoopa tribal lands.
LINKS
ShadoMag “brings a network of people together to cultivate a culture-led system change.”
You’ve never seen angels quite like these: Angelarium
All about the Hoopa Valley Tribe of northern California
SOUNDINGS
“Contested Eden” by composer Gabriela Lena Frank. The piece was commissioned by Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (virtual performance) to write a piece reflecting on the devastating impact of the California wildfires.
Too much fire? Maybe this will help cool you down, or inspire you to go for a walk at nearby beach:
Things have gotten rather serious, here. So, I’ll finish with a smile. The Gombak Hillbillies sing the “School Blues” (because sometimes life feels like we’re all being schooled):
Thanks for visiting Eulipion Outpost. More next week.