Our OWS correspondent, Kim Boekbinder, has sent Myles Boisen‘s own reportage our way. Myles, an Oakland-based musician and photographer, was one of thousands of citizens attending the downtown OWS protest there this week. Here are two separate collections of writing and imagery from him in one go– the first written/compiled after the worldwide headline-grabbing events of the 25th, and the second completed early this morning, PST. Feel free to repost/distribute any text or photos. Thank you, Myles! Kim’s next installment of “Occupy Everywhere” will be along shortly as well.  –Mer

All photography in this post is by Myles Boisen, and was shot in downtown Oakland, CA between October 25th and 27th.

A Taste of Tear Gas (10/25/11)

I first noticed the constant whine of helicopters at about 4 pm today. Checking the news, I learned that the Occupy Oakland camp in downtown Oakland had been cleared by police in the middle of the night, and a series of afternoon protests had been called in the nearby area. With plans in place to go downtown later that night, I searched the internet with a mix of curiosity and anxiety for news of what was happening.

A flurry of twitter messages at the www.occupyoakland.org site detailed a few non-violent marches snaking throughout the downtown area, all headed for the disputed encampment that had become known in recent weeks as “Oscar Grant Park”. An Oakland teacher’s brigade led the march. As phrases like “unlawful assembly” “tear gas” and “bring gas masks” began popping up in OWS feeds, I knew I had to head downtown – camera in hand – to see for myself.

Before heading out, I followed a link on the www.occupyoakland.org site that encouraged me to send an email to the office of mayor Jean Quan. In this missive I identified myself as a business owner, renter, and taxpayer in Oakland, as well as someone who supports the Occupy movement, and now regrets voting for our popular first-term mayor. I also pointed out that concerns about sanitation at the Occupy camp could have been efficiently and affordably dealt by allotting a few city resources, rather than calling out the costly full-scale police assault we are currently witnessing. Protests can also be directed to the OPD and Oakland City council members by phone or email through easily accessed municipal websites. Now would be a very good time to make your feelings known, via the internet or by showing up in Oakland to add your voice and support.

Walking by foot down a mostly deserted Broadway through downtown, there were no broken windows, no smashed cars, not even a single broken bottle. Wisps of smoke from a smoldering garbage can fire were the only evidence of anything close to a “riot”, at least until I arrived at 14th and Broadway to see the line of police and sheriffs in full riot gear, lined up behind barricades to prevent the re-taking of Oscar Grant Park.

“Hurt” silkscreen by Malleus

Thomas Negovan of Century Guild is an incredibly brilliant and intuitive creative force whose latest curation, “Grand Guignol II: HÄXAN – Satan + The Women Who Love Him” opened to the public tonight (Saturday October 22nd) at the Century Guild salon in Chicago. The art –which, as you might guess from the name, focuses on dark femininity and the demonic– assembled for this group show is astonishing:

“Austin Young’s 1999 portrait of avant-garde diva Diamanda Galás; Georges de Feure’s 1893 Japonist conjuration of wickedness “Friends of the Devil in the Flesh” ; Gustav Klimt’s ultra-seductive “The Witch” (1919) ; and “Italian Art Nouveau master Adolfo Hohenstein next to modern Italian artists Malleus, painter Gail Potocki, and sculptor Stanislav Szukalski.”

Carlos Schwabe’s “Destruction”

(Un)holy fucking shit, right?!

Thomas says “This is far and away my favorite show I’ve curated.  Ever.” As of this moment, he tells Coilhouse that most of the works are available, but they’re going to fly off the walls shortly, so if you’re in Chicago, you gotta go see this jaw-dropping collection of pieces brought together for one luxuriant, once-in-a-lifetime event. Incroyable.

Works at the show by Egon Schiele and Dean Karr!

HUGE congratulations to our darling, dollfaced Angeliska Polacheck! She and her consummately scrumptious partner-in-parties, Amelia Foxtrot, are gracing the cover of the current Austin Chronicle, representing their Vintage Vivant shindig for the Best of Austin 2011 awards:

Vintage Vivant is a beautifully presented monthly celebration of Jazz Age culture in Austin, Texas. “A night for glamourous anachronists to dance, drink and delight at the bevy of 1920′s and 30′s themed entertainment. Join us on the last Sunday of each month as we celebrate with vintage cocktails, vintage or vintage-inspired attire and free dance lessons.”

VV regularly compiles 8Tracks mixes to get their attendees in the mood, pre-party. Here’s an addictive assortment of saucy 1920s/30s innuendo songs, presented for their Storyville Bordello party earlier this year:

Angeliskittenhead, who has written multiple pieces for Coilhouse (both in print and on the web) over the years, is also the co-creator of Gadjo Disko and Tranarchy! Amelia helms the Austin chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. Then there’s DJ Shorty Stump, and Westen Borghesi, who both spin musical selections from the 1920s and 30s.

Austinites, if you aren’t already, join them all at the Swan Dive on the last Sunday of each month to celebrate with vintage cocktails, vintage, or vintage-inspired attire. Plus, free dance lessons!

Congrats again, ladies.

This week (in addition to other far less culturally sensitive holidays), National Coming Out Day is observed.

“Rainbow umbrella , Gay Pride 2007, Paris, France” photo © Olivier

Do you have an acquaintance who will occasionally say things like “I don’t have a problem with homosexuality, I just wish Teh Gheys weren’t, ya know, so… in my face about it“, presumably because they have mistaken your distraught Oh-God-I-Feel-So-Trapped-and-Small-Right-Now silence for tacit approval? Frightened into denying your sexuality or your gender identity when a gaggle of high school kids pull you into the bathroom to interrogate you? Tired of turning the other cheek when your church-bake-sale-organizing grandma makes decidedly unChristian comments about Chaz Bono during your dutiful seasonal phone calls back home?  Stung when someone rolls their eyes or accuses you of being hypersensitive after you voice disapproval of casual slurs? Tormented that you can’t be more forthcoming about your personal life at the office without it resulting in being ostracized from the unofficial-but-highly-influential social club that you know being a part of will ensure your career a more, well, straight-and-narrow ascending trajectory during these scary economic times? Heartbroken that your relatives require you to call your domestic partner your “roommate”, or to answer to an incorrect pronoun, when you’re around their Rotary Club friends?

Friggin’ sucks, doesn’t it?

No one should ever feel unduly pressured, strong-armed or bullied into coming out when they’re not ready, don’t feel like they have a safe environment in which to do so, or simply don’t wish to. But here’s a cheerful idea for everyone who’s feeling a bit stifled (whether out, closeted, or somewhere in-between): maybe, just maybe, today’s as great a day as any to randomly unleash some loving Kevin Aviance style glossolalia on the more backasswards, empathy-challenged weeniepoopers in our lives…

SRSLY. Even those of us who are not in a safe enough space to run our LGBTQA banner all the way up a social flagpole can observe today with more subtle gestures of acceptance, and honesty. Let us each consider bringing some bright “Din Da Da” DaDaism into the world!

Can’t say “I’m gay”? Say “DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN BRAAAAP. DOOKUH BRRAAP.” Can’t say “I’m bi”? Cry “BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. BOW. BOW.” Trans and can’t say “c’est moi”? Just say “MMMWAH” and plant a big, warm, hella non-“heteronormative” smooch on those sourpusses, then walk away. Think about it: even if they have no idea what the heck just transpired, it’ll probably the most exciting thing to happen to them in ages! Maybe they’ll get the message. Maybe they’ll recalibrate a few things. Even if they don’t, chances are that a spontaneous “RRREEE BOBBA BREEEE BUUPPAH” tinged outburst of voguing will, at the very least, lighten the mood.

“Can we all come together?” Can we all come out, free of fear? Coilhouse hopes YES. Maybe today’s not that day for all of us. But someday. Let’s continue working toward it. In the meantime, we can keep visions of super-out, super strong, super-gorgeous Kevin Aviance dancing in our heads in that florescent pink top hat.

And may today be full of friggin’ rainbows, damn it.

EDITOR’S NOTE– This is our friend Kim Boekbinder:

Photo by Marianne Bijou.

A musician, artist, and writer, Kim is currently venturing across the United States on her crowd-sourced, pre-sold Impossible Girl Tour. Over the next few weeks, Kim will also attend several Occupy Wall Street demonstrations taking place in various cities that she’s traveling to, and document her experiences on Coilhouse. What follows is her first installment: an introduction, and a call to join the conversation. Thank you, Kim.  ~Mer

_________________________________________________________

On the subway I saw a girl and boy, ages 13 or 14, talking about whether or not to go to the protest.

“It won’t make a difference.” The girl said, “We’ll never change anything.”

“I used to believe like you,” said the boy, “But you always gotta believe that you can make a difference in the world.”

They spoke about the movement and what it means, the First and Second Amendments, how many people lived in their homes, the color of different dog breeds, and dancing the Macarena, before getting off the subway at Fulton St – the stop closest to Liberty Square.

Occupy Wall Street has started a conversation. And right now a lot of that conversation is about the conversation itself.

While exploring the culture of Liberty Square today, I was randomly interviewed four times in the space of one hour, each time by a citizen journalist. One man wanted to make a video for his Facebook page to spread the word. Two young women were collecting interviews for their college newspaper; they weren’t working in any official capacity; they just knew that they needed to get this information back to their school and hoped the paper would publish it. These people came out with cameras, iPads, and pocket audio recorders, to learn why they were here and to share that with the world. And each time I was interviewed, I then interviewed them in return, and we would laugh together at the absurdity of this. We are all amateurs here. We are all experts.

People around America are confused, interested, annoyed, supportive, angry, joyous. But no one seems quite sure what Occupy Wall Street is.

“It’s like the 1960s.”

“It’s the democratic answer to the Tea Party.”

“It’s just dirty hippies.”

There are as many explanations for what Occupy Wall Street is as there are people involved in it.

The energy here is electrifying. We can all feel that something important is happening. And we’re all looking for why or how or who or what it is exactly. But the movement is young, and plastic, it is changing and growing quickly. Politicians who want to co-opt it are not sure what that means. Seasoned journalists are confounded as to how to report this to the world. The minute you think you have it figured out, it slips away and changes, reconfigures itself into something exactly like, but also exactly unlike what you were just looking at.

The power of this movement right now is its openness, its caring organization. There is information everywhere. People who are unsure of whether or not they support the movement are openly invited to engage in the conversation at the info booth. There is a feeling of immediate inclusion, if you want it. Passive observation is also welcomed. Tourists wave as their tour buses pass by. Skeptics dig for signs of failure. Journalists interview each other. Wall Street workers can be seen moving through the crowd, investigating this occupation of their hallowed ground.

Accountability, transparency, communication, nonviolence, and compassion are not just fetishes or dogma here: they are the foundation on which everything that happens next is being built. We have the technology now to ensure instant accountability, transparency, and communication. And we have a history of highly successful compassionate and nonviolent movements to draw from.

So while the movement figures out what it is and how to communicate that to the world, it is also constantly checking itself, holding itself accountable, sloughing off anything that deviates from the message it is still forming. It is no small feat– amazing to watch, even more amazing to be a part of. There is no such thing as a neutral observer here, because each person here is recognized as a vital part of the process.

I’ve been gathering samples of the movement for days: observing, recording, asking, listening to speeches, interviewing people, singing along to songs, wiggling my fingers to express my consent or dissent. I am both passive observer and passionate activist. I know exactly what is going on here, and I don’t know how to tell you. You must read, watch, hear, experience as much of it as you can. You must agree and disagree for yourself.

The conversation is yours, we cannot have it without you.

Liberty Square, October, 2011. Photo by Kim Boekbinder.

In the following days and weeks I will be exploring OWS and other Occupations around America as I tour: NYC, San Francisco, Portland, New Orleans, Boston.

There is continual coverage from many good media sites. My favorites for today:

• Wired provides a wonderful photo slide show of the daily occupation.
• The transcript of Naomi Klein’s speech from Thursday night.
• Some of the brilliant Q&A session with Naomi Klein.
• 50 portraits from Occupy Wall Street.

Hey, all! This is just a quick scrapbook post to gather together some information about the activism building in NYC (and elsewhere in the US) since September 17th, with an emphasis on bits and pieces that a) touch on the evolution of open source counterculture, b) examine indie media/social network coverage versus MSM, c) convey the increasingly surreal (and sometimes funny), stranger-than-speculative-fiction nature of much of what’s happening, or d) relate directly to longtime members of the Coilhouse community. It will be updated over the next few days/weeks, with all additions and edits clearly marked.*

Are you currently organizing/protesting in NYC, or elsewhere in the States? We’d love to hear from you in comments. The more dialog that gets going about all of this, the better. Interesting times, indeed. Certainly galvanizing. And, potentially (hopefully), healing? Fingers crossed. Best of luck, everyone.

Hundreds of protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday. (Photo via)

Occupy Wall Street’s First Official Statement (via the Daily Kos):

This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing [email protected].

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

The core crew: @yerdua, @nicoles, @ashabeta, @theremina, @nadya, @raindrift, @angeliska, @sfslim

“I am covered in sweat, grit, glitter, leather dye, candle wax, hope & joy. #coilhouse” – @thekateblack, posted the day after. (Exactly how we felt, too.)

This post has been exactly one month in the making, but not because we’ve been flaking on it, trust us. Actually, even in the midst of everything else that’s going on (hoo-whee, there’s a lot going on), we haven’t been able to STOP thinking about it, or adding to it constantly. It’s taken time because we’ve wanted to try our best to give props to every single person who made that fundraising event possible, and beautiful, and memorable. There were so, so many of you. Danged if it didn’t take a friggin’ village.  Thanks for bearing with us, comrades. Thanks for helping us. Thanks for everything. We can’t stop saying thank you.

According to our tabulations, over three-hundred people came out to the Red Lotus Room on Sunday, August 21st, 2011. Most of them braved a torrential summer downpour, sweltering heat, substantial commutes, and a tough time getting out of bed on Monday morning. Approximately two-hundred-and-fifty of these folks were ticket-holding attendees. The remaining fifty-plus consisted of our enormous (mostly volunteer) crew. And let’s not forget the hundreds of others who donated or bid, watched the Livestream remotely, or hung out DJing for us in the Coilhouse Room on Turntable.fm! This was a huge and complex undertaking for all of us, and somehow, it miraculously came together with less than three weeks of planning.

Aerialist Sarah Stewart performs a death-defying drop. Photo by Audrey Penven.

Mer’s take on the whole thing: “I don’t think I’ve hugged that many people, smiled that much or said ‘THANK YOU’ so many times in an eight hour period.” A month later, it already feels like the sweetest, stickiest, sweatiest of dreams. But it wasn’t. It was real. You were real. Because of you, Issue 06 is imminent, and all kinds of new, exciting projects are in the works. Truly, we remain so deeply grateful to all of you, and we want to tell you again, officially and publicly. So here goes….

Kat & Mason, attendees of the Black & White & Red All Over Ball at the Red Lotus Room in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. August 21st, 2011. ©Steve Prue.

Squeeeee!

Photographer Steve Prue’s huge collection of photo booth portraits from the Ball are now all up on our Flickr account! Flickrites, please feel free to go in there and tag or comment on photos. We’re eager to start putting names to all of those beautiful faces.

• Photo Booth Collection, Part One
• Photo Booth Collection, Part Two

A massive “HOLY CRAP, WE DID IT!” thank-you post is imminent as well.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Nyx of Asha Beta Industries, crew member/art donor for the Black & White & Red All Over Ball at the Red Lotus Room in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. August 21st, 2011. ©Steve Prue.

Oh boy oh boy oh muh garsh gleeeee! Delirious and sleep deprived, we just tumbled off a plane and into a cab headed straight for the heart of NYC. We’re hitting the ground running with yet more prep work for Sunday’s fundraising event. Gah! Crazypants! But comrades, SO MUCH AMAZING STUFF is still coming together. Astonishing silent auction items (to be revealed shortly), an influx of ticket pre-sales thanks to extensive promotion and listing work that Gemini & Scorpio, Shanghai Mermaid, Dances of Vice, Shaw Promotion, and our international network of friends have all undertaken on our behalf. (*sob*) And! Last but not least, this spectacular last-minute confirmation to our live music roster:

The Fishtank Ensemble!  Holy balls! These cats are, hands down, one of the most dynamic and unique live acts currently based out of California. Coincidentally, they’re in NYC the same weekend we are! And they’re gonna come party down and play a 30 minute set at the Ball! BIG thanks to the beautiful Kim Boekbinder (who will also be performing on Sunday, hurrah) for facilitating this connection. We are SO STOKED. Check ’em out:

LA Weekly has referred to the Fishtank Ensemble as “cross pollinated gypsy music….one of the most thrilling young acts on the planet.” Formed in 2005, these folks have played “everywhere from the hippest LA clubs to festivals, cultural centers, museums, parades, and even on the street. The band includes two explosive violins, the world’s best slap bass player, musical saw, flamenco and gypsy jazz guitar, trombone, opera, jazz […] vocals, accordion and one little banjolele. Tackling everything from French hot jazz to wild Serbian and Transylvanian gypsy anthems, Flamenco, and oddball originals, the band is a not to be missed event for world music lovers.” (That entire paragraph was cribbed shamelessly from a Coastal Grooves review, because we haz teh DERPZ.)

Photo via.

In addition to playing at the Ball on the 21st, The Fishtank Ensemble has two more shows in town: they will also perform tomorrow, Friday the 19th, at Union Hall in Brooklyn at 8pm… with Franz Nicolay, another one of our cherished live acts on Sunday! YAY! Also, if you’d like to wine and dine and listen to them play a set of songs at the fabulous Drom Bar & Restaurant in Manhattan on Saturday (perhaps before heading over to the Enchantment Under the Sea event?), they’ll be on at 8pm there as well..

Okay. That’s it for now. Imminently, we’ll be posting a HUGE announcement about Sunday night’s International Silent Auction. (That’s right, folks… although the items are all gathered in NYC, absolutely ANYONE in the world with internet will be able to bid. Technology, huzzah!) Please stand by.

“Don’t look at me that way,” detail.

Textured scaffolding made out of paper. Spun cavities, spiraling angles and floating bristol-board islands. A mysterious, solitary logo consisting of circle and the letter X, reinterpreted in dozens of different ways.

Tonight in the Bay Area, artist, photographer and Syzygryd co-designer Nicole Aptekar unveils a series called New / Exploration / Paper at the Satellite66 gallery in SOMA. Coilhouse caught up with Nicole during the hectic last day of gallery preparation to discuss these pieces and the process behind them.

“Play revolver,” detail. Photo by Nicole Aptekar

COILHOUSE: Let’s start with this logo, the circle with the letter “x” positioned inside of it. How long has it been around? What’s the story behind it?
NICOLE APTEKAR:  I came up with the symbol in the summer of 2009. I was interested in sticker art, and wanted something to tag with that was not obviously a tag. I was experimenting with a number of different logos. In some versions, the circle was very dominant. In other versions, it was the “x”. The x-heavy versions of the logo were significantly more… vicious? Aggressive? They had no meaning, yet they had this built-in aggression that I found really interesting and kind of desirable, which I thought was curious, since they were just abstract symbols.  I started putting stickers of the logo up all over San Francisco and wherever I traveled. It was fascinating to see which ones stayed and which ones didn’t.  This version with the double-x is the one that I claimed for myself as a logo. Then I started using it to label things: my laptop, my bike, etc. When I had the opportunity to make it a part of a composition, I took it, instead of just slapping a logo on top of things. One example of that is the “Clear” button on the Syzygryd controller touchscreen… yeah, I tagged my own art.

Conventionally, it’s corporations that have logos, not individual people. So why your own logo?
A big part of it is that I find stickering really fascinating. I’m a big fan of B.N.E. and AERA HAKR. I watch the streets to see all the new sticker people because, for their brief moment, they are prolific. You can’t spray-paint every street, but you can absolutely throw seven stickers down as you’re walking. But I don’t really have the attachment to a name that many in the graffiti community seem to have.  Coming up with a fake name and throwing that down is not my thing. I don’t want people to know who I am, I’m not concerned with getting my name out. I’ve always been into graphic design and typography, though. Seeing abstract symbols in the wild engages my curiosity. There’s moment of puzzlement when you see some strange symbol in some random place, like on a trash can. Like, “what could this mean?” I feel like seeing the same logo in different places gives people the opportunity to get curious and find out. With an abstract logo, it’s not necessarily as obvious as with with a name. I feel like that’s more interesting.

Laser cutter in action. Photo by Nicole Aptekar

How did you transition from making stickers to making these sculptural paper compositions?
In January, I came across Matt Shlian’s work, and I became really inspired. He made a set called The Process Series, which are blocks of stacked paper that was cut using a plotter. He was taking grids and moving them around, and I thought that was really amazing. I’d been using laser cutter for a year and a half at that point, and I thought I could do something similar with it. So I just booked the laser at Techshop to see if it would be possible to laser-cut a piece similar to ones in The Process Series. Except that, instead of using one of his shapes, I used my logo. So I cut it, glued it together – hated the process of gluing it together – and I came up with this. I liked it, but it was so entirely similar to Shlian’s concept that I was really embarrassed by it. But I didn’t want to give up on it, either. So I started to ask myself: what could I do to feature my logo in a way that exposes the depth and breaks away form the grid structure? Shlian’s thing was repeated grids: squares, triangles, etc. He had his own unique way of pulling through depth, and I wanted to see what the variations are on that. I wanted to see what kind of shapes I could compose from my logo that were definitely mine, and not reminiscent of his. I developed several concepts for how to accomplish this using my own terminology. A projected cavity is large shape swept around to make a smaller shape. A spun cavity is when I take a shape and twist it. Spars and scaffolding are beams attached to the side of the frame that hold up elements that need to float.

“Don’t look at me that way” before it’s printed and cut, in Rhino 3D.

Can you describe your process for making these?
I start by designing these in CAD using Rhino 3D. In Rhino, none of these pieces are cut – it’s all one solid piece – so it’s hard to predict what kind of interplay all the individual layers will have. By the time I chop them up with the laser and lay out the pieces, I have no idea what it will all look like until it’s assembled. I’m completely unable to work on more than one of these at once. Each one leads directly onto the next; many of these contain new variations on a technique I had just learned while making the previous piece. For example with this one, I developed the notion of having the frame turn into that shape in the center, becoming part of the composition. And then with this one, which I made right after it, I did the same thing but also took that shape and twisted it. The shape of this one is basically secondary to the movement of the bar and its center point. That’s something that I never saw when I was doing it in CAD, but it looked shockingly beautiful to me when I started to put it all together. And then in the next one after that, I also had that frame and that spun cavity, but I added scaffolding at the top. In putting together this exhibition, I’ve learned a ton. Each one of these pieces represents an amount of knowledge I have gained.

One of Nicole Aptekar’s original pieces will be available at the Coilhouse Black & White & Red All Over Ball silent auction in New York this August 21st. See you there!