Raise your hands

View Larger MapI think the time has come to officially announce this good news on my blog: I got a job!!

I will be teaching Special Education English Language Arts at IS 347, School of Humanities, in Bushwick. IS= intermediate (middle) school.

It will be a difficult job, but that means there are many victories to be had ahead. Oh, yes!

School starts next week, so this weekend I am busy preparing.

My preparation falls into several categories.
1) preparing decorations for the classroom
2) preparing myself to look like a teacher
3) preparing activities for my students to do during our first week together

I am super excited. Prepare to hear lots of stories about my students from now on because guess what: Kids Rock!

Colorful Shapes Part II

Meena made this groovy cartoon. Dy-na-mite! Yes!

I feel really good about being a hexagon. That's a shape I can get down with.

4th St. Food Co-op

I am on my way to cover a shift at the co-op. Since I make reference to it in this blog semi-regularly I am going to take this opportunity to introduce you to it (although some of my readers are co-op members, so they already know.)

This little podcast does a great job of illustrating our humble cooperative endeavor. Check it out.

If you are in the NY area, you might like to stop by. Especially if you are in the market for a bike helmet, Klean Kanteen, organic spices sold in bulk, or fair trade organic bananas. Almost all our prices are tough to beat, but for those items I have never seen lower prices anywhere.

Colorful shapes

Do you ever catch a glimpse of yourself as something other than human, skin and bone, ideas, identity, whathaveyou? I do, and I think lots of people do–people who would never discuss it. I am aware of a lexicon for discussing such glimpses or states of being (however long they last) and yet I am shy to discuss it with most people.

Sometimes I admit to other people that I see myself as pure love. A little more frequently I hint about magick.

Today Meena made miso soup and in the midst of an otherwise straightforward conversation she said "It's not easy being a colorful shape." I thought that was pretty great.

Sleeping

I finally made my bed! Like most things I put off, it wasn't really that hard once I started doing it.

Rainy morning: the best

Love me some rainy morning. I have been sleeping on the couch for the past week (give or take) because I am too lazy to make my bed.

Good things have happened this week.

Let's revel in the splendor, shall we?

On Sunday my friend and accomplice Meena and I went to 3rd Ward for a bluegrass show. Now, bluegrass in a big Brooklyn factory art space is a tricky thing, but 3rd Ward did an admirable job as far as I could tell from our brief stay there. The key was placing the musicians outside, although it did pour down rain for fifteen minutes or so.

As an aside, I really like the outside area of 3rd Ward. It's sort of a closed in alley with multi-level fire escape stairwells that tower above you when you stand on the concrete slab floor.






I remember being out there for a breather in the middle of the night years ago, the first time I went to 3rd Ward. I had moved to Brooklyn a couple months before and went to meet my friend Ashley for a dance party there. This was before my bike made it out from Portland, and so just before dawn when I got tired of dancing I walked home. In retrospect, that choice seems fairly crazy because even years later the area is pretty desolate. It's smack in the middle of the trucking route for the industrial district of Williamsburg. I remember Ashley told me to be careful but also said I projected a "don't mess with me" vibe that seemed to be serving me well. He, on the other hand, was at the receiving end of all manner of non-violent Brooklyn crime: bike theft, van theft, vandalization of his stuff, etc–all in the few months he spent in town.

Anyhow, that night at 3rd Ward was special, and the outside area there is particularly charged. So it just felt good to listen to bluegrass out there with my friend. I suppose the visit planted a seed, because a few days later, after looking over the courses 3rd Ward will offer in the fall I decided to become a member and take a writing course there!

It deserves an exclamation because this decision is the kind of thing that I have thought of for years now (certainly all the years I've lived in NYC) as out of my reach. I have a hard time accepting joy. Maybe that seems odd because I have this blog that is a sort of call to indulge in peace and joy, but I also had that last blog, you know, which was all about how to have fun on practically no money. . . and this decision to join 3rd Ward and invest in myself as an artist required some money.

This sort of thing makes me think: oh, money's not so bad (as a concept). . .see there, Budis, how you were able to use money to explore your art. But if I take one giant step back, Mother-may-I style then it's clear: hold on, the only reason you didn't explore and invest as deeply in yourself as artist in the recent past is because you lacked the money.

Wow, I had intended to write about the whole week, but I only got a little bit out. Well, there's more where that came from.

xoxo,
K. Budis

This one is too cute!

A friend from the co-op showed me this photo the other night when we were closing it up. As the title of the blogpost suggests, this image is from cuteoverload.com

Crooklyn, I love you.

This article is a little outdated. But check it out. I was reminded of it last night cuz I was at an event where some of these candidates were shaking hands and kissing babies.


For this article I did the investigating, and I co-wrote it. My Dad would have been so proud to see my name in print, cuz he was an aspiring journalist at one point. Here's to you, old Dad.

Last night I rode to watch a movie at Brooklyn Bridge Park. There is really nothing quite so spectacular as sitting in this particular piece of Brooklyn at dusk with all kinds of people: finally everyone is resting, not on the go, the lights of lower Manhattan light up, they reflect in the water, and it's just beautiful. The movie was Catch Me if You Can, which is about a lovable con artist. A state assemblyman who represents Brooklyn introduced the film and joked that he would be taking notes to help him politic back in Albany.

For some reason I found that open joking about political corruption endearing. It must have been the Manhattan skyline, all lit up like lollipops, intoxicating me. I am a sucker for that biznis.

Complex creatures0

Brutus is helping me with this post. He wants me to ask you guys: what is your power animal?





I was at this event last night called Shamanic Panic. I was not feeling it so much due to my desire to roam the Bowery instead of cramming myself in with a hundred or so people packed into a hot, stuffy loft space. But the question of the evening was that one Brutus just asked you. People were wearing Hello my name is name tags and under their names they wrote their power animal. I was surprised by how many people wrote cat as their power animal.

For the record, Brutus was not surprised. Please leave a comment and tell us your power animal.

A song about transforming yourself into love

Lucinda Williams. . .she just gets me everytime. I never saw this movie, but I wanted to share this song with you. It came on my Pandora mix and made me cry a little.



If you saw this movie, tell me what you thought of it.

Anti-commodifaction of dissent

Thanks to the powers of Hulu my desktop computer has witnessed the rebirth of My So Called Life. Although I was the right age in 1994, when the show ran on network TV, to have sworn by it as some kind of instruction manual for adolescence, I don't think I actually ever watched more than a random episode or two. I do remember, however, writing in to the network to protest the show's cancellation after only one season.

Why did I write in to the network when I wasn't even a regular viewer? Because Seventeen magazine told me to do so. Really. I'm not joking.

For just a moment I would like to put aside the likely interrelatedness of My So Called Life and Seventeen via shared parent companies past or present & look back on that little episode of dissent against power (in this case network omnipotence) to try to understand what compelled me to take action. I recall that writing the letter was a private act; no one knew I had done it. And while I remember the event carrying the significance of an identity proof, I was proving to myself, not to anyone else, that I could dissent.



Flash forward fifteen years: as a moment in time, that young act of dissent parallels my adult life in such striking alignment (I'm thinking of my graduate work in media studies, including my dissent around homogenized media ownership and content) that it makes me question the extent to which dissent can be quantified or even worse–commodified.

Today at the laundromat I was reading a discussion of the corporate marketing of nonconformity in The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies and it got me thinking about what I can do in my lifetime to counteract the commodification of dissent. I don't have a detailed plan yet, but I am working on it. My hunch, however, like the title of the book implies is that efforts to resist the commodification of dissent are not likely to succeed if we use information, raw data, or numbers-crunching as tools. I think the place to look for resistance inspiration is in the aesthetic appeal of dissent and in the ecstatic experience that it generates.

What do you think?

Celebrate Brooklyn resistance and solidarity

Yesterday was a good day.

In the afternoon Meena and I went to this coffee place called Outpost in Fort Greene. We had been chatting it up about job interviews and after awhile this guy came in and needed an outlet for his laptop. We invited him to come share the couch, chair, and table that we had taken over in a nook of the place & we ended up talking for a couple hours. It was such a great and timely connection to make.

Our new friend Rasu is the co-founder of an arts collective called Coup d'etat located in Bed Stuy, where Meena lives & where I hope to work. He gave me a really useful history of the neighborhood that helped me put into context the feelings I have about the neighborhood. I have this feeling of connection to the community there that is catalyzed when I ride through and have small exchanges with people there.

Before I left Outpost Rasu looked up the address of the school I'm interviewing at on Wednesday, and I went to take a look. I am visualizing myself there.

In the evening there was music at the annual Big She- Bang, a day-long feminist teach-in event that I had intended to go to, had I not run into Rasu who had knowledge that was real useful to me. I got to see Ina! Ina! and several other really great bands, as well as meet up with different friends, who I knew to be feminists but did not know I would have the pleasure to see. Hooray for Saturday!

Accomplish the Impossible

An invitation from Reality Sandwich:

Today we can no longer afford to ignore our miracles. The world and its inhabitants are subject now to afflictions for which there is no cure, no hope from within the normally possible. Anyone who truly understands the magnitude of the global ecological crisis knows there is no hope, just as there is no hope for the Stage IV cancer patient, the MS sufferer, the victim of any of the legion of incurable diseases that arose in the late 20th century. Nor is there any reasonable hope for peace and justice in Palestine, or Tibet, or the prison system; nor for the resolution of any of the entrenched iniquities of our world. Long-ignored, the gathering crisis of ecology, energy, economy, and society pierces our complacency now with undeniable urgency, and we realize we have no choice but to accomplish the impossible.

Another way to put it is that it is time to enter miracle consciousness, and another way to put that is that it is time to accept the invitation to step into a bigger world. No wonder people reject miracles, often quite strenuously: to step into a new world is scary. But today, finally, we have no choice. The old world is crumbling around us, and there is nowhere else to go.

Mutual Aid: Alternative Currency

Check out this new organization I joined. The timebank model is new to NYC, and its membership is growing despite the City's undying love of money. TINY had its first monthly potluck this evening, and it was a blast. Good people sharing food, losing track of time.

Reality Sandwich has an article about the group that inspired me to join.

On my ride back home I got a little turned around & got directions from someone at a big, open-front rock climbing gym. Neat place. Maybe my little bro would go with me next time he comes to visit. He used to be into rock climbing.

Anyway, after a few blocks I got a little confused again, when I didn't realize 3rd Ave had forked into Lafayette. While waiting at a red light I asked a pedestrian coming from the direction I was headed if Lafayette was a few blocks up & he gently pointed out I was on Lafayette. Then he asked me where Atlantic Avenue was, and I told him just around the corner. Pleased with our successful outreach, we both smiled and laughed and in a totally blissed out moment of anarchist triumph we both said "Mutual Aid!" at the same time.

LOVE IT!!!!!
Budis K.

Love through the blog, love through dreams, plus cosmic clowns

Hold the phone: A blogger I like linked to me. He reminds me of the importance of writing because he writes everyday. I discovered his blog when I lived in Taiwan and I was drawn in by one of his photo essays. Groovy.

I am Surprised by how special I feel having this little connection, this little shout out. Thanks, Tony. I guess I think: why not blog? Any chance to build a human connection. We get precious little time to connect in our waking lives. We are busy with work + life is short. And if you are like me + you don't remember your dreams, well then even your dream life most often fails to connect you to those you love.

However: not recently. Recently I have had some good dream connections. First, yesterday I received this email:


i dreamed we were in court changing your name to Budis.
you were a few years years older than you are now, a new wholistic beauty in your countenance.
your sweetness and honesty were powerful!
It seemed more spiritual than legal...

it was nice seeing you again, i hope it won't be years
til it happens, though.

yay for biking, you're amazing!

with love,
N

So beautiful. ! And today I woke up and remembered my own dream. I dreamed of my former therapist, who hasn't practiced for about a year now, but we still speak on the phone to check in once every few months. Anyway, I dreamt of Sarah, who was a therapist and is now a novelist and clown! In my dream she was sad. When I awoke, I wanted to call her but didn't. I always think I will be bothering her, but probably I am not bothering her. She knows all about my magic and really appreciates it. I know that. Anyway, at first I didn't call; I went to my interview; made a garlic kale and scrambled egg sandwich; felt bad about the less than stellar unit plan/lesson plan I gave to the interview committee. I sat down to revise it and send them an updated version & then what pops into my gmail box but a horoscope message with the subject: clownin which contained this:

The leo is leader and symbol of the family. Be empowered by it's motherly roar, which demands an immediate return -to yourself/each other/ your dreams.

Well, an immediate return to myself, Miss Sarah and my dreams it is then. That was clear enough. Of course I reached out and called the lovely and wonderful Sarah. No fear. Why let fear stop us from connecting? Why deny ourselves the love that exists?

Read the full horosocope from friend-of-a-friend Birdie Lawson. Image above is bilingual Peace Clown available to entertain in Bakersfield, CA, should you be reading from there.

xoxo,
K. Budis

Intent

I had an interview this morning for a job. It went pretty well. There were some strong points of commonality. I want that job.

A note on the images

I can't get my new computer to connect to my camera, so I am just borrowing images for now. Here is another piece of Greenpoint street art that you see from the BQE.


I live right by the BQE, which is hilarious to me. My immediate neighborhood is intensely industrial, like Taiwan practically. I like trying to find the beauty in the concrete. Not that it's hard. . . it's just that in spacious Texas and lush Oregon I developed a different aesthetic.

Anyway, what do you think about this art considering that you really only see it from the highway?

Progress

I have an interview at a school in my neighborhood! Hallelujah!

I know I am going to be a good teacher. The people who know me know it, too. When a principal sees it too, and we seal the deal, I can take my mission into the classroom. Hooray!

I think of the people who say: whatever students get you will be so lucky. I know they are right. But also I will be lucky, too. I get to know a whole group of young people–learn about their strengths and weaknesses. Education is such a precious exchange, not to mention inspiration.

Praises! Praises! Praises! woo hoo! If you are reading this message, maybe you will find yourself approaching your dreams, too. I hope so. You deserve it.

Hmm, unlike my last blog, which was awfully cynical at times, I think this blog will be free of cynicism. Why not, right?

Last night I got to ride across the bridge with two dope ladies and there was some magic in the air. Good for us for smelling it out!

I hope that you catch some magic in your net today. If you don't have a net, maybe the magic will stick in your hair. If you don't have hair, maybe it will lodge in your teeth. If you don't have teeth, just open your mouth and breathe it in. There is magic all around us.

xoxo,
K. Budis

Good morning.

Welcome to my new blog. Here is a place where we can share ideas about transformation.

In case you were curious, this graffiti, which I love, is on Nassau Avenue, near my house. When you approach this art via bicycle, the text reveals itself word by word. You can't see all three words at once until you get right up on it.

The first time I saw it I read TEACH and was like, yes, I do. Then I read TEACH KIDS and I thought, yes, check and then I read TEACH KIDS GRAFFITI and thought, oh, yes! I dig it.

Love you!
K. Budis