Tutu Hockey

Sunday Sound: Sinkane - Hold Tight

good tickle

‘We said some shit’ is a curated collection of quotes that were accumulated by Strategy Creative's client during the course of a year long project.

VIA

language of autocrats

Masha Gessen writes about the language of autocrats:

A Russian poet named Sergei Gandlevsky once said that in the late Soviet period he became obsessed with hardware-store nomenclature. He loved the word secateurs, for example. Garden shears, that is. Secateurs is a great word. It has a shape. It has weight. It has a function. It is not ambiguous. It is also not a hammer, a rake, or a plow. It is not even scissors. In a world where words were constantly used to mean their opposite, being able to call secateurs “secateurs”—and nothing else—was freedom.

“Freedom,” on the other hand, was, as you know, slavery. That’s Orwell’s 1984. And it is also the USSR, a country that had “laws,” a “constitution,” and even “elections,” also known as the “free expression of citizen will.” The elections, which were mandatory, involved showing up at the so-called polling place, receiving a pre-filled ballot—each office had one name matched to it—and depositing it in the ballot box, out in the open. Again, this was called the “free expression of citizen will.” There was nothing free about it, it did not constitute expression, it had no relationship to citizenship or will because it granted the subject no agency. Calling this ritual either an “election” or the “free expression of citizen will” had a dual effect: it eviscerated the words “election,” “free,” “expression,” “citizen,” and “will,” and it also left the thing itself undescribed. When something cannot be described, it does not become a fact of shared reality. Hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens had an experience of the thing that could not be described, but I would argue that they did not share that experience, because they had no language for doing so. At the same time, an experience that could be accurately described as, say, an “election,” or “free,” had been preemptively discredited because those words had been used to denote something entirely different.

Monkey Shines: ”War for the Planet of the Apes”

There’s something weirdly cathartic about the spectacle of humanity reduced to an animalistic throng. And it gives the film
"War for the Planet of the Apes”
a disturbing, powerful kick. Of course, people are often capable of great evil; we don’t need the movies to tell us that. But the mindless, tribal destructiveness on display in this film is not some outside, unfamiliar force. These aren’t zombies. We recognize this impulse, this willingness to embrace raw hatred and give ourselves over to leaders who focus and cultivate our rage. These days, we know it all too well. READ

Appreciation Friday: Artist Jimmie Durham

Artist, performer, poet, essayist, and activist Jimmie Durham (b. 1940, Washington, Arkansas) is one of the most compelling, inventive, and multifaceted artists working internationally today. For American audiences, however, he has been an elusive figure.

bombmagazine.org

Job Emergency Kit?

What if you got stuck at the office overnight?

Let's plan now...Climate change is serious shit. Your workplace emergency kit should fit into a small duffel bag, stashed under your desk or in your locker. Some of us already have our "bug out bags" or "survival kits" in our cars, but a separate kit at work will prevent you from having to leave the building at all until it is safe.

If you are a business owner and manager-- WE strongly encourage you to give serious thought to ways you can be prep to assist your most valuable assets–your employees–in the event of a disaster hitting during working hours. Every workplace needs to keep an up-to-date first aid kit and extra food/snacks and fresh water. A generator would help too.

YOUR KIT:

small fleece or wool blanket and pillow

a change of clothes (clean shirt, undies, jeans, head scarf)

Sturdy, warm, waterproof shoes with wool socks are an absolute must (for winter)

Warm hooded sweatshirt

Toothbrush, toothpaste, a small bar of soap, and a hand towel

Quick Food: granola bars, crackers, nuts like honey-roasted cashews, tea and coffee packets

Extra Good:

Beef jerky

Raw Crystallized ginger (for tummy ache)

Red Wine (also for tummy ache)

Cash (and coins)

Crank flashlight with extra batteries

A book to read and a deck of cards

Tins you make ahead with jokes and survival tips and snacks

Visit Disaster Prep Consultants to learn how employers need disaster planning.

Particle Masks – you can use a basic dust mask or go with something a little more beefy like an N95 particle mask. But you want something to help cover your nose/mouth if the emergency involves dust and flying particles and/or smoke. You can use a hankerchief, but a dust mask is just as easy to store in your box.
Whistle – If you are stuck in a portion of the building that has collapse from an earthquake, for example, you’ll want a whistle like this one that you can use to let emergency rescuers hear you.

Appreciation Friday: Artist Joan Schulze

The story is we have a CRAFT magazine from 2001 and Joan's painting STEP LIGHTLY was in it - and we swooned... the one above is called BLINK...

New Haiku #2

COMING in August on >BOOM< you will have one collage a day - no words - just art

Lotus by Joan Schulze. Scroll made from a digital print, monoprinted fabrics, pieced and machine stitched. A plexi armature attaches to wall, scroll floats away from wall 1 inch.

VISIT JOAN

at 70

Lynn Ruth Miller goes out on the stage and announces, “They gave me ten minutes up here because they think that’s all the time I have left.” The audience begins to laugh and doesn’t stop for the rest of her performance. Lynn Ruth is a born comedian.

<<I began to do stand-up comedy at 70 and didn’t do burlesque shows until I was 77.>>

Black-eyes Susans seed themselves!

Black-eyed Susan: their meaning is Justice (Boom loves 'em)

400 excuses

Your mom and dad are not going to like you making excuses or creating lies, but when it comes to adults and work - we do make excuses all the time...

Do you hate your job? You'd like 400 Excuses & Lies For The Workplace from the NeatoShop (not for sale anymore). Enclosed in this handy little tin are 400 ready-made excuses and lies to get out of working. These flashcards are perfect for when you need a good laugh. We know you would never actually use them.

BOOM SAYS: Make your own list on fancy cards with doodles

and put them in a tin and keep them in your briefcase or knapsack.
Don't make cards at work unless it's your job...

Poet Laureate David Lee at Geneva Hills, Ohio

Wednesday's Words: cosmic modesty

NASA image of Earth

A cosmic perspective (and modesty) about our origins would also contribute to a balanced worldview.

Finding the answer to the important question: “Are we alone?” will change our perspective on our place in the universe and will open new interdisciplinary fields of research, such as astrolinguistics (how to communicate with aliens), astropolitics (how to negotiate with them for information), astrosociology (how to interpret their collective behavior), astroeconomics (how to trade space-based resources) and so on.

We could shortcut our own progress by learning from civilizations that benefited from a head start of billions of years. READ

survival kit for your job

If you are a worker, you need stuff. You need good stuff. Make yourself a kit of stuff that makes you happy: stuff you need if you are hungry, tired, thirsty, bored, sick, wishing you were somewhere else. We here at BOOM think you need to keep maps in your box. You need to plan happy day trips anywhere you live. Art makes you think BIG...

Keep this locked up in your desk, too. Co-workers will be jealous! BOOM!