What I've been up to

[gordonzola]

What an awesome cultural leftist weekend I had with smallstages!

Thursday: “Capitalism a Love Story”
We went to a special showing that was a benefit for the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives and The Network of Bay Area Cooperatives. How was it? It was a Michael Moore movie. Incredibly awesome to see someone address class issues in a movie with mass distribution, also frustrating to watch the cartoony history and missed analysis.

Still, it was his best movie in years and I learned a few things (I didn’t know about corporations cashing in on early employee death through mass life insurance policies, for example), saw a couple of decent politicians, and got to see our co-op buddies at Alvarado St. Bakery and Isthmus Engineering.

Sunday: Sins Invalid: an unshamed claim to beauty in the face of invisibility
Disabled POC-organized collection of pieces on disability, sexuality, and collective liberation. Sometimes intense, sometimes funny, the whole performance was amazing, but Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha* deserves special mention. I’ve seen Leah perform a bunch of times, but this piece broke new ground for her as a writer and artist. Amazing. One of the best group productions that I had seen in years.

Monday: Billy Bragg
Awwww, a night for us older lefties. A sit down show at the Great American. I don’t know what it says that we chose to pay to see BB at a nice venue instead of fight the crowds at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but there ya go. Except for his anti-NFL rants, I enjoyed everything about his performance (though I would have loved to hear “Price of Oil” which is my favorite song of his.) Diggers, unionists, and lovers: together at last.

Sometimes it’s great to be in a big lefty bubble.


* Leah obviously did not renew her website. Unintentionally funny!

Comments

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

i heart the lefty bubble

[ketzie.livejournal.com]

I miss the lefty bubble.

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

I love thinking about you and Laurie at a Billy Bragg concert!

[nihilistech.livejournal.com]

Yay lefty bubbles!

[slantedtruth.livejournal.com]

i agree about the michael moore -- on the one hand, very cool that he's getting these ideas out there to a new generation, and i like the way in which he connects some of the smaller stories. on the other hand, really lacking. but i also thought it was his best film in years...

lucky you getting to see sins invalid!

[lapsed.livejournal.com]

I saw BB two years ago at the Great American an had the same experience. Then we went to see him at the free show and the stage banter was almost word for word identical. Funny thing, the stuff he said at the Great American still felt intimate and just for us if only because he was looking us in the eye when he said it. If I wasn't out of town I'd have gone to the pay show again in a heartbeat.

[twostepsfwd.livejournal.com]

oh, how i miss the bay!

[jillbertini.livejournal.com]

I just learned about dead peasant's insurance yesterday from a co-worker who had seen the movie!