Monday Gumbo

Another beautiful day in Oakland. I keep hearing from my Amsterdam friends that monsoon season has officially started in the Dam. I will see for myself in mid-October.

New Orleans: I got an apartment! It's a little cheaper than my room here and I have a subletter for while I am gone, so it will fully cover my New Orleans rent. Yes! Also, the landlord is here in the Bay area this week. We are going to get together tomorrow to meet up and nail down the details. Very serendipitous!

Green for All posted a new video from their green jobs work in New Orleans. It's a great video. Share it far and wide!

I'm trying to find a copy of The World that Made New Orleans, but having a difficult time. I have to keep reading a couple pages at a time at the library. I don't have a library card because I don't have a California ID. It took me 6 years to get a DC ID and I'm not sure how long it will take me to get a CA one. Too much trouble!

I'm Feeling Good: I'm a little obsessed with this song right now. I just listed to Michael Buble sing this song. He is pretty fantastic! And of course I'm making everyone who will pay attention to me listen to Kat Edmonson. In fact it was the only thing my dad would listen to on the entire trip from DC to Oakland. Luckily I had my ipod to keep me entertained with Radiolab, Planet Money and This American Life podcasts.

I couldn't mention this song with also mentioning Nina Simone. An old high school friend introduced her to me when I was 16. He was only trying to make out, but I'm really glad he used Nina Simone as his mood setting music. I've been in love with her ever since!

The New Yorker: I finally get my New Yorker each week again! And Foreign Affairs and our dream house gets the Sunday edition of the New York Times for free. It just appears each Sunday on our doorstep. Kind of wonderful.

This week's New Yorker has a great story about the Koch brothers. Billionaire brothers who are funding the tea party and climate deniers. It's really good. Check it out.

People You Don't Want to Hang Out With: And if you didn't get a chance to check out Glen Beck's rally this weekend, read about the people that attended. Seriously, its good.

Ciao,
Renee Claire

Wednesday Quicky

The sun is gone. The swamp-like weather has moved in. And I still can't get a good avacodo in this fucking town. I'm ready to go home, but I won't step foot in the dream house for another three weeks! So I will listen to some jazz on WWOZ and hide out in this little nook I found in the office until it's time to leave. Or maybe it's just the post Lake Como holiday blues I'm feeling today.

Read this article about Detroit's art scene and a particular art collective Soup.

"Soup, as it’s known, is a monthly gathering, held above the MexicanTown Bakery in southwestern Detroit, where guests pay $5 for a homemade bowlful, salad (locally grown, to be sure) and dessert, and sit at tables made of doors laid over milk crates, listening as compatriots propose projects. Creating a pocket park, organizing an artists directory and devising a surveillance-camera video montage were all on this month’s agenda. The guests vote, and the idea deemed most deserving gets the Soup dollars — a neat little way to wiki-finance creativity. Soup, which started seven months ago, has been growing steadily. The last one, on Sunday, was the largest yet."

I'm in search of partner art collectives in South America. If you know of anyone that might know of anyone, please shoot me an email/text/tweet/facebook/call (though I never actually answer my phone) or post-it.

And if you have a couple bucks this month, please consider passing it along to CRP. We are raising funds to receive a matching grant of $3,500. This will help fund the painting of 2 walls in East Oakland, an area full of young artists looking for something positive to do.