Wednesday, September 19, 2001
(Reprinted from the Project Drop Out, Tune In webpage)
We are currently finalizing the purchase of land in Ontario, Canada. Over the summer of 2002 we will build at least one self-sufficient earthship on this land. This will be done not by contracters, but entirely by untrained volunteers.
So… Do you want a “summer job”? We can't pay you, but you will be fed and housed, and you'll get in shape and learn lots of new skills. You'll also get to be a part of something very special — you'll see how an investment of under $25,000 can be turned into a self-sufficient environmentally responsible house on beautiful land, with no mortgage!
You can stay as long or short as you'd like — you don't need to stay all summer. You can even come just for a few days if you'd like. For those that stay for the entire summer though, we are entirely open to the concept to shaving off land from our lot and helping you build a ship as well.
This offer is open to everyone. If you'd like to come up for the summer, or a weekend in the summer, or whatever you have time for, I promise you you'll see something that'll open your eyes.
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
I really hate dressing up. I almost lost it when my mother wanted me to dress up for graduation. I was very unhappy when I was told I'd have to wear slacks for Ryan and Corrie's wedding. It makes me feel like I'm being told that there's something wrong with the way I decide to dress normally, and that to fit in with “proper” society I have to conform and use elaborate clothing to hide who I am… On many levels, it makes me feel opressed. So why am I willing to dress up for ModProm?
Two reasons:
First, I see ModProm's dressing up sort of like I see Halloween. It's all for fun — it's not to try and meet some standard that society has decided is proper. I'm not doing this to try and meet some standard that has no bearing on my life, I'm doing it because it amuses me.
Second, I see taking the prom dresscode and appropriating it as an act of social revolution. Normally these events are about covering up tattoos and piercings, and trying to “look good” in some perverse way that speaks of society, not of the individual. This takes that and subverts it — it says to the world, don't try and tell us how to look. We can have fun and get all dressed up, and SHOW OFF our tattoos and piercings. If you've got a backpiece, wear a backless dress!
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
A number of people who sent donations and membership requests and emails to the Church over the past year have not gotten replies, or got replies months after they sent the emails. I'm sure that some of you have been watching the turmoil in the Church in an attempt to address this and other issues over the past month.
I've very pleased to say that this all seems to be straightened out — emails are getting replied to generally within 24 hours, and donations are being processed within about 72 hours. Cudos go out to Bryan, Beki, Steve, Agni, and everyone else who's been working hard to keep the church responsible to its members.
A few days ago I sent my “monthly donation” in to them, and included a joking note that said it was intended to make sure there'd be “pizza and dancing girls” at the next Church meeting. I was actually only half joking though — this recent catastrophe has very strongly reminded me that one of the wonderful things about living in the free world is that we have the right to believe what we want to and that we have the right to have a party to celebrate that, without having to worry about being dragged into a public square and be beheaded.
Now more than ever, celebrate your freedoms!
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
I just removed the user who's page this is from, but please note — when a user is deleted for this reason, I back up the account first, and will hand over full details to the authorities if it comes to that. This is for two reasons — first, because any asshole coward that uses IAM to issue murder-suicide threats deserves whatever they get, and second, because it would be a whole lot worse if the authorities used something like this to seize all IAM records.
This is an example of a recent post from his page (I've shortened it for clarity):
okay, now its time to die
2001/09/17 20:44 i dont know why i am writing this, nobody reads it anyway, and if the cops see it , ill go to jail or some shit... [snip] the only option is to either move far away, or just die. i may not die in war, but i certainly will not die alone... [snip] i havent had any other thoughts since i found out she went to the cops. all i think is KILL.
Oh, and to any would-be criminals of any kind. It's one thing to post about your crimes after you do them, but posting about your crimes before you do them is moronic.
Sunday, September 16, 2001
Terrence McKenna said that the reason we are drawn to body piercing, abstract expressionism, surrealism, jazz, rock and roll, and pschedelic journeys is “nostalgia for the archaic”… That something in us recognizes that there is something inherantly wrong (perhaps “sick” would be a better word) with the time and culture we're living in. By pursuing these things we are reaching back to the “last sane moment” in our history… A time, as he put it, on the “mushroom dotted plains of Africa”.
It's something to think about — is body modification a road to salvation, or is body modification a symptom of being on the road to salvation?
"As we break out of the infantile obsessions of the marketplace, what we discover is that in the body there are Niagaras of beauty. Alien beauty, alien dimensions that are part of the self, the richest part of life."
Oh! I almost forgot — I had my first IAM related dream yesterday (at least that I remember). I should have written about it this morning, because most of it has faded. I was hosting some sort of IAM BBQ, but it wasn't here. It was in a big house, loosly modelled after Steve's place in Phoenix, but not quite the same.
It was later in the evening, and the party was starting to clear out — I think there might have been something that initiated it, but that might just be me thinking of when the police showed up at the September 2nd BBQ. I was sitting on a couch and from behind me, angst addict jumped over from behind the couch and (I think) sat down right beside me.
She says to me, “we're going to be really hot together”.
I'm of course shocked, because in the dream I'm (as well as real life) I'm dating Rachel, who for some reason wasn't either at the BBQ or in the room, I don't know which. My memory on what happened next is sort of fuzzy, but it was a short awkward “are you insane?” type conversation, and then I think I woke up.
