Paratheater continues to intrigue

Paratheater describes itself as "a non-performance climate of meditative action. Paratheater labs start out in a non-performance climate of meditative action where the pressure to perform is released and replaced by the freedom and the responsibility for creating your own pressures. This process of self-created pressure begins with each participant taking a silent vow to become fully accountible for their own safety and creativity. This vow is taken to support the development of autonomy and integrity within each individual as a prerequisite to doing this work."

Their web site has more detailed information and interesting music... If they have any public performances in the next year I hope to attend.

Off to a Flute Lesson

I am off to a flute lesson in Berkeley and leaving some red poppies behind. Do you think they are dreaming?

Berkeley evicts yet another art collective; this time it's the Shipyard

The Shipyard Collective was a unique collaborative build space in Berkeley, Ca for Mechanical, electronic and Kinetic Art. Berkeley however, has given the art collective the boot for "living" in the shipping containers that serve as art space.

After a LET THEM EAT CONDOS decree, the Shipyard has only a few days to move a million pounds of shipping debris, metal, steel etc. Word has it that they are moving to Oakland but no details yet. The heart of Berkeley's art community has long since been destroyed by lack of affordable housing and art space.

Good-luck to the Shipyard in their relocation efforts.

Princess Haiku in a tea Trance

Princess Haiku sipped a delicate bowl of olong gold at Teance Fine Teas in Berkeley. The new tea bar is on Fourth street and its fine tea perfect enough to induce tea trance. Where will this lead, asked Princess Haiku as she closed her eyes imagining steep mountains in the Far East, slipping into TEA MIND.

Amoeba Music

Princess Haiku found a new CD at Amoeba Music in Berkeley this evening. If there is something you are looking for you will surely find it here. Upstairs in the classical department, lute players, flutists and composers work the night shift and know more about music than you could possibly ask.

Urban Transparency

Today, I walked along Telegraph Avenue in pursuit of urban art observing traces of Berkeley's abandoned artistic legacy. Cal students practiced dance routines on Sproul Plaza, for a crowd near Zellerbach Hall. A faceless manikin in a store window looked out on a dead city wondering, "where have the independent book stores,craft artisans, street musicians, artists and sundry intellectuals gone?" Across the street graffiti tagged as blue as the sky, sprawled across an abandoned storefront.

Ghostly Music

I wonder how many children have ridden the antique carousel of Tilden Park with its spinning flash of colorful hand-carved animals? This carousel is one of the last of its kind in the U.S. and has been delighting local children and adults for nearly a century.

Last week, I paid a visit to the carousel and rode a pale silver-gray horse. It was a day of startling sunlight and my senses were delighted with the impact of glinting mirrors, white cumulus clouds and omniscient shadow. I watched illuminated and glowing faces of small children capturing enchantment.

As the carousel turned, I saw myself in the past riding a white horse with my first love. And then on a vast lion with my baby in my arms; her spun gold hair blowing into my face. In my dreams I have heard the raucous hurdy, gurdy music and the laughter of youth that knows no regret or fear. I understand that a part of me will ride this carousel forever. I have become one of a ghostly population that belongs to it as much as the wood of the carved animals, the music or the mirrors.