^{Image:  Still unfinished “Skid Row neighborhood is Working Class” banner, Sept 2025}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.
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HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, October 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

UPCOMING PROGRAMMING related to Scratching the Surface: 40 Years of Visual Arts in Skid Row (rooted in part in the artwork stored by our sister org Community Arts Depot) exhibition at the Skid Row Museum and Archive is highlighted.

1. Friday, Oct 3, 3-5pm, Filmmaking workshop with Adam Johns @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
2. Friday, Oct 3 , 7pm:Movie Night at LA Poverty Dep’t ‘s Skid Row Museum 
3. Sat, Oct 4, 1-6pm: OUR STREETS ZINE FEST at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
4. Sat, Oct 4: TWO YEARS OF GENO//DE: RISE UP FOR GAZA. International Day of Action. In LA, protest at 1pm at the Z/on/st Consulate (11766 Wilshire Blvd)
5. Tuesdays, Oct 7 and 14,10:30-12:  Poetry Workshop at Skid Row Museum
6. Wed, Oct 8, 6pm: Movie night at General Jeff (Gladys) Park (movie at dusk)
7. Oct 10, Fri, 5-7pm: Skid Row Poetry: Inklings of a History at Museum
8. Fri, Oct 17, 12-3pm, Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th)
9. Fri, Oct 17, 7pm: Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
10. Sat-Sun, Oct 18-19, 12-4pm 16th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists! To perform or show art work: email info@lapovertydept.org or call 310-227-6071
11. Oct 24, Fri, 5-7pm: Discussion about Community Archives at the Museum
12. Fri, Oct 31, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Exhibit: Scratching the Surface: 40 years of visual art in Skid Row open and runs through Oct 25th.
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR regularopen mics currently in Skid Row:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – (2) every 2nd Friday, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St); (3) 3rd Fridays 11a-2p: BuckFest at 5th/San Pedro by Urban Voices Project, (4) every last Friday of the month, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

BEING “SERVICE RESISTANT” AND ”PA/ EST/N/AN REJECTIONISM”
As I read about “Pa/es/in/an Rejectionism” in Fargo Tbakhi’s “Being Listened To: On Philip Metres’ SHRAPNEL MAPS, Colonialism, and the Vio/ence of Conversation” essay, I immediately think about the label “service resistant”, used by the mainstream against unhoused people who dare to reject the inhuman “housing” alternatives in a world where lack of dignified housing for everyone is vio/ently normalized.
“Too unhoused”, “too Black”, “too immigrant”, “too queer”, “too Pa/ est/nian”, “too Artsakhci”, “too Indigenous”, “too working class”: service resistant. And for the first time I noticed the RESISTANCE in “service resistant” and now I really like the term.

Excerpt from Fargo’s essay:
“Pa/ es/inian Rejectionism” is the term used by decades of colonialist mur/derers and their passive onlookers to frame and explain the failure of “peace-talks” by placing the blame on Palestinian leadership’s refusal to accept, as part of any deal, the existence of the state of /sr/ae/. Yet my radical listening chooses to hear, in Pa/ es/inian Rejectionism, the only way forward, the only futurity we can possibly have. I beg for any poetics to have as one of its moves this refusal: the refusal to accept any world in which settler-colonialism is too moral, too human, too far-gone, too powerful or too vio/ent to be refused with every bone in our bodies, every conjunction in our sentences, every piece of spit creating and enacting our spells. I reject peace which leaves us displaced; I reject peace which leaves us dead and dying and severed from our land; I reject peace which is encompassed in and comprised of the bowing to power and the forgiveness of murder. This is our rootedness, our sumud; for any poetics/politics to abandon this position is for us to become the meals of history, to ensure that we continue disappearing. I reject conversation and its machineries. I reject the aesthetics of decolonization being mobilized to disguise the rot, the insatiable wellness of the settler-colonial heart.”

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Having Conversations Industrial Complex: a loose assemblage of professional speakers, non-profit organizations, astroturfed activists, diversity consultants, academic advisory boards, panelists, and politicians who are paid to generate a ‘conversation’ that doesn’t need to show tangible results. Rather, the only role of the conversation is to generate more conversations.”

―– Alex V Green, “The Emptiness and Inertia of Having Conversations” as quoted in Fargo Tbakhi’s “Being Listened To: On Philip Metres’ SHRAPNEL MAPS, Colonialism, and the Violence of Conversation”


dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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