^{Image: Doodles attempt at an (iron transfer) t-shirt, using an Oct 2023 banner. Full image is titled Organized Working Class en route to Collective Liberation and can be seen here.}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without 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.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, February 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sat, Feb 1: 5pm: EXHIBIT OPENING: Tents and Tenants: After Echo Park Lake @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
2. Thur, Feb 6, 5pm: 10th Annual Bob Marley Day Celebration by Sir Oliver. At Skid Row Museum  (250 S Broadway)
3. Thur, Feb 6, 6pm: SRCIC’s Black History Month celebration @ STAR Apartments (240 E 6th St)
4. Fri, Feb 7, 7pm: “Earth Mama” MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
5. Sat, Feb 8, 5pm –  The Giving: there is a history of the streets: Screening + panel discussion at LACAN (838 E 6th)
6. Fri, Feb 14, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
7. Sat, Feb 15, 10a-2p: 25th Annual Skid Row neighborhood’s Black History Celebration at San Julian Park.
8. Tue, Feb 18, 10:30am-12noon, Creative Writing at Skid Row Museum
9. Fri, Feb 21, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
10. Fri, Feb 21 @ 7pm – Tenants in the Streets panel discussion at Skid Row Museum.
11. Fri, Feb 28, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
12. Fri, Feb 28, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

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
Tents and Tenants: After Echo Park Lake @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), February 1 to March 31, 2025

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD
in • դի • vi • դու • էլի • sm
in [dee] vi [doo] [e-LEE] sm

wordoodles without borders | Armenian-English

դի [dee] ֊ dead body, corpse
դու [doo] ֊ you
էլի [e-lee] ֊ again

        Individualism: a system that produces դի֊s (corpses), էլի (again) and էլի (again), with դու (you) at the center, disattached from collective responsibility or care, and celebrated for it, until դու (you) are the next դի (corpse).

        Individualism: one of the most destructive tools of (neo-)liberalism: the deliberate ideology of pitting people against each other, competing with each other, and blaming each other for systemic oppressions: capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, white supremacy.

        In that sense, any gathering has anti-capitalist potential. Any gathering is an opportunity to expose the terrible violence of these systems.

        Any gathering is an opportunity to remember that there is only one inherent right we have: the right to collective struggle. The protection of human needs, nature, connection to land, and a dignified life are predicated on assuming responsibility for collective, caring, permanent struggle.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“…there is also the FEAR question. …One of the things that we talk a lot about is that in the FEAR there is also the DEMAND.
The person who is afraid of not paying rent, does not want to pay rent.
The person who is afraid of not paying rent, is angry because they have to pay rent.
The person who is afraid of not paying rent, is terribly angry because the housing conditions are not the conditions that they want. …
How do we… change the fear, and focus on the anger and the frustration? The Tenants Union is the one that provides that space.”

– Leonardo Vilchis in Abolish Rent w/ Leonardo V and Tracy Rothenthal on The Dig podcast, January 2025

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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Image: “¡Para Todos Todo! (For Everyone Everything!)” banner (edited), from 2022, a nod to the Zapatistas, to autonomy, and to abolitionist politics. When the Zapatistas say ¡Ya Basta! / Enough! / Բո՜լ ա, it is a call for unity, and for collective work towards collective liberation.

Wishing you a New Year filled with favors and sacred gifts /Շնորհավոր Նոր Տարի*, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the new year congratulatory phrase in Armenian translates as “[May you have] a New Year filled with favors / (sacred) gifts” (Շնորհավոր նոր տարի [Shnorha-VOR nor ta-REE])
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Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, January 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Thursday, Jan 2nd, 3-4:30pm – First weekly Doodles Arts Table of the year. At General Jeff Memorial Park
2. Fri, Jan 10, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
3. Fri, Jan 17, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
4. Fri, Jan 17, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
5. Tue, Jan 21, 10:30am-12noon, Creative Writing at Skid Row Museum
6. Fri, Jan 31, 5-7pm: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dept Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
7. Fri, Jan 31, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
8. Sat, Feb 1: Opening of “Tents and Tenants: after Echo Park Lake” exhibit at Skid Row Museum
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

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
February 1, 2025 – opening of new Skid Row Museum exhibit
February 6, 2025 – 10 Year Anniversary Annual Bob Marley Day with Sir Oliver! @ Skid Row Museum
February 2025 – Look out for information about 25th Annual Skid Row Black History Celebration, check UCEPP page on IG for more info

ONGOING

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
A•ԲՈԼ•ITION – a[bol]ition
բոլ [bol] – abundant; enough, that’s enough!
wordoodles without borders | Arm-Eng

Aբոլitionist politic is when love for the world is so abundant, makes it obvious that all comforts of individualized life under today’s oppressive systems is always at the cost of others’ suffering.

Aբոլitionist politic says: enough of this. No more.
No more rent.
No more prisons.
No more vio/ence of capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, colonialism, wt supremacy, and all the fear and hatred of difference–from anti-Black to anti-trans to anti-poor–these systems feed on.
No more exploitation of people, land, and any part of nature.

Aբոլitionist politic makes it abundantly clear: “none of us are free until all of us are free” is a lifelong collective practice. And it’s hard; keeping in mind everyone’s humanity in day-to-day organizing practices is hard, but essential to liberation work.
With permission to be imperfect in good faith.

To a collectivist, aբոլitionist 2025!

To see the full newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/3000896c5b2d/january2025


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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH – PAIRINGS

“Instead of doing to settler society what they did to us–geno//ding, removing, excluding–there is a capaciousness to Indigenous resistance movements that welcomes in non-Indigenous peoples into our struggle, because our primary strength is that of relationality, one of making kin.” 
– Nick Estes, The Red Nation Movement, speaking on Democracy Now

“Had Pa/estinians not resisted, their story would have concluded… and they would have disappeared.”
– Dr. Ramzy Baroud, ” ‘The Essence of being Pa/estinian’: what the Great March of Return is really about“

“The LandBack movement is less about a mass real estate transaction that it is about sovereignty, recognition of treaties, and, ultimately, the abolition of united states’ concept of real estate altogether.”
– B. “Toastie” Oaster at bit.ly/LandBackQuestions

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To see the full newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/3000896c5b2d/january2025
For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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Image: “Th-enk-skee-ving / We are in mourning” wordoodle, 2023,  a reminder that a day we are told is associated with giving thanks, family, and friendship actually whitewashes geno//de of Indigenous peoples and stolen land. Scroll down to THOUGHTS ALOUD section for more, including celebrating resistance.

Kind light /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the 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.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, December 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Thur, Nov 28: Day of Remembrance, Day of Mourning, and Day of Collective Resistance, saying “No Thanks, No Giving” to Settler-Colonial Revisionism of historic and ongoing geno//dal policies against the Indigenous peoples of occupied Turtle Island
2. Fri, Nov 29, 3pm: International Day of Solidarity with Pa/es/inian People @ Tongva Park (1615 Ocean Av, Santa Monica)
3. Fri, Nov 29, 5-7pm: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
   
4. Friday, Dec 6th, 10am-5pm – Re/Sound Festival by Street Symphony @ Midnight Mission
5. Fri, Dec 6, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
6. Fri, Dec 13, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
7. Fri, Dec 13, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
8. Sat, Dec 14, 2pm: Covid Hotel Performance…welcomes you to the future + Closing Event  @ A Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
9. Mon, Dec 16, 7-9pm: Sidewalk Project Women’s Center Grand Opening
10. Friday, Dec 20, 5-8pm, Holiday Party at Skid Row Museum
11. Sat, Dec 21, 12-4pm: Holiday Called Home – Celebration by Urban Voices at Budokan (249 S Los Angeles St)
12. Fri, Dec 27, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

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
February 1, 2025 – opening of new Skid Row Museum exhibit

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 14, 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
MOURNING, IRREFORMABILITY, COLLECTIVE RESISTANCE
For those of us living in u.s. empire, the history of this land stretches far beyond united states and mexico, before conquest and colonization, and will doubtlessly continue long after. It is in our hands to contribute to bringing post-conquest era sooner.
We are on unceded, occupied, stolen Indigenous land. “Thanksgiving” is a cover-up of ongoing geno//dal policies and practices, irreformable but replaceable, from vio/ence-centering to collective care-centering, changing our relationship with land and with each other in the process, informed by Indigenous-led organizations and groups unified by the call for LANDBACK. Regionally and continentally, Red Nation is a great place to start, and locally Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy (where you can also make a periodic contribution if you are able).
There is also a long tradition of gatherings to mark this day as a Day of Mourning, Un-thanksgiving Day / Sunrise Ceremony , and generally honor, uplift, and celebrate collective resistance! 
LANDBACK as an inspiration for this collective resistance to colonialism and to the logic of profit over people, both locally and globally, from Skid Row and Little Tokyo, to Pa/est/ne, Artsakh, Sudan, Congo, and beyond. 

A note on wordoodles. Wordoodles, like the image at the top of this newsletter, are an ongoing project meant to uplift Armenian and Pa/es/inian, Indigenous, Black and Brown, Working Class and all oppressed peoples’ solidarities, and to contribute to cultivating collective work that is միաSEEN. Wordoodles can be currently found on the @doodleswithoutborders instagram page.

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

For this quote of the month, so honored and excited to share a quote (from a quote 🙂 ) from a mini- syllabus by @kimi_hanauer and @practice_liberation 

“[T]here isn’t, there’s never been, and there never will be anything but now. And even if the past can act upon the now, this is because it has itself never been anything but a now. Just as our tomorrow will be. The only way to understand something in the past is to understand that it too used to be a now. It’s to feel the faint breath of the air in which the human beings of yesterday lived their lives. If we are so much inclined to flee from now, it’s because now is the time of decision.”

– ‘Now’ by the Invisible Committee (2017), excerpt as part of the ‘organization means commitment’ by grace lee boggs, ‘theory as a liberatory practice’ by bell hooks, and ‘now’ by the invisible committee (check out the whole thing!) mini-syllabus by @kimi_hanauer and @practice_liberation 

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

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Image: A work in progress “Community Means” banner that was started last weekend, at the 15th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists, October 2024.

Kind light /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
…
-> SAY NO TO ARTWASHING AND DISPLACEMENT! UPDATES regarding the open letter from last month in this Hyperallergic article. You can still sign the OPEN LETTER here: bit.ly/RVEncampmentOpenLetter
-> LOOKING FOR a movement rooted, collectivist, working class, tenant power centering VOTING GUIDE? Go to VOTERGUIDE.LA ! 

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, October 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sat, Nov 2, 3pm-7pm – Dia De Los Muertos @ Eastside Cafe (5469 Huntington Dr)
2. Sun, Nov 3, 2pm: Marx’s Capital, Chapter 1 – Book discussion by @thepublicschoolla at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Friday, Nov 1, 6pm, Dia De Los Muertos Theatrical Performance and Procession at Olvera Street (across from Union Station)
4. Sat, Nov 2, 3-7pm: Dia De Los Muertos @ Eastside Cafe (5469 Huntington Dr)
5. Sat, Nov 2, 6pm: Dia De Los Muertos Theatrical Performance and Procession at Olvera Street (across from Union Station)
6. Thu, Nov 7, 3-4:30pm: Doodles Arts Table @ General Jeff (Gladys) Park CHANGES to Thursdays 3-4:30pm
7. Fri, Nov 8, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
8. Wed, Nov 13, 5pm: MOVIE IN THE PARK @ San Julian Park (Movie starts at dusk)
9. Fri, Nov 15, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
10. Friday, Nov 15, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
11. ***SUNDAY, NOV 17, 3-5pm: Windows of Little Bronze Tokyo Culmination Celebration @ Azay in Little Tokyo (226 1st St)***
12. Tues, Nov 19, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
13. Thur, Nov 28: Day of Remembrance and Collective Celebration of Resistance, saying “No Thanks, No Giving” to Settler- Colonial Revisionism of historic and ongoing geno//dal policies against the Indigenous peoples of occupied Turtle Island
14. Fri, Nov 29, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

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
Fri, Dec 6th, 10am-5pm – Re/Sound Festival by Street Symphony @ Midnight Mission

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
HALLOWEEN AS COMMUNITY
Looking at the history and pre-Christian origins of Samhain, then All Saints/Hollows Day (Dia de los Muertos) and Eve/ Halloween, thinking that perhaps this is actually the one deeply relational holiday celebration that we have. From celebrating harvest, to coming together and seeking protection for wintertime, learning from and honoring our dead, Halloween touches on our relationship with the personal and collective, with death, with our fears, as well as with joy and celebration. It is also directly connected to seasons, associated with mutual support, with cycles. 
Halloween has been coopted in many ways, but it has been very resistant to homogenizing, having a layered relationship with individual and collective human condition, belonging and otherness. Halloween as a collectivist, queer and trans(formational) celebration. Halloween as one of the many ways to come together in disassembling institutions of vio/ence–capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, settler-colonialism, patriarchy, heteronormativity–and replace them with collective life affirming institutions. 

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Personal advancement has become the proof of self-determination, a ridiculous belief but one that is nevertheless strongly held. The breakdown of collective identification… has set in motion an increasing individualist identification fed by popular culture, the structure of the market, and the beurocracy of everyday life.“

– from “Neo-Colonialism and Indigenous Structures” (1990)in the book From a Native Daughter by Haunani-Kay Trask, a leader in Hawaiian anti-colonial movement for self-determination and self-government

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

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Image: “Free Skid Row, Free Pa|est¡ne” banner that was started just under a year ago, at the 14th Annual Festival of Skid Row Artists, late October 2023. Later this month, Oct 26-27, will be the 15th Annual Festival.

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
…
SAY NO TO ARTWASHING AND DISPLACEMENT! LA County Department of Arts and Culture recently released an RFQ for artists to “beautify areas after an RV resolution”–in other words, to use art to cover up and erase displacement of RV residents. Join in signing an OPEN LETTER opposing this: bit.ly/RVEncampmentOpenLetter

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, October 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Wed, Oct 2, 4:30-6pm: – Doodles w/o Borders Arts table at General Jeff Park
2. Fri, Oct 4, 7pm, Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Wed, October 9, 6p – MOVIE in the PARK @ General Jeff Park (movie starts at dusk)
4. Fri, October 11, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
5. Tues, Oct 15, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
6. Fri, Oct 18, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
7. Friday, Oct 18, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
8. Fri, Oct 25, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
9. Saturday and Sunday, Oct 26-27, 12-4pm, 15th Annual FESTIVAL FOR ALL SKID ROW ARTISTS at General Jeff (formerly Gladys) Park, 808 E 6th St, 90021.  To sign up to perform, and for more information email at info@lapovertydept.org or call 213-413.1077
   
   Creative I will be GUEST HOSTING at Doodles without Borders Arts Table on Oct 9 and 16, 4:30-6pm! (location: General Jeff Park)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

Local to downtown LA and nearby: Memorials, Vigils, Protests marking one year of intensified geno//de of Pa/est/nians and connections to imperialist geno//dal vio/lence from Artsakh to Skid Row, Turtle Island, and across the world:
1) Sat, Oct 5, 2pm: One Year of Geno//de, One Year (+107 years) of Resistance at Pershing Square
2) Sun, Oct 6, 4:30pm: Jewish Voice for Peace LA – Anti-Apartheid Tashlich @ Echo Park Lake, Lady of the Lake Statue
3) Sun, Oct 6, 6:30pm: Vigil for Palestine and Artsakh @ Echo Park Lake, near Lady of the Lake Statue – none of us are free until all of us are free

SAVE THE DATE
Nov 17th, 3-5pm – Culminating Celebration of Windows of Little Bronze Tokyo Project

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
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THOUGHTS ALOUD
Fargo Tbakhi: “NOTES ON CRAFT: WRITING IN THE HOUR OF GENO//DE“

I was going to write about the importance of recognizing [our own and others’] cluelessness, but that’s for another time. A couple of weeks ago I was introduced by a friend to a text that I think should be required reading for all creative people. Today I’d like to share an excerpt from Fargo Tbakhi’s “Notes on Craft: Writing in the Hour of Geno//de.”

“What does Pa/est/ne require of us, as writers writing in English from within the imperial core, in this moment of geno//de? I want to offer here some notes and some directions towards beginning to answer this question.

I
Craft is a machine built to produce and reproduce ethical failures; it is a counterrevolutionary machine.

I use “Craft” here to describe the network of sanitizing influences exerted on writing in the English language: the influences of neoliberalism, of complicit institutions, and of the linguistic priorities of the state and of empire. Anticolonial writers in the U.S. and across the globe have long modeled alternative crafts which reject these priorities, and continue to do so in this present moment. Yet Craft still haunts our writing; these notes aim to clarify it, so we can rid ourselves of its influence.  

Above all, Craft is the result of market forces; it is therefore the result of imperial forces, as the two are so inextricably bound up together as to be one and the same. The Craft which is taught in Western institutions, taken up and reproduced by Western publishers, literary institutions, and awards bodies, is a set of regulatory ideas which curtail forms of speech that might enact real danger to the constellation of economic and social values which are, as I write this, facilitating geno//de in Pa/est/ne and elsewhere across the globe. If, as Audre Lorde taught us, the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house, then Craft is the process by which our own real liberatory tools are dulled, confiscated, and replaced. We believe our words sharper than they turn out to be. We play with toy hammers and think we can break down concrete. We think a spoon is a saw.
… …

We have to abandon [this Craft] and write with sharper teeth, without politeness, without compromise. We have to learn, or build, or steal, or steal back, the craft we need for the long |nt¡fada, which we carry with us to liberation and beyond.”

Full text here.

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH / Pairings: Zabel Yesayan, Leila Khaled, Ismatu Gwendolyn 

“Literature is not an ornament, a pleasant pastime, a pretty flower. Literature is a weapon to struggle against injustice.” – Zabel Yesayan, novelist, political figure before an during first and second Armenian Republics, late 19th / early 20th century

“Israel and the United States did not boycott the [South African] apartheid. Boycotting oppression must be a culture”. – Leila Khaled, freedom fighter in the Pa/est/nian liberation movement, born in 1944, 3 years before the geno//dal ethnostate of /s/ae/ was formed

“We want the fiction of a happy ending more than we want actual liberation in of itself.” – Ismatu Gwendolyn, writer, collectivist, revolutionary, part of a long history of Black Radical Tradition on Turtle Island (so-called united states)

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

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^{Image: “THE BRAVE ONES replace colonialism with liberation” banner, still in progress, Doodles’ contribution to the 9th Annual Jamaican Independence Day celebration in Skid Row neighborhood, August 2024. Anniversary of the beginning of the Haitian Revolution is also in August. Note: “Carib” likely meant “the brave one, the brave warrior” in Arawak language.}

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (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.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, September 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. TOMORROW, Monday, Sept 2, 12-3pm: – LABOR DAY Celebration at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
2. Friday, Sept 6, 7pm, Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Wed, Sept 11, 6p – MOVIE in the PARK @ San Julian Park (movie starts at dusk)
4. Fri, Sept 13, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
5. Tues, Sept 17, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
6. Friday, Sept 20, 7pm, Movie Night “Marley” at Skid Row Museum
7. Friday, Sept 27, 5-7:30pm, Open Mic with Lorinda @ Skid Row Museum
8. Fri, Sept 27, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)

Until September 15th: LAST TWO WEEKS to catch  “Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West” at Wende Museum in Culver City, including a number of Skid Row neighborhood artists from OG Man to Lan to Linda Leigh to Gary Brown and more. Entrance is Free. Fri-Sun 10a-5p (10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230)

To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

SAVE THE DATE
Sat-Sun, October 26-27: 15th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists. Follow LA Poverty Department for more info

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
Grief affirms Life
This month will be one year since the total genocidal banishment of over 100,000 Artsakh Armenians from their ancestral lands in September 2023–a continuation of an ongoing Turkish/Ottoman intentional geno//dal vio/ence against Armenians that dates back more than 100 years. Only a couple of weeks later the intensification of geno//dal /s/ae/i onslaught on Pa/est/nians began.
Grief and mourning are rooted in love of life, love of collective life. One part of honoring, remembering the lives of those who were killed and banished is clarity, so much clarity in centering transnational working class struggle and collective liberation. Doodles without Borders commitment to PACBI is one node in this work.

Doodles without Borders PACBI Statement of Solidarity
(you can find the statement in English and Armenian at bit.ly/DoodlesPACBI, and the corresponding IG post with doodle here)

In total solidarity with the people of Pa/estine, Doodles without Borders commits to adhering to the Pa/estinian international call for Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions (BDS) & to complying with the underlying guidelines of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of /s/ael (PACBI).

This commitment links to two key aspects of Doodles’ identity.
First, we do a majority of our work in LA’s Skid Row neighborhood – a low income working class neighborhood with a large number of unhoused residents, part of Black LA, one of the largest recovery communities in the world, and on the receiving end of the violence stemming from existential pillars of u.s. empire: capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, settler-colonialism.
Second, we ground in our connection to Armenian heritage, part of the vast SWANA–South West Asia & North Africa–region, and on the receiving end of imperial genocidal violence from multiple directions. 

Both these realities, reflected in daily lived experience, help inform us about the interconnectedness of racial/ethnic, economic, imperialist, colonial, genocidal state violences. The resources intentionally not going for universal housing, healthcare, education, and equitable access to a dignified life in Skid Row neighborhood and across u.s. empire, are the very resources subsidizing is/ae/i arms sales and directly supplying aze/o-tu/kish imperial genocidal ambitions in Armenian Artsakh and across the region, as well as funding the intensified genocide of Pa/estinians.

For all these reasons and out of absolute commitment to Pa/estinian life and freedom, Doodles without Borders commits to:
• boycott any cultural product or event funded, commissioned, &/or sponsored by an official /s/aeli body
• not collaborate with or take money from /s/aeli institutions
• refuse “normalization” efforts seeking to justify Israel’s violence or present a false symmetry between oppressed & oppressor
• advocate for others to similarly divest from /s/ael and end support for the oppression of Pa/estinians.

Doodles without Borders is rooted in arts and cultural work as essential en route to collective liberation, and the understanding that none of us are free until all of us are free.  

For more information or for support drafting a PACBI commitment for your organization, contact: pacbi@wawog.com go to @wawog_now and writersagainstthewarongaza.com/pacbi
 

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH / Pairings: Zabel Yesayan, Leila Khaled, Ismatu Gwendolyn 

“Literature is not an ornament, a pleasant pastime, a pretty flower. Literature is a weapon to struggle against injustice.” – Zabel Yesayan, novelist, political figure before an during first and second Armenian Republics, late 19th / early 20th century

“Israel and the United States did not boycott the [South African] apartheid. Boycotting oppression must be a culture”. – Leila Khaled, freedom fighter in the Pa/est/nian liberation movement, born in 1944, 3 years before the geno//dal ethnostate of /s/ae/ was formed

“We want the fiction of a happy ending more than we want actual liberation in of itself.” – Ismatu Gwendolyn, writer, collectivist, revolutionary, part of a long history of Black Radical Tradition on Turtle Island (so-called united states)

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

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^{Image: General Jeff Memorial People’s Park banner, which is up during the Doodles arts tables, Weds 4:30-6pm}

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (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.

Upcoming on August 8th!
WINDOWS OF BRONZE LITTLE TOKYO – Opening Celebration Thursday, August 8th, 4:30-7:30pm at LACAN (838 E 6th St). It is an honor to be one of the coordinators for this project. Please join and bring friends!  
Five incredible artists are bringing together a multifaceted, interactive program!
4:30-6pm: Comics and Style Lettering workshops (try to come on time, but ok to drop in!)
5:30-6pm: Red Carpet Interviews
6pm: Drumming Performance
6:15-7pm: Panel Discussion about connections and parallels between Skid Row and Little Tokyo, Japanese/Asian and Black communities.
Artwork on display throughout the event!

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, August 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join
Friday, Aug 2, 6pm: – Anti-geno//de Pa/es//ne solidarity protest, LA City Hall

Friday, Aug 2, 7pm, Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)

Thur, Aug 8, 1pm Food distro – then 2pm-  Ase Ase Drummers with Ray @ San Julian Park

Thur, Aug 8, 4:30-7:30p: OPENING Celebration of Windows Project: Skid Row – Little Tokyo collaboration at LACAN (838 E 6th St) – Join us!

Fri, Aug 9, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)

Wed, Aug 14, 6p – MOVIE in the PARK @ General Jeff (Gladys) Park (movie starts at dusk)

Fri, Aug 16, 3-5pm: Black August community event @ LACAN

Fri, Aug 16, 6-8pm:HRW report on Criminalization-  Release Event @ LACAN

Friday, Aug 16, 7pm, Movie Night “Marley” at Skid Row Museum

Tues, Aug 20, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum

Fri, Aug 23, 4-7pm: 9th Annual JAMAICAN INDEPENDENCE DAY Celebration in Skid Row @ Skid Row Museum

Sat, Aug 24, 2-5pm: Annual Coffeehouse by Urban Voices at Inner City Arts. Go to urbanvoicesproject.org  or details

Friday, Aug 30, 5-7:30pm, Open Mic with Lorinda@ Skid Row Museum

Fri, Aug 30, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)

To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

SAVE THE DATE
>>>NEXT WEEK: August 8, Thurs, 4:30-7:30pm at LA CAN: Opening Reception of the Windows of Bronze Little Tokyo project, Skid Row and Little Tokyo shared past, present, and future.
>>>Aug 23rd, 4-7pm- 9th annual Sir Oliver’s Jamaican Independence Day 

ONGOING
1) “Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024
2) “Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West” at Wende Museum in Culver City, including a number of Skid Row neighborhood artists is up until September 2024. Entrance is Free. Fri-Sun 10a-5p (10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
Why am I talking: SKID ROW IS PERSONAL
I don’t and haven’t lived in Skid Row neighborhood. So I do not have the knowledge and experience of someone who lives or has lived in Skid Row, either on the streets, in a shelter, or in an apartment. 
I believe it is paramount for anyone who wants to align with Skid Row neighborhood related work but does not live there, to find ways to support and contribute time and resources to housed and unhoused resident-led collective power building, mutual support oriented groups, or supporting individual residents working to cultivate such groups. It can happen in different ways, but that is for another post.

Although I do not live in Skid Row, it does not mean that my work in Skid Row is not personal. It is very personal. I grew up in a poor working class family in Armenia, came to occupied Turtle Island in 1999 with my parents. They were never able to do that thing of buying a house, so there isn’t a place I can “fall back on” or “inherit”. Today I am a tenant in so-called Los Angeles region, and the connection between housed and unhoused tenants (tenant: person who does not control their own housing, thank you LATU!) is very clear to me. I also support my mother, who is herself a tenant in Armenia.
And as an Armenian, I come from a people, part of whose population (Artsakh) went through geno//dal banishment from ancestral lands just last year (the latest in cycle of erasure going back 100+ years), with majority of weapons being subsidized by u.s. funding (by way of Is/ae/ arms sales to Aзe/ba/jan, and major Tu/kish support). And I come from a region (South West Asia), a part of which, Pa/es//ne, is currently going through an intensified geno//de, directly financed by u.s. empire.  The money used to commit these geno//des in the part of the world I come from (as well as massive, devastating vio/ence in many other parts of the world from Africa, to East Asia, to South America and beyond), is exactly the money deliberately withheld from going for universal housing, healthcare, education, food access, etc in u.s.  Skid Row is at the receiving end of this massive domestic vio/ence, rooted in the overlap of anti-poor, anti-Indigenous, anti-Black genoc//al oppression across the country as a central, irreformable feature of u.s. imperial project.
So Skid Row is very personal. 16 years ago when I first starting working here, I did not understand all this. But along with long-term collaborations, friendships, and connections, these years brought the clarity that doing work in Skid Row makes a lot of sense for a (forced) migrant living inside u.s. empire. It can be one of the ways to seek out alignment with collective liberation minded Indigenous and Black working class led groups in u.s. empire, en route to liberation for everyone, across the planet.

And during Black August, it is also especially important to be reminded that Skid Row neighborhood is part of Black LA, and has it’s place in the creative, joyful, loving, caring, collective, abolitionist resistance work of freeing all political prisoners and abolishing prisons and jails. For more Black August resources, here is one starting point: bit.ly/BARHandbook
 

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH / Pairings: Mumia Abu Jamal and M. NourbeSe Philip

“August is a month of meaning, of repression and radical resistance, of injustice and divine justice; of repression and righteous rebellion; of individual and collective efforts to free the slaves and break the chains that bind us.”
― Mumia Abu Jamal, member of Black Panther Party, political prisoner and tireless author, journalist, activist, quoted in Malcolm X Grassroots Movement post at the top of this month; for more Black August resources bit.ly/BARHandbook

“I want poetry to disassemble the ordered, to create disorder and mayhem so as to release the story that cannot be told, but which, through not-telling, will tell itself. ”
― M. NourbeSe Philip, poet and writer with Afro-Carribean roots, author of Zong! 

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

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^{Image: Juneteenth banner 2024 – still a work in progress, much like the promised liberation it symbolizes. Celebrating and continuing the fight for Black liberation and collective liberation. June 2024}

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (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.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, July 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join
Tue, July 2, 930am: Shut Down City Hall – rally against city plan to fund a private z¡0nist militia @ Main St entrance to LA City Hall

Thursday, July 4th, 3pm: The People’s Fourth at 200 N Grand

Friday, July 5, 7pm, Movie Night “DawnLand” at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)

Wed, July 10, 6p – MOVIE in the PARK @ San Julian Park (movie starts at dusk)

Fri, July 12, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)

Tues, July 16, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum

Friday, July 19, 12-3pm – Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th St)

Friday, July 19, 6pm: BOOK SIGNING of “A Journey of Love, Mental Health, and Overcoming Stigma” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)

Friday, July 19, 7pm, Movie Night “District of Second Chances” at Skid Row Museum

Friday, July 26, 5-7:30pm, Open Mic with Lorinda @ Skid Row Museum

Fri, July 26, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters

To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

SAVE THE DATE
ALL of August – look out for Black August related activities in and near Skid Row neighborhood
Aug 23rd- 9th annual Sir Oliver‘s Jamaican Independence Day 
August 8, Thurs, 4:30-7:30pm at LA CAN: Opening Reception of the Windows of Bronze Little Tokyo project, Skid Row and Little Tokyo shared past, present, and future.
Aug 24, Sun, 2-5pm, COFFEEHOUSE by Urban Voices at Inner City Arts

ONGOING
1) “Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024
2) “Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West” at Wende Museum in Culver City, including a number of Skid Row neighborhood artists is up until September 2024. Entrance is Free. Fri-Sun 10a-5p (10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every third Friday, 12-3pm as part of LACAN‘s Marketplace (838 E 6th St)
4) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
DISABILITY JUSTICE, NORMALCY, COLLECTIVE LIBERATION
Last month I was at an event, admiring Queen Mama Tabia’s openness to talk about living with mental illness / being neurodivergent, and how she pushes back on stigma by doing so. During the Q&A, there was a question in the audience that, in part, came down to: “is mental illness manufactured”? And knee jerk reaction is “oh, this is denial of reality”, because indeed a lot of the stigma around discussing mental illness often comes from questioning if one or other aspect or characteristic associated with it is “real.”
To be sure, whether you call it mental illness, neurodivergence, or by another name or phrase, it is real, and there many ways to find support.

At the same time, it is worth looking at this as a question about our society, and how it manufactures “normalcy”, because there is actually lots to talk about here. We see how our society makes anyone who does not fit the various combinations of the cookie cutter –“white”, “man”, cis-hetero, Christian, “Western”, still able bodied, neurotypical, etc, and of course “rich/ middle class” –feel like we are somehow individually deficient. The social model of disability (video)–a disability justice framework that gives a definition to ableism and explains that disability is a result of barriers in society, rather than an individual’s impairment or difference–refutes this normalcy/deficiency relationship. It is also incredibly helpful in explaining how our dominant oppressive systems’ (capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, patriarchy) fantasy of “normalcy” tries to suffocate nearly all of us, pathologizes and portrays difference as deficiency. From anti-Black and ant-trans to anti-immigrant, anti-unhoused, and anti-disabled policies and systems, our current society’s lethal lack of imagination reminds us every day that fighting for collective liberation is not a choice, but the very thing that gives life meaning.

Following and learning from disabled people is a great way to better understand the deep intersectionality of liberation work and to collectivize our struggles against capitalism. With the permission to be imperfect. Two amazing starting points: Sins Invalid (and their IG), and Disability Visibility (and their IG). Mental illness (or neuro-divergence; neuro-expansiveness) is real, but normalcy is indeed manufactured. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Added 07/03/24:
And entire topic that I did not touch is how stress and trauma overlaps and is caused by the mass disabling our society so loves to practice.
Being affected by the force of our society’s violent fantasy of normacly is deeply traumatic and stressful. All of us are affected by it. We experience different combinations of being disabled–for example people who are disabled physically or cognitively also being disabled economically, racially, along gender and sexuality lines, etc.–and these combinations exasperate the stress and trauma already experienced from being disabled by any one of the dominant oppressive systems.

I am a person who has worked for years with a lot of people who live with mental illness / are neurodivergent, am an uncle to a nephew who lives with schizophrenia, and I recently started learning about and understanding that I may also possibly be on a neurodivergent spectrum (may be specifically ADHD spectrum), while having been socialized (like most of us) to conform to fit the narrow violent parameters of “normalcy.”
 

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH / Pairings: Marx, Rivera, and Samudzi

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”
― Karl Marx, analyst of capitalism

“You live in a white middle-class fantasy.”― Sylvia Rivera, revolutionary, trans activist

“The inclusion of marginalized identities and experiences without decentering dominant narratives is an understanding of diversity that leaves oppressive structures intact, and in fact, insulates them from criticism. Diversity is very frequently the linchpin of liberal racism in education, and inclusivity becomes functionally useless if we do not also exclude via decentering violent normativities positioned as normal.”
― Zoé Samudzi, writer, activist

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

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^{Image: 2024 Walk the Talk honorees, celebrating visionaries, artists, activists of Skid Row neighborhood. Portraits by Hayk Makhmuryan, arranged by him in a way to reveal an image of the Pa/est¡nian flag. May 2024}

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
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Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, June 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join
Friday, June 7, 7pm, Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)

Sat, June 8, 11a-4pm: Afro-futurist Ancestor Masks & Fans workshop , led by LA Commons @ LA Central Library

Wed, June 12, 6p – MOVIE in the PARK @General Jeff  or San Julian Park

Fri, June 14, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)

Sat, June 15, 10:30a-3p: Juneteenth Celebration at CA African-American Museum (near Figueroa/ Exposition)

Tues, June 18, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum

Wed, June 19, 1-5pm – JUNETEENTH with Sir Oliver at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)

Friday, June 21, 12-3pm – Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th St)

Friday, June 21, 7pm: Movie Night at Skid Row Museum

Sat, Jun 22, 10a-12p: Parables Convening: an Octavia Butler Celebration at LA Central Library

Friday, June 28, 5-7:30pm, Open Mic with Lorinda @ Skid Row Museum

Fri, June 28, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters

To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

SAVE THE DATE
August 8 or 9: Opening Reception of the Windows of Bronze Little Tokyo project, Skid Row and Little Tokyo shared past, present, and future.

ONGOING
1) “Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024
2) “Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West” at Wende Museum in Culver City, including a number of Skid Row neighborhood artists is up until September 2024. Entrance is Free. Fri-Sun 10a-5p (10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every third Friday, 12-3pm as part of LACAN‘s Marketplace (838 E 6th St)
4) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
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THOUGHTS ALOUD
NEIGHBORHOOD IDENTITY AS RESISTANCE
Last month in Skid Row neighborhood included the Walk the Talk parade and Come Together and the unveiling of the General Jeff Mural at the Skid Row park now named after him. In other words, taking community (and you know we don’t use the word “community” lightly here at Doodles; community as inherently anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, among other things) control and care of a more and more visible Skid Row neighborhood identity through arts and cultural work!
Skid Row Neighborhood …Pride! …Art and Music Legacy! …Vision! …Archives! …Open Mics! …Creating Justice! …Harm Reduction! …Roots, Culture and African diaspora!
It was an absolute honor to be the community coordinator for the mural project, and above all, to make the portraits for this year’s honorees, all of whom I’ve known for many years! I think of these portraits as a mini-series, and the collective title for them in my mind is “We Already Are”, an homage to a short essay by So California Library’s Yusef Omowale, who talks from the Black/ African diasporan perspective rooted in Black radical tradition, and in the process gets at the heart of a collective liberation framework for everyone.
An LA Times article also highlighted all the honorees and asked me about the portraits:”Each of the portraits has a map of Skid Row neighborhood — 3rd to 7th and Alameda to Main — and then zooms in on one part and imagines, for instance, a street being named after Gary Brown. The work that happens in the Skid Row neighborhood is not in a vacuum. It’s part of the larger work. It’s important when we make global connections — there is a genocide happening in Pa/est¡ne now — to ask how it is related. Because actually, it is related to things that happen that are sometimes very local. One direct way is that the money that’s not going to places like the Skid Row neighborhood is going overseas to bombs.”
#SkidRowConnected = Free Pa/est¡ne = Free Skid Row = loving, caring, joyful collective liberation work
 

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Every month in u.s. imperial calendar is yet another oppressed minority month. Is yet another way that the system works tirelessly to co-opt and integrate. And invariably there are voices pushing against this cooptation. June is Pride Month, LGBTQIA+ Month, and it is no different.

[We are] “…living in a historical moment in which the conservative anxiety and despair about queers bringing down civilization and its institutions… is met by the anxiety and despair so many queers feel about the failure or incapacity of queerness to bring down civilization and its institutions, and their frustration with the assimilationist, unthinkingly neoliberal bent of the mainstream GLBTQ+ movement…
…[Y]ou can be victimized and in no way be radical; it happens very often among homosexuals as with every other oppressed minority. (Leo Bersani). This is not a devaluation of queerness. It is a reminder: if we want to do more than claw our way into repressive structures, we have our work cut out for us.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

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

For this Newsletter in full: https://mailchi.mp/cfbfee263946/walk-the-talk-roots-may2024

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^{Image: “Արմատ / Armat” (meaning “Root” in Armenian) banner, decorated by dozens of children, at Glendale Library’s annual Armat Armenian Cultural Celebration, April 2024}

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
…
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TONIGHT
Tue, April 30, 4:30pm – LA Tenants Union Rally, Pershing Square, announcing newest Downtown/Skid Row Local of LA Tenants Union!

ART ACTION ITEM
CALL FOR ARTISTS, register by May 3rd! – Artist connected to Skid Row or Little Tokyo? Windows of Little Bronze Tokyo community orientation (orientation is on May 11th)! FREE and Open to any and all creative practices. Register at bit.ly/sltwindows by May 3rd, required in order to attend the orientation. 

ART EVENT OF THE MONTH
Saturday, May 25, 12-4pm: WALK THE TALK Parade, celebrating Skid Row visionaries, organized by Los Angeles Poverty Department. Starting point is Skid Row museum (250 S Broadway). Portraits of this year’s honorees by yours truly (it was an absolute honor to be asked to make them!) 


HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, May 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join
1) Wed, May 1, 4:30pm: May Day Worker’s Rally at MacArthur Park
2) Friday, May 3, 7pm, Movie Night “Propriedad: Privados” and “Falling Up” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3) Fri, May 10, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
4) Sat, May 11th – 2-6pm: Annual People’s Kite Festival by Clockshop at LA State Historic Park. Doodles will be there with a table!
5) Thursday, May 16th, 11:45a-1:30p: Largest Drum Circle in LA, in downtown’s Grand Park
6) Thurs, May 16, 2pm – Ase Ase Drummers from the Heart @ General Jeff Park
7) Friday, May 17, 12-3pm – Marketplace at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
8) Friday, May 17, 7pm: Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum
9) Sat, May 18, 10a-4pm – ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY Party at Peace/Healing (116 E 5th St)
10) Sat, May 18, 2-4:30pm – COME TOGETHER – Honoring 8 more Skid Row visionaries @ Skid Row Museum
11) Tues, May 21, 10:30-12 –  Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
12) Sat, May 25, 12-4pm: WALK THE TALK Parade is back!
13) Friday, May 31, 5-7:30pm, Open Mic with Lorinda@ Skid Row Museum
14) Fri, May 31, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters

To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

SAVE THE DATE
Juneteenth: Keep an eye out for Skid Row Juneteenth Celebration on or around June 19th.

ONGOING
1) “Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024
2) “Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West” at Wende Museum in Culver City, including a number of Skid Row neighborhood artists is up until September 2024. Entrance is Free. Fri-Sun 10a-5p (10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least FOUR open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every third Friday, 12-3pm as part of LACAN‘s Marketplace (838 E 6th St)
4) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUND
ROOTS, MOUNTAINS, and WALKING THE TALK. Earlier this month, Doodles without Borders participated in a Glendale Library event called “Armat” (meaning “Root” in Armenian), celebrating Armenian cultural history. April 24th is also the Armenian genocide commemoration day, with the wounds still fresh from geno//dal final stage of ethnic banishment of Artsakh Armenians in Sept 2023, and the connections to the geno//de of Palestinians as well as economic and racial banishment of Black and Brown and Indigenous, poor and unhoused, working class people right here in Skid Row and across Turtle Island all the more visible. Whether cultural roots or roots of the devastating inequalities we experience and see all around us, understanding our roots, the roots is a prerequisite to firm and principled solidarities and alignments. A prerequisite to understanding that We are Our Mountains: a metaphor of rootedness and resistance instantly understood by Armenians, that also has echos across liberation movements in many parts of the world. I remember hearing it from Ruthie Gilmore in the same context (in the “Abolition on Stolen Lands” talk), in reference to Cuba, Vietnam, and beyond, whether the place is with actual mountainous terrain or not. The moment she said “the people have to be the mountains,” I had tears in my eyes.

From Skid Row neighborhood to all of Turtle Island, Palestine, Kurdistan, today’s Armenia, Artsakh, Armenian highlands, and beyond–despite capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal, imperialist violence –people upon people are and choose to be the mountains.

Finally, on May 25th LA Poverty Department will be rolling out Skid Row neighborhood’s 7th biennial Walk the Talk Parade, celebrating some of the people who are the mountains in Skid Row!
 

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.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Continuing with Charisse this month, from the same talk (link to video right after the quote), because it’s THAT good, and it is so much about thinking creatively, and beyond borders we are typically boxed in.

“…we are inside united states, but that does not make us americans, Malcolm X says this.   …Racism will never be resolved in the context of u.s. nation state.
When you ascribe to americanism, you ascribe to imperialism, to the oppression of the overwhelming majority of the people in the world, who are colonized people, racialized people, and people who are the sufferers under imperialism. So there is no way to believe in the *american project* and to be a revolutionary, or to even be a progressive. They are just fundamentally incompatible. And it does not mean [physically leaving] …Some people say, “well, go back to Africa,” or “go back to where ever you came from.”  But it’s just like [how] we all participate in capitalism, even as we are working to overthrow it. Well, some of us are.
…There are just so many life affirming, human, flourishing identifications that we can have. And it does not have to be with ‘america.’ “

― Charisse Burden-Stelly, speaking on her book “Black Scare, Red Scare” (link to youtube video interview: bit.ly/blackscare-redscare)

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

For this Newsletter in full: https://mailchi.mp/cfbfee263946/walk-the-talk-roots-may2024

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