Dutch Designer Kars Alfrink has been putting Jane Jacob’s urbanist principles into practice the fun way–turning public spaces all across Europe into interactive playgrounds for kids and adults alike.

“I was inspired by Jane Jacobs and her thoughts about the emergent, complex order of city life,” said Alfrink, who founded Hubbub, the first design studio specializing in physical social games for public spaces this year. “I think there’s a real role for urban games there…[they] can be used to encourage good citizenship, to improve social cohesion and to enable cultural participation.”

With Jacobs in mind, one of his recent inventions involved a three-week competition in which participants explored their neighborhoods through photos and scored points for shots snapped in various situations.

“[We took] this idea of Jane Jacobs about the charms of city life being the many interactions with strangers and came up with a game that would gently encourage casual interactions in the neighborhood,” explained Alfrink.

“I think of this game as a way to kind of amp up the diversity of uses of the streets. “I don’t want to see streets be used just for shopping and commuting. There’s more to life than just this.”

With this spirit, the New Village Press-sponsored Toward Just Metropolis Conference will be hosting its own urban games this Sunday, June 20, in locations to be announced throughout the Bay Area. To learn more about the fun to be had at this lively event, visit http://www.justmetropolis.org.

New Village Press lauds the efforts of the Save Our Prison Farms campaign, launched in response to the recently announced foreclosure of Canada’s six prison farm establishments. New Village author James Jiler, founder of the Greenhouse Project, a “jail to street” horticultural training program in New York City’s Rikers Island Jail system, has long been a leading proponent of prison horticulture as a successful model of rehabilitation for inmates. His book Doing Time in the Garden: Life Lessons through Prison Horticulture illuminates the transformative process that growing healthy meals and forming a connection to the earth can have on inmates’ lives and on the societies they re-enter. The book has been a critical reference for the Save Our Prison Farms Campaign as they try to convince the Canadian government to keep the national prison horticulture program thriving.  

“People are less likely to go back to prison if they come out of it with an education,” Jiler said in a recent article published in the Great Lakes Echo. “I want them to go home with a skill and find a purpose in life that is better than making license plates, and learning how to care for the earth is a huge therapeutic benefit that people need.”

Save our Prison Farms notes that the majority of Canadians of all political stripes support this productive, cost effective, rehabilitative farm-based program and they provide a well-researched list of reasons on their blog for why the Prison Horticulture farms should remain open and available as an alternative to incarceration. For Jiller, the greatest inspiration for keeping the Prison Horticulture program alive comes from the hundreds of people he has directly kept from going back to jail through his work with American Prison Horticulture Association.

“The reality is that very few people are serving life, and they are going to be coming home,” Jiler said. “Do you want them to come home angry, bitter and unemployed, or with a change?”

Crisis is an opportunity for positive change.  With this spirit we look forward to the Toward a Just Metropolis Conference June 16-20, 2010 that New Village is cosponsoring at the University of California Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. The conference will be a one-of-a-kind convergence of  five well-known national planning organizations, Planners Network, Young Planners Network, the Association for Community Design, Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR)/New Village Press, and The Center for the Living City, attracting progressive urban leaders from across the country to explore how economic and environmental challenges can spur cities into becoming more equitable and sustainable. The conference is open to citizen activists as well as professionals and students, with registration for two-day classroom sessions June 18th/19th an option to full conference registration. We heartily invite all of our readers to attend!

• Agenda highlights include a Regional Dialogue on Community Planning, hosted by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), from 6pm-9pm, Thursday, June 17^th at the MetroCenter in Oakland. The Dialogue will focus on San Francisco’s ten-year planning effort to balance local and regional sustainability goals. Input will go toward ABAG’s Sustainable Communities Strategy, a key component of recent state legislation (SB 375) that will frame the development of the region over the next decades.

• In addition to receptions and plenaries, workshops, papers, panels, and posters with more than 200 presenters from 7 countries, 50 organizations and 45 universities, the conference will feature 11 participatory Mobile Workshops held in cooperation with community organizations in the East Bay.

• Participants and the public are also invited to enjoy a night of film, art, and live music performed by local artists, from 6pm–10pm at the Mission Cultural Center on Friday June 18^th. The Bay Area Planners Network Chapter will host this celebration of the unique cultural evolution of the Bay Area, in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District.

• Saturday June 19^th, 6–9pm, ADPSR will host its 2010 Lewis Mumford Awards at UC Berkeley’s Wurster Hall. Established by ADPSR in 1992, the annual award honors people and organizations in the areas of peace, protection of the natural and built environment, and socially responsible development.

• The conference will conclude with Sunday in the City, a day of fun urban adventure games, guiding participants across diverse neighborhoods by foot and public transit, June 20^th from 1-4pm.

 “Coloring Outside The Lines: Black Cartoonists as Social Commentators” is a new exhibit coming to the San Francisco Public Library’s African American Center, reveals a comic strip’s power to transcend the breakfast table as an instrument for social dialogue. The display, opening April 11th, celebrates the work of nine nationally-recognized Black cartoonists including New Village Press author Keith Knight, who will show his strip the Purple People, among others, and East Bay legendary cartoon artist Morrie Turner, whose comic strip Wee Pals was among the first in US history to feature African American characters in a positive light during the racially-charged 1960s.

One story in particular stands out among the many woven into the comic strips on display at the library. In the comic “Soul Corner”,  Morrie Turner honors the late Dr. Robert Scott (1944-2009), a man internationally acclaimed for his care of HIV infected patients around the world, and the founder of the AIDS Project of the East Bay. In his lifetime, Scott treated over 450 men and women infected with HIV, fought the homophobic stigmas attributed to the virus, and became the first African American doctor licensed to practice and treat the spread of AIDS in Zimbabwe. (As reported by Jesse Brooks, Post News)

Turner spoke to reporter Jesse Brooks of his motivation for Soul Corner, saying “I knew a lot of [Dr.Scott’s] patients…the way they revered him made me feel strongly about honoring him in my own way.”

The Soul Corner Strip will be on exhibit side by side with one featuring President Obama. Curator Kheven LaGrone looks forward to the discourse the comics are meant to generate. “For this show I have pieces I agree with, and some I don’t. I let the artists give their point of view,” he said. “Cartooning [as art] is interesting to me because black cartoonists can say things with their characters that you’re not supposed to say.”

For more information on the exhibit, see the flier below or e-mail the curator Kheven LaGrone, 

For those of you fortunate enough to have picked up a copy of By Heart, Poetry, Prison and Two Lives this month, we imagine there are some burning questions lingering in your mind about this uniquely woven memoir. Short of attending one of the live book store readings author Judith Tannenbaum is hosting this month, the next best way to pick her brain is through the online book forum LibraryThing. At this site Judith Tannenbaum will be hosting an author chat, standing by to field your queries about By Heart, the Arts in Corrections program, and other topics starting this week. Judith’s  Author Page on LibraryThing allows you to send a message to Judith regarding the book, view upcoming By Heart events and get the latest on all of her published works. She will hosting the online chat from April 19 to May 2nd. Visit http://www.librarything.com/author/tannenbaumjudith to strike up the conversation you have been longing to have with this poet and New Village author!

One of our What We See contributing authors and author of The Battle for Gotham, Roberta Brandes Gratz, was featured on the KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley radio show “Against the Grain” with host Sasha Lilley. They discussed the 1960s struggle over New York City’s future between Robert Moses, the father of urban renewal, and Jane Jacobs, the renowned urban critic.

Lilley spoke with Gratz last week; the interviewed aired earlier today. Lilley asked Gratz to explain the context in which Moses came into prominence. Gratz described the post-World War II era and discussed the way in which the United States won the war in a top-down militaristic fashion that was the result of “big” thinking. This “big” thinking included improving the economy in great strides and focusing on the expanse of the automobile industry. The manufacturing of cars necessitated their use and the construction of roadways. Gratz firmly stated that the automobile’s boom took place after the war. Prior to that time, the automobile was primarily used for leisure rather than commuting. Gratz explained that the evolution of city structures, programs, and highways matched the growing need to accommodate the car-centric country we have now, with New York as an exemplar.

Gratz also talked more about her personal and family history in New York City. She emphasized the importance of Jane’s battles and how the diversity of uses and the diversity of businesses brings about the diversity of pedestrians. Gratz pointed out that one of the most fundamental points about Jane Jacobs was that she was all about observation.

You can read more of Roberta Gratz’s views related to Jane Jacobs in What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs.

To listen to the KPFA interview, click here or  click on the player below:

Against the Grain - April 12, 2010 at 12:00pm

Click to listen (or download)

Our newest title, By Heart by Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson, has been garnering great reviews! By Heart is one of seven books featured on Midwest Book Review’s Poetry Shelf:

“Finding a talent and nurturing is the goal of any teacher. “By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives” tells the story of Judith Tannenbaum, a woman who taught poetry and literature in a San Quentin prison where she met Spoon Jackson, a man with a unique poetic talent that Judith did not want to waste. She tells their story and the two of them reflect on life, poetry, and the challenges an artist can face under the prison system. Intriguing and a fascinating read, “By Heart” is a worthwhile addition to any literary studies or memoir collection.”

By Heart is also wonderfully summarized and featured on the Grantsmakers in the Arts website.New Village author Arlene Goldbard recently published a beautiful review of By Heart on her personal website, http://arlenegoldbard.com. She writes:

“Some books enter through the eyes, making their way straight to the forebrain. Some touch the reader’s heart. I’m writing today about a book you will want to read because it wraps itself around both mind and spirit, drawing the lucky reader into the Great Conversation, that exchange marked by the search for truth beyond categories and the willingness to be revealed…..”

Full review 

Author Spoon Jackson recently had an op-ed article posted in The Union. The article is about the importance and rehabilitative significance of arts programs in prison facilities.  Feel free to read and comment on the article, “Other Voices: Killing Arts Programs in State Prisons Will Hurt Rehab Efforts.”Judith Tannenbaum is currently scheduled for book readings in California and in Colorado. She will also be doing several radio shows to promote the new book. A list of upcoming readings is shown below.Please visit our events page for more information.

Sunday April 11, 2010 4 PM Booksmith 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA

Wednesday April 14, 2010  7:30 PM Tattered Cover Book Store 1628 16th Street, Denver, CO

Saturday April 24, 2010 7 PM Broad Street Cafe, 426 Broad Street, Nevada City (preceded by dinner and followed by Diane Patterson concert)

Monday May 10, 2010, 7:30 PM Capitola Book Cafe 1475 41st Avenue, Capitola, CA

Thursday May 13, 2010 7 PM Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood, Brentwood Country Mart, 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA

Wednesday August 4, 2010 6 PM Sacramento Poetry Center @ Central Library 828 I Street, Sacramento, CA

If you can’t make it to one of Judith’s bookstore events, you do not have to miss the opportunity to hear her read live! Judith was featured this Monday, April 12th on the radio program Booktown, speaking about By Heart.

Follow this link to hear her read on air from the inspiring, powerful memoir.

by Louise Dunlap

photo by Victor Dlamini

An awesome figure in the struggle against apartheid died on Friday, with too little attention from the US Press. Fatima Meer–scholar & writer, biographer of Nelson Mandela, continuing friend of Winnie, strategist and risk-taking activist since her teens–died in Durban at age 81. The South African and international press have covered Fatima’s life and independent thinking–her dozens of books, her founding of an Institute for Black Research in the very heart of apartheid, her dramatic history of bannings and detentions, her honorary degrees (some from US universities), her script for an Indian film of Gandhi’s South African years and her rescue of his possessions when his settlement was attacked. Among those who knew and worked with her, countless stories of Fatima’s bold contributions circulate. She deserves fuller attention in this country.

I met Professor Meer several times starting in the mid-90s when she visited her daughter’s family in Cambridge en route to an honorary degree at Bennett College in North Carolina. Besides being one of the great, bold leaders in South Africa in those times, Fatima and her husband, attorney Ismail Meer, nurtured a continuing legacy. In the 90s, her daughter Shamim Meer and son-in-law Bobby Marie, longtime anti-apartheid activists themselves, were at MIT and Harvard preparing to take new roles supporting grassroots change in the new South Africa and their children with them. In Cambridge I heard Fatima’s grandson Zen give a rousing valedictorian speech at the King Middle School, denouncing the apartheid he noted in the city’s neighborhoods. He is now part of Johannesburg’s socially-conscious art world, while granddaughter Maia carries on her mother’s and grandmother’s work for social justice. Fatima’s feisty spirit had family roots, was nourished in the hardships of apartheid, and continued through the vicious inequities of current times. Her family–and all of us–can draw strength from her life.

Thank you Fatima!

–

Louise Dunlap is the author of the book Undoing the Silence. She began her career as an activist writing instructor during the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s. She learned that listening and gaining a feel for audience are as important to social transformation as the outspoken words of student leaders atop police cars.

photo by Nelson Maldonado-Torres

On February 26th-27th, 2010, I attended a free conference called “DECOLONIZING THE UNIVERSITY: Fulfilling the Dream of the Third World College,” which took place on the UC Berkeley Campus. The purpose of the conference was to honor UC Berkeley’s 40th year of Ethnic Studies, communities of struggle and international peoples’ movements for decolonization. The act of decolonizing, simply put, encourages people to think outside the boxes that they’ve been given. It allows colonial people the right to self-determination in order to incite peace and solidarity. The conference hosted a gathering of visionaries in the form of students, academics and community members.

My experience that weekend was unique in the sense that many of my former classmates and friends from UC San Diego were facing the reality of what happens when a prestigious public university fails to recognize efforts that illustrate the valiance of their students amidst overt racism, classism and homophobia. Many major newspapers and bloggers across the country have already reported the grimy details — some fraternity-affiliated UCSD students organized an off-campus party mocking Black History Month, calling the event “The Compton Cookout.” The party organizers invited folks via Facebook, thus allowing the faithful Facebook Newsfeed and its readership to access and witness the stereotypes, epithets and ignorance published firsthand. The incident sparked several copycat acts at many universities, most of which occurred on  campuses in California. However, a series of racist acts on the UCSD campus did not stir up a quick or adequate response that could guarantee students’ safety. In response to a meager reprimand on behalf of the administration, the students at UC San Diego were compelled to mobilize and hold the largest rally/protest that the university had ever seen. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Thursday, a visit to San Francisco’s 1:AM Gallery for an urban contemporary art exhibit called “Tabi Tabi Po” changed the way I imagined the spirits that roam the physical and mystical world of the Philippines. The group exhibition features different artists’ takes on the kinds of beings that live in fables and oral histories. From seeing former Philippines’ First Lady Imelda Marcos interpreted as a monster to enjoying a b-boy version of a dwarf, this exceptional exhibit displays the wonderment of stories passed on through generations. “Tabi Tabi Po” continues a cycle that allows experiential art and Filipino folkloric narratives to survive.

At the gallery, each step from one painting or multimedia piece to another invited me into these artists’ elucidations while reminding me of short stories my immigrant family members told. I grew up Filipina through my family’s connections to the motherland, the Philippines. My parents’ stories, my grandmother’s cooking, my ability to fluently understand my mother’s native tongue, Ilokano, and my cousins’ ghost stories heavily shaped the way I learned about my Filipina American (Pinay) culture and identity. Read the rest of this entry »