This is going to be a lot of info at once, but I promise (especially if you’re a passionate New Yorker), this post will be absolutely worth the read!
Jonsi & Alex of Sigur Rós Perform at the White Lights Festival
Click HERE
This is a stream from a performance at Lincoln Center (in NY of course) in November called the White Lights Festival… Yet again Jónsi and Alex, two former members of the band Sigur Rós, overwhelm me with how amazing things could be done and be called music!
For more information on the performance and the critical analysis of check out Pitchfork’s Article
New York Non-Profits Setting Invaluable Precedents For Education
America Scores: A recent favorite of mine is America Scores in New York… They accept students from under-served communities in the NYC area and offer them a new way of looking at education. “America SCORES New York offers one of the most unusual and successful approaches to youth development and literacy training for at-risk students: poetry writing-soccer teams.”
Can you believe this?! And it doubtlessly works at getting students actively engaged with language, building positive networks with their peers, and ultimately developing skills and talents that typically aren’t addressed by a public school education.
This is a product of empowering education:
Behind The Book: I began helping Behind the Book with their program about two months ago. What they do is this: Find an author who has written an age appropriate book that will translate well into lesson plans and writing exercises that are alternately administered by teachers and book authors. Then the students are given a variety of creative exercises to get their writer’s/illustrator’s juices flowing. Behind the Book staff, authors, and teachers look over these exercises, and a book/published work of some kind is developed collectively.
Let me tell you, I could not begin to understand the incredible obstacles elementary school teachers have to overcome in order to get students to be engaged and competent readers until I began lending a helpful hand to author Susanna Pitzer (author of Not Afraid of Dogs and coolest lady ever!) and a teacher at a school (both to be left unnamed) in Brooklyn. The students that I’ve met are mostly the children of immigrants (like me) who are extremely talkative, comical, and blessedly talented. And Behind the Book provides an exciting push to get them writing and interested in the minutiae of story development.
Adopt-A-Farmbox: I have only utter adoration for this project. Adopt-A-Farmbox is a project spearheaded by an eco-consciously inclined building organization called Baker Design + Build. The Adopt-A-Farmbox crew erects farmboxes (a stand alone box made out of recycled materials that contains soil and the foundation for healthy plant growing) in and around schools and community buildings that express interest in promoting gardening activities.
Among some of the services provided by the crew are (Adapted from the Adopt-A-Farmbox Kickstarter Page):
” • Design and construction of 100% recycled farmboxes to uniquely fit the spaces available at each site
• Provision of organic soil and seeds to accompany the farmboxes
• Consultant services by an organic farmer throughout the growing season
• Onsite project co-coordinator to assist throughout the growing season
• Guidelines for schools to help teachers incorporate the farming projects into their classroom curriculum • Eight hours nutrition and health education workshops in schools for school faculty
• Four hours nutrition and cooking workshops in schools for students
• Four hours nutrition/health and cooking workshops for members of community organizations/businesses”
What else is necessary for success in developing a simple, healthy green space that will nourish and provide for a community for years?
Here’s a cool video about their program:
Louder Arts: I learned about this organization from an incredible professor/poet I studied with at UMass Amherst named Martín Espada (Who recently received the USA Simon Fellowship- Raise the roof!). Louder Arts is a multifaceted organization that endlessly advocates for poetry writing and reading at all ages and from all identities. They coordinate slams, readings at Bar 13, writing workshops, poetry showcases, historical poetry events, and so so much more that I could not even begin to do them justice with a measly blog post. They show an unfading interest in getting people at all ages to have poetry be a regular inspiration in their lives.
If you want to be kept updated on the things that Louder Arts is up to, I’ve found it’s easiest to keep eyes on their Facebook Page.
Bands That Care
Yeasayer, Lykke Li, & The Polyphonic Spree Join With Invisible Children & La Blogotheque for a Documentary in Uganda
The National Raises an Astounding Amount of Money for AIDS Awareness
And I could go on and on and on… But that’s enough for today.
