This story is reposted from GRIID.org
Thurs. May 26 6:30 p.m. Drugs And Daydreams
Sun. May 29 6 p.m. Stop Signs: Cars & Capitalism
The Bloom Collective671 Davis NW (Corner of 5th & Davis)
Suggested Donation $3 – $5
In the coming week, authors of two very different books make a stop at The Bloom Collective as part of their North American tours. On Thursday, May 26, the Raise the Stakes Tour invites local folks to join Shaun for “an evening of stories and scheming” as he shares and sells hand-made copies of his book, Drugs And Daydreams. On Sunday, May 29, Canadian authors, Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler, facilitate a discussion of their new book, Stop Signs: Cars & Capitalism on the Road to
Economic, Social and Ecological Decay. Both events will begin with a potluck.
Raise the Stakes
Using drugs as a metaphor to describe his sensations during three different bicycle
trips along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, Drugs And Daydreams “lingers in the fringes where the wild clashes with the civilized; those places where conventional notions of geography and travel
give way to a world of one’s own design.” Shaun calls the book part romance and part travel autobiography. He writes, “The most accurate metaphor I’ve heard for travel is comparing it a love affair. A love affair thrives upon shattered rules and shattered roles. Upon a whirlwind that comes by surprise and leaves everything in its path upturned, transformed. A feeling beyond the grasp of science. Beyond the map. This is where I seek to travel. This is how a love affair begins. This is how my story begins.”
Shaun invites local artists, musicians and poets to share their work as part of the program. So, bring your own zines to share, poetry to read, acoustic music to play and art to display. All copies of Shaun’s book on sale that night are made of scavenged materials and hand-bound by the author within individually relief-printed hard covers. He writes, “Maybe living as scavengers can last, I thought. Knowing that not everyone can do this, but if we can, then we have a responsibility to strike at capitalism’s vulnerabilities. And all of our wits and creativities not dulled by numbing work weeks and banal distractions exist for the sake of us living out our wildest dreams, of us putting a stop to those entities that hurt those that we identify with.”
Stop Signs: Cars & Capitalism
Authors Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi are coming to Grand Rapids via Greyhound Bus to present this anti-car road trip story. Born in Uganda in 1980, Bianca Mugyenyi came to Canada as a child, spending parts of her youth in Swaziland, Kenya and England. She is coordinator of Concordia’s Gender Advocacy Centre and was the Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students (Quebec). A Montréal activist and author, Yves Engler has published three books: The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy; Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical; and (with Anthony Fenton) Canada in Haiti: Waging War on The Poor Majority.
Stop Signs: Cars & Capitalism shows how “the automobile’s ascendance is inextricably linked to capitalism and involved corporate malfeasance, political intrigue, backroom payoffs, media manipulation, racism, academic corruption, third world coups, secret armies, environmental destruction and war.” In short, challenging the domination of cars challenges capitalism.
In a Sept. 2010 article for Counterpunch, the authors wrote, “Nearly three-quarters of U.S.households earning less than $15,000 a year own a car, and in an extreme example of auto dependence, tens of thousands of “mobile homeless” live in their vehicles. The poor purchase cars because there is no other option in a society built to serve the needs of the automobile. If you want to work you need a car. If you want to visit your friends you need a car. Car-dominated transport eats up a disproportionate amount of working-class income. At the same time, the automobile is an important means for the wealthy to assert themselves socially. A luxury vehicle lets the whole world know that you have arrived, both literally and metaphorically.”
Make your holiday weekend more memorable (and less gas dependent) by celebrating bikes and other alternatives to a car-crazy capitalist culture. Bring a dish to pass. The Bloom will provide vegan options.
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GASHOLE: Film & Discussion
Saturday, May 14 – 3pm at The Bloom Collective
A new documentary that explores the history of oil and sheds light on a secret that the big oil companies don’t want you to know:
There are viable and affordable alternatives to petroleum fuel!
More info at gasholemovie.com
$3-5 suggested donation
Light refreshments will be provided
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Thurs. May 26 6:30 – 9:30 p.m.
- Potluck 6:30 The Bloom will provide vegan options.
Open “Mic” and Raise the Stakes 7:00—9:30 
- Join us for an evening of stories and scheming with Shaun, author of the hand-made book Drugs And Daydreams as he speaks of long-distance bicycle trips and taking ideas and actions beyond the confines of
convention to help strengthen and defend community.Part travel romance, part autobiography of three bicycle trips along large portions of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, the book uses drugs as a metaphor to describe the sensations of the three different bicycle trips that make up the stories within.
- Suggested donation $3—$5. Shaun’s books & zines will be available for purchase.
- Bring your own zines to share, poetry to read, acoustic music to play, art to display.
- Location: The Bloom Collective 671 DAVIS NW (CORNER OF 5TH & DAVIS) GRAND RAPIDS
Here’s info about the book from Shaun’s website:
Drugs And Daydreams: The Book!
“The most accurate metaphor I’ve heard for travel is comparing it a love affair.
A love affair thrives upon shattered rules and shattered roles. Upon a whirlwind that comes by surprise and leaves everything in its path upturned, transformed.
A feeling beyond the grasp of science. Beyond the map.
This is where I seek to travel.
This is how a love affair begins.
This is how my story begins.”
—
So begins the book…
Drugs And Daydreams lingers in the fringes where the wild clashes with the civilized; those places where conventional notions of geography and travel give way to a world of one’s own design.
From finding a bicycle at a thrift store for $2 and attempting to ride it 1200 miles from the Pacific Northwest to the San Francisco Bay, to creating a home in a vacant building in New York’s Lower East Side, to seeking the lessons found in observing one’s own reflection in the seas of the California coast, the author infuses these stories with a prose that questions where exactly the boundaries of the world that we’re offered ends, and where the anarchic and unpossessable world that lies beyond begins.
Dizzying, both in a sense of seeking one’s place amongst ungovernable landscapes and a culture out of balance, as well as in the often nonlinear voice that frequently transcends and weaves between the seams of place, time and subject.
This book compiles three self-published zines,Drugs And Daydreams, Here Civilization Ceased, and Bring On The Dancing Horses, previously released and distributed on cross-country hitchhiking trips.
—
All books are handbound by the author within individually relief-printed hard covers.
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Bloom Events April 23 and 26
3 – 6 p.m. SATURDAY APRIL 23 Food & Film / SKIN TRADE
$3 – $5 suggested donation
Fur is sexy, beautiful, sensuous and luxurious. Nothing feels better against your skin, and beautiful, sexy, successful people wear it. Fur is also environmentally friendly and is therefore a sustainable resource. These are the campaigns the fur industry uses to get people to commit the ultimate atrocities permitted against animals. Consumers are misled by retailers who assure them that animals used for fur are humanely euthanized, intentionally hiding the reality of how the animals are hideously killed.
Step inside the world of SKIN TRADE. Hundreds of hours of interviews with insiders, designers, leaders and celebrities compiled in a heart-punching documentary that lends a voice to the voiceless whose skin is ripped from them while often still alive.
View the trailer:
More info: www.skintradethemovie.com. We will have vegan food available, but feel free to bring a vegetarian dish to pass!
6:30 – 8:30 p.m. TUESDAY APRIL 26 WATER RIGHTS
Potluck/Discussion & Film
$3 – $5 suggested donation
Did you know Grand Rapids may privatize its water system, selling it off to one of the two leading water robber barons on the planet? Come and learn how water privatization makes corporations rich and victimizes folks like you and me. Wherever water is privatized, people pay higher rates, get inferior service and often lose access to water. Do you want to live in a city where people walk two miles with a jug to the DeVos Memorial well to get their water for cooking, drinking and washing? Let’s figure out how to take a stand!
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Ryan is stopping by GR for one night only!
8 p.m. MONDAY APRIL 11
His show focuses around folks in states getting hit hard by the tsunami wave of right-wing budget cuts and attacks on organizing.
A special local guest will open the show. $5 or $10 at the door.
Email bloomcollective@gmail.com
for venue address.
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7 p.m. Weds. March 30
Film: “The Sons of Eilaboun”
with Nimer Haddad,
from the destroyed village of Albassa
At The Bloom Collective, Steepletown Center
Sponsored by Olives for Hope and
The Bloom Collective
The Nakba (catastrophe) is often misunderstood in the Western World. Cathryn Young, Olives for Hope,facilitator of the event, has traveled to Israel / Palestine several times. She calls on her experience there to bring a better understanding of the past events which impact the current conflict. She will show the film “The Sons of Eilaboun” about one villages experience with the Nakba; and Nimer Haddad will also speak about his experience as a survivor of the destruction of his village, Albassa.
The sons of Eilaboun (أبناء عيلبون) tells the story of the human toll that Plan Dalet claimed. The story is told through the mouths of the men and women who witnessed Israeli soldiers commit atrocities on a fall day in 1948 – men and women who are determined not to let the horrors of this brutal plan be forgotten. The story of Eilaboun was repeated hundreds of times across the land that today is called Israel. The killing expulsion and looting of these villages was a tactic that was spelled out in a document called Plan Dalet developed by the high command of the Israeli Army to rid the future State of Israel of its Arab inhabitants, which it saw as a threat.
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- Empowered Womyn’s Health Workshop
1 to 5 p.m.
Sat. March 19.
The Bloom Collective
671 Davis NW
(Steepletown Center)
Corner of 5th & Davis, Grand Rapids - The Bloom Collective invites women of all ages for a free workshop, Empowered Womyn’s Health, 1 to 5 p.m. Sat. March 19. The workshop is a skill-share with all women attending encouraged to share their health wisdom with each other.
- The workshop is intentionally free because access to health information, or healthcare for that matter, should not be based on one’s ability to pay. Volunteers from the community are facilitating the following sessions.
- 1 – 2 p.m. Foods for the Feminine: how healthy real foods relate to women in various life stages of life. The workshop starts with a potluck lunch and healthy foods cooking demo with GRCC Dining Services Chef Nancy Rutledge. Enjoy samples of Nancy’s healthy creations and bring a dish to pass! The Bloom will provide vegan options.
- 2 – 2:45 p.m. The Childbearing Year: natural pregnancy, homebirth, breastfeeding. Midwife Shannon Pawson facilitates this session. Whether or not you plan on motherhood, our world needs all women as sisters in the cause of organic birth.
- 2:45 – 3:30 Bitches Brew: hands-on herbal decoction in the kitchen with women’s needs in mind. Take some home to try. Bloom intern, Bethany Scheffer, facilitates. Steepletown volunteer coordinator, Claire AK, will share advice on vitamins and supplements.
- 3:30 – 4:30 Shared Wisdom: How to pee standing up, sew your own pads, talk back to cat-callers… bring your best sister tips. Farmer Kelsie Hakeem will facilitate.
- 4:30 – 5 p.m. Yoga Nidra Session for Deep Rest. End the workshop by experiencing a session of yoga nidra, a meditative technique that provides opportunity for deep rest, renewed energy and setting intentions.
Materials will be available for those who want to sew their own woman-healthy menstrual pads. Participants are encouraged to bring jars with lids to bring home their herbal tea and a blanket and pillow for the meditation session, if desired.
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The Bloom Collective invites you to join us for two exciting upcoming events.
Tue. March 15
The Beehive Design Collective- a non-profit, volunteer driven, political arts organization is headed to Grand Rapids Tuesday March 15 for two events!- 11a.m.- 3 p.m. GRAPHICS FOR THE COMMONS
Collaborative Graphic Design for Movement Building
A hands-on collaborative image making workshop with the BeesLimited to 50 participants.
- Location: Red Hydrant Press 314 Straight St. SW Door M
- Tales of Ants & Economies in the Americas!
The Bees present their larger than life banners.
Kendall College Student Commons, 17 Fountain St. NW
On street parking or pay for parking at Ionia/Pearl ramp - Location: Kendall College Student Commons, 17 Fountain St. NW On street parking or pay for parking at Ionia/Pearl ramp
- More Information: http://www.beehivecollective.org
6:30 – 8:30 p.m. DISMANTLING MONOCULTURE
Sat. March 19
- Womyn’s Empowered Health Workshop
- Time: 1:00 pm
- The Bloom Collective hosts its third annual free workshop to share information on alternative practices and philosophies around the issues of women’s healthcare as well as provide a safe space for women to share health wisdom with each other. Such wisdom was the basis for good health in times past, before healthcare became a commodity on the stock market and a product on the pharmacy shelf. The workshop is intentionally free because access to health information, or healthcare for that matter, should not be based on one’s ability to pay. This year’s topics:
-
* Foods for the Feminine: how healthy real foods relate to women in various life stages of life. Presenter Chef Nancy Rutledge, GRCC Dining Services
* Bitches Brew: hands-on herbal decoction in the kitchen. Vitamins and herbal formulas with women’s needs in mind. Take some home to try. Facilitator: Bethany Scheffer
- * The Childbearing Year: natural pregnancy, homebirth, breastfeeding. Whether or not you plan on motherhood, our world needs all women as sisters in the cause of organic birth. Presenter: Shannon Pawson, Midwife.
* Shared Wisdom: How to pee standing up, sew your own pads, talk back to cat-callers — bring your best sister tips. Presenter: Kelsey Hakeem, farmer.
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* Yoga Nidra Session for Deep Rest. End the workshop by experiencing a session of yoga nidra, a meditative technique that provides opportunity for deep rest, renewed energy and setting intentions. Facilitator: Stelle, The Bloom CollectiveWe will open with a potluck lunch. The Bloom will provide vegan options. Babes in arms and children are welcome to come with their mothers.
Sponsored by The Bloom Collective and Our Kitchen Table.
- Location: The Bloom Collective | 671 Davis NW | Grand Rapids, MI 49504
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Thursday March 10 6:30 – 8:30
At The Bloom Collective,
671 Davis NW (Steepletown Center, Davis & 5th)
For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons — everything from our forests, drinking water and oceans to our broadcast airwaves and and cultural works. This Land is Our Land bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are undermining our collective interests by placing the commons squarely within the American tradition of community engagement and the free exchange of ideas and information, Learn how a bold new international movement steeped in democratic principles is trying to reclaim our common wealth by modeling practical alternatives to the restrictive monopoly powers of corporate elites.
The Bloom will serve a light vegan supper at 6:30 p.m. Film begins at 7
Watch the Trailer
Sponsored by The Bloom Collective and Our Kitchen Table.
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Two Great Films this Week!
Guerilla Midwife
& panel discussion: Future of Birth in Michigan
6 p.m. Doors. Film at 6:30 p.m.
Thursday March 3
Wealthy Street Theater
1130 Wealthy SE, Grand Rapids
Donations to International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) and Bumi Sehat Foundation International
Why is a film about a midwife serving the poor in the Philippines relevant to the Grand Rapids community? A community with its own Medical Mile boasting some of the most high-tech obstetric services available today?
Because birth is not about technology. It is about humanity. Not just the human infant or its immediate family, but about how we weave the very fabric of our culture. That fabric is warped, frayed, weak and unevenly woven. Getting back to humane birth—birth where the mother is empowered by her community to give birth naturally and in connection to herself and her child—is an essential piece to the sustainability of a humane human race.
While US obstetric units boast about the latest in ultrasound imagery, fetal monitoring capability, easy epidurals and a technological answer to every complication that might arise, our infant mortality rates remain embarrassingly high (second highest on the world with African American babies twice as likely to die).
Our infants grow to be preschoolers diagnosed as bi-polar and elementary students medicated for ADHD. Autism is practically an epidemic. And, when technology and prescribed medicines don’t do the trick, our teens turn to illegal drugs. As adults, we struggle not only with a host of health issues but also with dysfunction in our relationships.
What does that have to do with birth? Everything. Come and find out why—and to see the simple alternative that could start us on the path to reclaiming wellness, real community, healthy relationships and a sustainable culture. See the event on Facebook
Sponsored by ICAN and The Bloom Collective, among others.
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Thursday March 10 6:30 – 8:30
At The Bloom Collective,
671 Davis NW (Steepletown Center, Davis & 5th)
Dinner & A Movie:
THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons
For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons — everything from our forests, drinking water and oceans to our broadcast airwaves and and cultural works. This Land is Our Land bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are undermining our collective interests by placing the commons squarely within the American tradition of community engagement and the free exchange of ideas and information, Learn how a bold new international movement steeped in democratic principles is trying to reclaim our common wealth by modeling practical alternatives to the restrictive monopoly powers of corporate elites.
The Bloom will serve a light vegan supper at 6:30 p.m. Film begins at 7
Watch the Trailer
Sponsored by The Bloom Collective and Our Kitchen Table.
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