High fives to Sale Kirkpatrick for writing this fantastic essay. It’s few years old, but pretty on point with my thoughts on the Live Earth fiasco (here and here. I found it when I was researching my thesis and meant to post it. Here is a great excerpt.

The whole individualist what-you-can-do-to-save-the-earth guilt trip is a myth. We, as individuals, are not creating the crises, and we can’t solve them. Take our crazy energy consumption. For the past 15 years the story has been the same every year: individual consumption – residential, by private car, and so on – is never more than about a quarter of all consumption; the vast majority is commercial, industrial, corporate, by agribusiness and government. So, even if we all took up cycling and wood stoves it would have a negligible impact on energy use, global warming and atmospheric pollution. I mean, sure, go ahead and live a responsible environmental life; recycle, compost, ride a push-bike; but do it because it is the right, moral thing to do – not because it’s going to save the planet.

If we really want to understand why this happened we have to ask ourselves another question: ‘Why is it that we seem willing to live with the threat of apocalypse rather than trying to seriously alter a world where consumption, of anything, is seen as unrelieved virtue, production, of anything, is regarded as a social and economic necessity, and more, of anything (like children or cars or chemicals or PhDs or golf courses or recycling centres), is unquestioningly accepted?’

The Ecologist is rad.

Not many people are able to say that one of their best friends is also their favorite artist. For the last several years, Andy has consistently amazed me with his collage art. Some of it is political, some nostalgic, some playful, some dark, and some absurd. All of them, however, are done with the finest precision, constructed with the kind of imaginative grace reserved only for those patient enough to piece together stories from fragmented images. I thought it would be fun to interview him.

Kyle: I’ve known you for a while now, since 4th grade actually. And if you don’t mind me saying, you were never particularly known for your artistic abilities.

I remember (and maybe still have) some pretty ridiculous drawings that you did when we were kids. How did you get into collage art? What prompted the initial desire to start doing it? Has your confidence as an artist built since those days or does it even matter to you?

Andy: I was never good at sketching or painting. I perfected a few cartoon faces to draw on all of my folders, but that was the extent of it. During a year of significant insomnia, I made cards and designs for my girlfriend out of magazines. It gave me something to do during the night. After a particularly elaborate card, I realized that I could go further with the process. The next collage I made, Sleepwalker, is still one of my favorites.

As far as confidence, I don’t have a great need for validation. I am realistic about what the collages are. I know which ones are good and which ones are lacking. I do it because it’s how I like to spend my time.

Kyle: You also play the guitar beautifully. Does this medium of art impact your collage art at all? In other words, does one have anything to do with the other?

Andy: I think the ideas for both collages and music come from the same place and the pleasure I get out of making tiny cuts is similar to that which I get from playing a finger-picking pattern. It is a somewhat unconscious activity. Just as you can be unaware of how you got from one place to another in a car, the same can be said for playing music or making art.

Kyle: Maybe you can speak a little about your process. Do you start with an image in your head and try to find the pieces? Or is it the other way around?

Andy: I start both ways. Some of the more creative collages start from seeing an element of a picture, such as a person or building that could tell its own story. The original picture of the two boys from Cain and Abel was boring. It was too sweet and simple; there was no story, just a statement. I put a knife in one of the boy’s hands, and now the picture suddenly becomes interesting now something is going to happen. Then I just build an atmosphere around that.

Many of the collages start with a theme or occasionally a complete picture in my head that I attempt to recreate in a collage. The collages that start from a mental image will often take a severe detour and become something very different from what I had originally intended. Though, I think that the deconstruction and reassembly from a mental image is complimentary to the process. Whenever I hit a roadblock, I take a shower and move the pieces around in my head until a new idea comes.

Kyle: Your cuts are so intricate; what kind of tools to you use?

Andy: I use a rotating blade and a self-healing cutting surface for some of the more delicate cuts. I also use hair cutting scissors and finger nail scissors that have curved blades. Soon, I am going to order an obsidian scalpel. The Egyptians used obsidian in ancient surgical procedures and it has been reintroduced to modern medicine because obsidian cuts with less tearing than steel blades.

Kyle: What are your favorite magazines to use? Do you use graphics from other sources?

Andy: Collage art is fragile. The breakdown of pigment is inevitable, so it is best to use images printed on heavier paper. Magazines like National Geographic and Architectural Digest are a better choice than Time magazine. I use more books than magazines because magazines are a bitch to sort through and store.

Kyle: I’ve tried to do what you do and found it a lot harder than it looks. Do you ever get discouraged or frustrated? How do you combat that?

Andy: I will occasionally become discouraged if I have taken a piece as far as I can and it just won’t come together. However, I enjoy the process of cutting the pieces and solving the puzzle. For some reason, it is relaxing to concentrate in this way. I spent 10 hours cutting the sky out from in between the leaves of a tree a couple weeks ago. There is a balance between statements of “I love the process” and “I am working towards a finished product”.

Kyle: What other artists would you recommend people check out if they’re interested?

Andy: Sean Hillen is by far my favorite collage artist. I found his work 2 or 3 years after I had started collaging and I felt like it was a more polished kin to what I was doing. I emailed him some of my pictures once and was a bit of a groupy about his response. I’m sure it was similar to the way you behaved when you first met Derrick Jensen.

Andy lives in Indiana and can be contacted here

I posted these cartoons on my previous website.

This is worth your time.

The story goes like this.

When I was 18, I hated English class. All through high school, Mrs. O’Conner did her best to stomp out any previous love of writing I may have had. When I was a senior, I took a creative writing class with someone else and discovered that I actually loved writing, but still hated my English class. This didn’t make sense.

At the time I was listening to a lot of classic rock, reggae, some occasional punk (or punkesque) like Pennywise, Blink (I don’t care what anyone says, everything through Dude Ranch was great), Less Than Jake, NOFX, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, Sublime (so much Sublime, in fact, one summer…pre-junior year, I believe, was dubbed, the “Sublime Summer”). Unfortunately, I also went though a big and ill-advised metal phase, involving the likes of Pantera, Sepultura, early Metallica (though when I sold a lot of my CD’s in college, I did hang onto “Ride the Lightning” and “Unjustice for All”), and many more that I’ll never admit to now.

My first college English teacher was unlike any teacher I had before. It wasn’t just the tattoos and piercings, and it was more than his combat boots and Green Bay Packers shirt that never matched his shorts. Eric let us write about whatever the hell we wanted to. He also helped us say and argue what we wanted rather than the way he thought the argument should be structured. It was a breath of fresh air. The most important thing I took from that class (both classes actually….I took 102 with him as well), both as a student and (now) as a teacher was one simple, but crucial message: English class doesn’t have to suck.

Later, Eric and I got to be pretty good friends (after I turned 21…). We talked a lot about English, grad school, and, of course, punk rock. I credit him with my introduction to Youth Brigade, which subsequently got me into Minor Threat and other early eighties gems. The “Someone Got Their Head Kicked In” comp remains one of my favorite records ever.

During this time, I also started regularly reading the fantastic punk zine, Razorcake, which Eric was involved with to some degree. As the years went by, I changed residences like 37 times and didn’t renew my subscription. I also lost contact with Eric.

When I moved into my new office, on campus, I found some old Razorcake issues tucked away in the back of my new desk. I took them home and decided to get a subscription. For some reason, I asked the mailorder guy if Eric still wrote for them. He emailed me the next day.

We had been emailing back and forth about punk, teaching, and shit. I guess he talked me up to Razorcake about writing reviews and stuff. To make an uninteresting story a bit more tactful, I’ve been offered a chance to write a column for Razorcake’s webzine. Topics are wide open and there is a strong possibility I’ll move up to the print zine eventually, most likely slogging through crappy bands for reviews and the like. No money, but that’s not really the point.

I’m gonna come up with a snappy pen name. Any ideas?

While I’ve been in Taos, I’ve purposely avoided reading much news…other than the Santa Fe paper on my grandparents breakfast table…they’ve got a great comics page. Anyway…

Upon returning to Flag and opening my computer, I discovered that the media finally opened their eyes to the issue of water bottled in plastic. As it turns out, the water from Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani companies are actually bottled straight from the tap. That means that the water you pay $1.50 for is no better than what comes out of your fauset or backyard hose (I actually love hose water….but I digress).

In fact 25 percent or more of all water bottled in plastic comes straight from the tap.

Remember when bottled water first hit the market? Only bourgeois douche bags bought the stuff, now American’s have a $16 billion-a-year bottled-water habit. In fact,

You can get at least 450 gallons of L.A. tap water for the $1.35 you’d pay for 20 ounces of Aquafina. Turn that around, and 20 ounces of L.A. tap water costs about one-twentieth of a cent.

Would you pay $5 for a gallon of gas in a pretty container if you could get a plain-wrap gallon for half a penny? When it comes to water, that’s pretty much what we do.

The bottled water industry has done an amazing job of convincing the public, without actually saying it, that they’re water is better, purer, and healthier. This is achieved in many ways, but the most powerful, I think, is the use of nature imagery, whereby consumers (oops, I mean people) are supposed to believe the water came straight out of some untouched natural spring, or a glacier…or something. The fact that every single river and stream in the United States contains some amount of carcinogens makes this delusion even more ridiculous.

It’s not healthier. In fact, many studies reveal that it’s much worse than tap water.

the National Resources Defense Council tested bottled water and found a third of it contaminated with bacteria, synthetic chemicals and arsenic. The EPA’s regulations on tap water are stronger than the FDA’s regulations on bottled water.

Most people I know have one sturdy plastic bottle that they fill and refill wherever they go. There is nothing better about buying tap water bottled in plastic except for convenience. Give me Convenience or Give Me Death!

From Lisa via Grand Canyon Wildland’s Council

Please attend one of these meetings to comment on the Travel Management proposed action. Show the Forest Service and the media that environmental concerns are important to the people that enjoy our forests.

Help protect wildlife and natural quiet on the Coconino National Forest.
Let the Forest Service know that off-road travel:
- Destroys Crucial Wildlife Habitat
- Erodes Soil and has Negative Impacts in Important Watersheds
- Disturbs Your Natural and Quiet Experience in the Forest

!!Your Comments WILL Make a Difference!! Stop by the meeting and make your voice be heard.

**ATTEND A FOREST SERVICE OPEN HOUSE**

and SATURDAY August 4 12:00 - 5:00
at SINAGUA HIGH SCHOOL 3950 E. Butler Ave, Flagstaff