Next TUESDAY, April 7th at 7 pm i'm kicking off a brand new book club!!
Over the next few months, we'll be reading, contextualizing, and analyzing one of the world's most annoyingly long local history books - THE POWER BROKER.
The Power Broker is the preeminent biography of Robert Moses, a 1930s-60s bureaucrat who, informed by foundational belief in redlining and suburbanization, single-handedly transformed the way we live in this city - from crumbling apartment buildings and outer borough bridges, to our heavily policed beaches and scarce public bathrooms.
As we enter a new and accelerated "City of Yes" phase of development, it will usher in big city-wide shifts shrouded under the urgency to rebuild the dilapidated remains of the Moses regime.
But close collective study of the past can help us to decode the decision-making that defines our future housing, public space, and possibility for generations to come.
This book club is for you if you like to read, or if you have never read a book this long before.
Come if you used to read books a long time ago, but you stopped because every time you finish a chapter you feel alone and overwhelmed.
Come if you love this city, or if you've started to hate this city because your family is being pushed out, or if you deeply believe this city can be a place that meets the needs of everyone you love.
And most of all, come if you want to make some friends :)
because this will be fun!
We are gonna NERD OUT!!
ok !
Alongside this text, we will be doing deep dives into primary documents (such as environmental impact reports, crooked construction deals, and slum demolition photos) to trace the lineage of our incredibly hostile infrastructure.
Signups are live on my website
()
you can sign up for the whole thing, or you can join for one-off club meetings. you can join from the beginning, or you can jump in anytime. there is no homework. there is no pressure. we will learn, but it will be fun.
**also: if you're from new york and you can't afford the signup fee, just email me and we can work something out bc i rly want you to join us ~ [email protected]
ok see u in the pages 💥 📖💥
hi! i'm so excited to share this series of classes i've been working on for the past ~ 8 years called L.A.N.D. School.
L.A.N.D. (Learning About Nearby Destinations) School is a collective process to help us - as writers, artists, activists, teachers, neighbors, and land stewards - to orient our work and our lives in the unique time and space we are living in.
In this six-week journey, we will spend time walking and exploring 6 distinct sites to study the intersections of ecosystems, social histories, microclimates, geological strata, and crumbling infrastructure in New York City.
Each workshop is 2.5 hours and will include: light walking, crafts, storytelling, light journaling, and group discussion.
Some topics we will get into:
- People's history of place with specific focus around working class, queer, Black, Indigenous, and migrant stories
- Basic spring plant ID & foraging best practices
- Research techniques to unveil what's hidden between the party lines of empire
- Wildtending
- Animal tracking & bird listening
- Map reading & urban orienteering
- Identifying and investigating infrastructure
- Tactical anti-surve*ll*nce
- Political/ecological entanglements of flooding, heat island effect, & other climate chaos in the city.
When: Every weekend April 4th - May 9th (5 Saturdays and 1 Sunday)
12PM-2:30PM EST
Where: Various Locations in the 5 boroughs (full addresses will be sent to those who register)
Cost: $60 per session, or $300 for the full series
Signups for each session will close at 25 people. Limited scholarships available, inquire within.
ok see u outside!
xx
hi! i made a new website. i'm really excited about it!
you can use this if you'd like to book me for: walking tours or outdoor workshops, for research help, for genealogy, and more.
this website reminds me of the first website i ever designed in 1997, when i was 12 years old. it was a powerpuff girls fan site. at the time, my favorite ppg was up in the air - i think i landed on Buttercup (she is the toughest fighter).
My calendar is currently booking out through June! So email me to set something up. i absolutely love combing through databases, investigating places, and generally just talking to people about their families.
Maybe i like helping people with this because my own family is very complicated, and i live so far from anyplace that could be construed as my "homeland". My life is unusual, and for the past 39 years it has been difficult to chart a path without a map.
i am not without help - over the past few years, my mom has gotten really good at genealogy, and has done way more research than me into who our predecessors were and what happened to them. Her work inspires me to keep reading between the lines of the narratives that other people have (or haven't) written about us.
In america, something has happened to all of us. Getting here is not easy. Staying here can be even harder.
My mom has always encouraged me to complicate mythologized narratives by asking human questions - the little things that motivate us to make decisions that define our realities. i guess these human questions are ones i'm hoping to answer for all of us, drawing from the well of memories we have at our fingertips; an unprecedented open internet grants us access to a daunting number of answers to these questions, and more.
so, come ask some questions with me! and we can start to chart out some stories...
my classes and walking tours will resume this april, and announcements will go out later this week. registration tends to fill up really quickly once i announce things on here, so if you'd like to get a jumpstart on signing up you should join my email list!
newsletter signup link is in my bio 📋
ok talk soon Zz
late posting this but i had the great honor last year of talking with community historian, educator, walking archive of black and indigenous nyc history, researcher, and ritual maker @basicbrassica for @loamlove 🌊 our conversation unfolded over two and a half hours, two days, and a seventeen page unedited transcript, touching on water as a site of black fugitivity, the instability of archives in an era of climate crisis, tidal time, and much much more.
.
are you wondering about escape? are you meditating on how to keep the stories and the tactics safe? are you dreaming of meeting in a hidden place? look to the rivers and the swamps, look to the shorelines, look to the ones who came before and who live in the water still.
Metal is the spirit of loss and lives in our lungs. Just like our lungs, metal expands and contracts. We use metal to control and to trade. The story of metal is an interspecies underhistory which binds humans and ants together. It is the story of labor.
Join @basicbrassica and @alicesparklykat for a workshop series about metal divination. We will talk about the seasonality of metal. We will talk about using metal as currency and noise. We will make sounds using metal, do coin divination, and create a coin token of our song with aluminum foil. We will read poetry written by migrants and workers together and discuss. Participants can expect to do crafts, light journaling, storytelling, and discussion.
This workshop is for you if you have done metal divination before and for you if you have never done such a thing! Come if you breathe through the grief. Come if you grow as you grieve. Come if you collect coins. Come if you want to accept the tension in your body with good company. Metal is a movement that helps us express sorrow by singing. Come if you want to do that.
There are two options to join us:
ONLINE: Saturday, Dec 13th, 2PM EST
IN PERSON: Saturday, Dec 20th, 2PM EST
(Newtown Creek, Brooklyn, NY)
Workshops are 90 minutes in length and will include: crafts, storytelling, light journaling, and group discussion.
see u there!
link in bio xx ⛓️💥
1️⃣: FLOOD SZN: Landlocked is an inland adaptation of a New York City-based workshop series exploring rising water through people's history, buried ecologies, cosmology, and archive.
In this workshop, we will explore the long memory of water in the place we now refer to as Detroit, and we'll make some art in partnership with the water.
This work considers my own experience(s) losing everything to preventable floods here in the city of rising tides - weighing memory against the wake of eroding shorelines, re-emerging rivers, and People's resiliency in the face of genocidal infrastructure.
Raed Ransom @homarsharif will be providing a water-inspired soundtrack and DJ set to the event including but not limited to liquid sounds, muddy bass, and found sound reminiscent of Raed's childhood memories spent by the Red Sea.
2️⃣: 🚗 KL on the road 💨
After Detroit, I'll be on the road doing site-specific research down South - hmu if you're in one of these places and want to organize a community workshop, genealogy session, or research consult for your own land-based memory project:
* Chicago
* St. Louis
* Arkansas
* Alabama
* ATL
* South Carolina
even tho i've traversed this great big island many times, it's been a while and i'm so excited to reconnect with people, water, and territory ~
from the gator-laden deltas
to the big rock candy mountains 𓆝 ⋆.
everything i offer is sliding scale/open to barter as always
꒰ᐢ. ̫ .ᐢ꒱ so don't hesitate to reach out ⋆˚✿˖°
-
email to book ⚡︎
[email protected]
ok back in nyc soon for late summer shenanigans
𖤓 ｡𖦹°‧ ⋆☀︎. catch u later xx
𓇼 🝝aggot 🝗arth 𓇼 is a month-long series of workshops to orient us around the histories of trans & gender variant people in this territory and beyond.
This series is hybrid and will be offered both online and in person in New York City.
✩✩✩✩✩✩
IN-PERSON: (Sundays in NYC)
EDIT: This session is full!!
S̶u̶n̶d̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶J̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶8̶,̶ ̶1̶2̶-̶2̶P̶M̶ ̶E̶S̶T̶
̶L̶o̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶:̶ ̶A̶ ̶w̶a̶l̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶W̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶V̶i̶l̶l̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶-̶ ̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶T̶a̶m̶a̶r̶a̶ ̶S̶a̶n̶t̶i̶b̶a̶ñ̶e̶z̶
Sunday, June 15th, 6:30-8:30PM EST 🐚
Location: A gathering at Riis Beach - led by @jahthecreature
A people’s history of Riis: queer congregation on the ever-eroding shoreline.
Ends with a water ritual.
Sunday, June 22nd, 8-10PM EST 🔭
Location: On a rooftop in Brooklyn - led by KL
On freedom astronomies & almanacs of the emancipated - a history of Black Queer star-mapping.
Ends with a collective divination.
Sunday, June 29th, 12-2PM EST 🪵
Location: Deep in the slice of old growth forest in Prospect Park - led by KL
On park cruising, potter's fields, and sublimated burial rites.
Ends with a burial ritual.
✩✩✩✩✩✩
ONLINE: *sessions will be recorded and sent to everyone who registers*
Tuesday, June 10th, 6-8pm EST: Water 🐚 ~ led by @jahthecreature
A people's history of Riis; Queer lives lived on the ever-eroding coastline.
Thursday, June 12th, 6-8pm EST: Fire 🧱 ~ led by @tamarasantibanez
A deep survey of the bricks thrown at the Stonewall Riot and other infrastructural insurgency in New York City
Thursday, June 19th, 6-8pm EST: Air 🔭 ~ led by KL
On freedom astronomies & almanacs of the emancipated - a history of Black Queer star-mapping.
Thursday, June 24, 6-8pm EST: Earth 🪵 ~ led by KL
On park cruising, potter's fields, and sublimated burial rites.
✩✩✩✩✩✩
Ok registration link is in my bio ^^^
Cost as always is v sliding scale - check out the link for more details ~~ ok
see u soon earth babies *✲☆⋆(˘ᴗ˘ )
if you've ever wanted to join me for an immersive exploration of the lands , waters , winds , ancient bedrock, and political forces that undergird this great big sinking metropolis, then you should sign up for this class i'm offering through @farmschool_nyc !
Learning The Land (fka NYC As An Ecosystem) is a deep ecology-focused exploration of place-based memory in one of the most densely settled and longitudinally corrupt cities on earth.
there will be 9 total sessions in this container:
• 5 in-person classroom sessions
• and 4 site visits in various outdoor locations
spanning a variety of geologies, waterways, social histories, and microclimates.
anyone who lives in or around new york city can sign up for this class.
the price is sliding scale ($95-$375) and is based on an honor system (you don't need to prove your income etc). there are limited scholarships available.
i'm so excited about this bc it will be my 6th year (!) facilitating this class - a container that i inherited from my teacher @ew_li (from whom i learned an immeasurable amount about reading land - his ecology classes changed my life ngl)
this class has been shaped by a litany of facilitators over the past several years - @antonita_la_brujita , @zaydel_rabbit , @freedomfransorants , @blackvervain , @farmer_cris , @baby___spinach , @miltonxtrujillo - each of whom holds incomparable knowledge and expansive understanding of this hyper-settled little archipelago and the unlikely beings who inhabit it alongside us.
ok don't sleep on this bc interest forms close on thursday may 15th! so sign up!! ok
link is in bio ^^
see u in the streets 🫡
it's official! 🪪🚨 after passing a 3-hour, SAT-style exam based in the literal most *random* trivia about the city, i've officially been granted the legal right to lead these little time travel journeys without impending dread that the nypd will shut us down for gathering in public space 🎯
🦦 this past month in Flood Szn, we've been absolutely drowning in the generous teachings offered by the waters surrounding our little gulag archipelago 🚣🏾♀️
there's still some space to join us for our final 2 gatherings of the flood szn container -
EDIT: walking tour is full! pls email [email protected] to be added to the waitlist 🔜 ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶S̶a̶t̶u̶r̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶M̶a̶r̶c̶h̶ ̶2̶9̶ ̶(̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶s̶o̶n̶)̶,̶ ̶w̶e̶'̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶l̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶r̶s̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶e̶t̶t̶a̶ ̶b̶r̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶W̶a̶s̶h̶i̶n̶g̶t̶o̶n̶ ̶S̶q̶u̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶i̶e̶r̶s̶,̶ ̶i̶l̶l̶u̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶h̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶a̶l̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶s̶p̶i̶r̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶e̶n̶t̶u̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶v̶e̶r̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶s̶h̶y̶ ̶m̶o̶o̶n̶l̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶i̶l̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶"̶g̶r̶e̶e̶n̶w̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶v̶i̶l̶l̶a̶g̶e̶"̶.̶.̶.̶ ̶
🔜 and next Tuesday April 1st (online), we'll be exploring the re-emerging rhythms of the buried creeks and streams that cut across the grid, delve into the financial and political forces which sought to bury them - and hopefully, together, we can develop a sense of what the near future holds for this soggy little city.
signup link in bio ⬆️
after closing this vessel, i'll be taking a small hiatus. but in june i'll be back with a vengeance to kick off some fun stuff that i'll be offering throughout the summer 🌞⛱️
ok river snails 🐌🚿 see u soon
(oh wait but also. omg. if you want to see the practice quiz for the sightseeing guide exam hit the dms , it's unreal lmaooooo
did you know that the only plan in place to protect NYC
(and coastal NJ)
in our next big inevitable storm(s)
is to build a $52.7 billion underwater border wall
to divide the city's coastal harbors
from the surging sea?
this plan (being forged by the U.S. Army, no less)
is known as the HATS Plan - short for Harbor and Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study.
these submarine walls, in addition to 42 miles of literal concrete sea walls stretching across the city's waterfronts, will do little to protect most residents over the next 5 decades of rapid rising waters --
the most deadly flooding here will actually be experienced by those who unknowingly live, walk, or commute above one of the city's hundreds of buried creeks and springs in the event of a very big rainstorm
in addition to do virtually nothing to protect new yorkers from climate-wrought water rise, the Army's water border walls will:
- disrupt tidal flow
- destroy marine habitats
- exacerbate sewage outflows by trapping sewage behind the wall gates, causing brownwater floods of the ensuing backflow
in spite of all this, this is - i repeat - new york city's *only* plan.
i first started going to the public comment sections for this plan in 2018, events in which uniformed officers cheerily presented posterboards of the plans in the basement of the Museum of the American Indian, a windowless room lined with framed copies of broken treaties.
All over the city, people are pushing back - in more windowless rooms, CUNY auditoriums, and church basements, begging the federal government to come up with a humane and sane plan for the people, the land, and the waters.
There is another public comment period coming up - and i want everyone to know it's happening. i want everyone to be ready.
its flood season.
the waters are rising.
are you ready?
join us this tuesday, march 4th, to learn more about floods here - meteorological warning systems, neighborhood infrastructures, how to get you and your neighbors to safety. this will also be a space for co-processing climate anxiety and grief 🖤
signup link in bio 📌
session will be recorded and sent to everyone after :)
FLOOD SZN is a public drop-in, hybrid (both online and in-person) workshop series exploring water through:
• people's history
• ecology
• cosmology
• and archive
in consideration of eroding shorelines
re-emerging marshes
and the People's resiliency
in the face of inevitable, catastrophic floods precipitated by genocidal infrastructure
i've been cooking this offering up for quite a while ~~ (since my 2nd basement apartment flood in ... 2021 ?) and am *so* excited to finally share this with you !
anyone living anywhere is welcome to attend one or some or even all (!) sessions. but to join for the walking tours, you'll need to be in or within commuting distance of new york city.
Online workshops will include: deep dive research, archival resources, video footage & oral histories, research methodologies, and historic mapping tools art builds, story weaving, and water meditation.
In-person workshops will include: water meditation and ritual, honorable harvest of local medicines, deep study and inquiry of everyday infrastructure, skill sharing around basic plant ID, weather mapping, flood mitigation, and climate resiliency. and also making friends :)
Cost as always is sliding scale, and limited scholarships are available.
ok registration link is in the bio ^^
** registration for each walking tour will close 1 week before the date, or whenever they reach capacity - so don't sleep on signing up!
if you have any q's just shoot me an email, but please keep in mind that i'm an independent researcher and this work is not affiliated with/funded by any institutions ~ so it might take a few days !
see u soon water babies 🐋
Me and @alicesparklykat have fully revamped our fire divination workshop, and are re-offering it over Zoom - this time as a fundraiser. All funds generated will go towards on-the-ground mutual aid in LA.
This workshop will be about creating, removing, and transitioning with fire. We will discuss the natural history and native ecologies of “California”, fire and its role in creation and divination systems, and our changing habits around fire. We will do group journaling, some story sharing, and look at the bazi event charts of the Palisades and Eaton fires together to consider fire and its relation to other elemental forces.
This class will be held over Zoom. Registration is open to everyone. If the cost is too high for you, feel free to do a DIY sliding scale by splitting it with a friend and attending together. Bring a paper and pen for journaling. If you register but can’t attend live, a recording will be sent out after the live workshop.
Registration link in bio 🌐
