Education

How heavy I felt when one of my professors noted that I hadn’t applied anywhere else. Why had I only applied to SUNY Purchase? Didn’t I aspire to be an actor? And the truth is, no. I aspired to keep existing.

We’ve got to focus. We are at a point before the election where the actions of the next few weeks have the potential to impact our lives — and the lives of immigrants, children and the disenfranchised, as well as our allies and others around the world — for years to come.

Nate and Ben of Iska Dhaaf chat with Sam Miller about their latest album: “I think writing about dark things is healthy. Our first album had themes about drone warfare and disconnection. The new EP is more about communication and wanting to be close to others, even though we often fall short.”

For the last few years, I kept checking for accessible foreign editions of some of these books. I reached out directly to Reza Dalvand, the illustrator of Ace, who put me in touch with his publisher in Iran.

Movement for Mercy is a live dance performance which honors the intersections of experiences and shared history throughout our community.

“Zahra, where is that from…oh, did you know that Iraq invaded Kuwait?” “Yes, I was there.” He asked what my thoughts about the Taliban were, twice.

The problem isn’t that our laws are flawed (even though they are). The problem is that we care only to the degree that it won’t be an inconvenience or mess with our comfort…or even worse, our narratives. This is our problem.

We’ve been living through such extreme weirdness that otherwise easy civic activities like voting and census-taking can somehow fall between the cracks — so we’re hosting this virtual event to help get you supercharged!

Job, funding, grant and other opportunities culled from the Coffee+Creatives group for creatives seeking work or other ways to get paid for what they do.

We thought it would be helpful to periodically summarize what’s out there to calm the storm of information that seems to be swirling around us. So here is a resource list focusing on mental health, wellness and financial assistance to help soften the impact of COVID on all our lives. 

Guest Blogger Lara Segura of Keshet shares: “I find that dance, as a nonverbal art form, can make subjects that may be difficult to discuss less abrasive and more accessible. My aim with National Water Dance is to invite the community to share their thoughts, words, and movements about the universal right to clean water.”

John Fugelsang is in Albuquerque to perform “Unpresidented: The true story of a comedian trying to raise a toddler while his country was electing one” and we were lucky enough to get him into the Pyragraph LIVE studio (a.k.a. my office) to talk about comedy, politics, religion, and how he’s pulled all those elements and more into his unique creative career. 

Guest Blogger Jeff Andersen: “We work with students in local classrooms for an entire year teaching them how to write and perform their own plays. I see the students make the same connections I did. They realize that they can not only participate in the world around them but also, even better, help to shape it.”

Babar the elephant and Curious George are old friends. They were some of the first people we grew to know. They might not be real people, but they were some of our first ideas of people.

I was a bookish, literarily-devout writing major. The type who read prose poems and flash fiction anthologies in the corner at parties, that sort of thing. And though I wouldn’t have admitted it then, one of the reasons I didn’t own a smartphone was because I was afraid of it.

The future looms large before us and it is our responsibility as artists to advocate for ourselves. We must advocate for our continued importance and relevance in such politically uncertain times. We must advocate for increased fusion of art and science, since an interdisciplinary understanding of the world has always been more thorough and enlightening.