alazka

I must know where and when Leonard Cohen will be performing on this, surely his farewell tour.

I must see Leonard Cohen sing.

I would arguably also be satisfied to watch Leonard Cohen eat a bowl of Rice Krispies.

There may be holier people on the planet...but I bet they can't write like him.

I met </a></a>stacy en route to a rave, the way I remember it, the last truly epic rave of my raving years, and immediately decided to adopt her as my sister.  I'd heard about her for months, and the reputation for intelligence, humor, verve, creativity, passion and style that preceded her was not hiding under a bucket the day we met.  (We all have bucket days and no-bucket days, yes? We hope we meet kindred spirits on no-bucket days.) She's been through a lot since then, and she's helped me get through a lot since then, and we've both learned a lot since then, and she remains one of my dearest friends.

Stacy's a writer, filmmaker, tattooed freak, arts professor, bellydancer, survivor and knitter, and she is making a cinema verite documentary called "Better the Devil You Know" with cinematographer Annie Waldman. Their plan is to teach adolescent girls in inpatient psych treatment facilities to shoot Super 8 film, and to include the girls' films with theirs. They are asking everyone they know to donate $1 to the cause. Here's all the info, including budget, resumes, etc:

http://www.stacypershall.com

Please check out their site, and, if their mission intrigues you, consider making a donation and spreading the word among your friends! I'd especially like to suggest the following payment scheme: if you're getting some money back from the IRS, please consider sending one to ten percent of it to these independent artists working to help girls survive a world that likes to eat girls alive from the inside out.  (And if you haven't noticed, nearly everybody's getting $600 back from the IRS in May.  Yes, I'll remind you again then.)

Bush's economic vision is for us all to spend our economic incentive money on Walmart and gasoline, which will do nothing good for the economy but a lot for Walmart and big oil companies, and when all is said and done the whole "economic stimulus" plan will have basically added billions of dollars to our huge national debt and transferred it directly to some of the hugest, evilest corporations on the planet and the corrupt politicians who work for them.  Even shorter version: the worst people in America stealing even more money from generations to come. 

If you believe in the other America, though, the America of crafters and bellydancers and independent thinkers and creators with a vision and a dream, put your money where your mind is, okay?