where: Freewheel Community Bike Shop (1804 S. Park St. #5) 

This Earth Week Madison’s Freewheel Community Bike Shop will be hosting a weekend workshop exploring and practicing the construction of bicycle carts.  Using an easy design, low cost parts, and simple fabrication skills & tools, participants will share with each other basic skills and perhaps BUILD a cart for themselves as well!!  You’ll experience the basics of steel conduit bending and cutting and basic Oxy-acetylene welding. The workshop will be split into two days.  Saturday will be focused on learning and skill sharing and getting the process down.  Sunday will be more of a construction event where we’ll all attempt putting together roughly ten or more bicycle carts in a large spectacular group effort.

The public is welcome to view each day’s events for FREE, but a small donation to Freewheel will allow folks hands-on practice and use of tools the whole weekend.  And if you pre-register before Apr 18th, for a sliding-scale $25-50 you can sign-up to construct and take home your very own cart.    REGISTER SOON for details!  We’re also looking for volunteers.  So, if you have a few skills to share and would like to help volunteer please register as well.  Info?  clint.freund@gmail.com or #920-763-5970

where: Syntropy Co-op, 812 Jenifer St

Back by popular demand!  Please spread the word!

Join us if you are a fan of furry, feathery, and fuzzy critters.  No carpentry experience required – we have the tools and we’re here to help!  We’ll provide scrap wood and basic designs to create homes for songbirds, solitary bees, hibernating butterflies, and brown bats, though you can certainly bring your own plans and materials for other projects.

This is a family friendly event, so kids are most welcome!  Refreshments will be provided.

Info?  #262-9036  jepeck@wisc.edu

1403 Willy St. back door
Thursday 1/31/13,  2pm till 6pm. Prompt
FYI: Not checkin email for a while. see ya there.

Cost: umm…FREE! or homebrew to share
You can expect:
— a Oatmeal stout recipe
— a 4-6 hour process.  It will involve my whole-grain routine, but I’ll point out how to do easier malt extract recipes too.  I’ll try to streamline it to speed it along.
— an open format so we can learn from eachother.  I’ll try to point out stuff I know and understand, but folks are welcome to chime in.
— an encouraging atmosphere for folks of any experience, even if you haven’t contemplated making brew till now.
— homebrew to share. maybe some mead too??

Monday, December 3
12-1 p.m., SLIS Commons (4207 Helen C. White Hall)

Before the rise of mass incarceration in the late 1970s, many prisoners had the freedom to write and publish newspapers. Despite operating under circumstances that were heavily censored and highly constrained, inmate-journalists discussed national and international politics, engaged each other and the public, and reflected a dynamic, oppressive, and often-controversial penal culture. The product of a collective endeavor, these documents provide a novel method for tracing the history of institutional culture from the inside out. This talk focuses on the radical feminist and black power prison newspapers held at the Wisconsin Historical Society, examining how inmates created a vibrant inter-prison news network despite geographic isolation and significant censorship. Methodologically, this talk discusses how digital tools like text mining and topic modeling can offer novel ways to discover patterns in newspapers and other large bodies of text.

Here’s a brief recap of our learn/teach ideas from this potluck discussion. If you’re interested in learning/teaching anything on this list, make a comment on this post (or reply to the list email) so we can gauge demand and critical mass.

Things we want to do/learn:

• Free Choir!
• printmaking
• primitive/outdoor skills
• plant ID/wildcrafting/urban edible gathering/medicine making
• beekeeping

Things we can teach each other:

• Davi holds GO! game nights at Sector 67 on Thursday evenings, and can teach things about programming, science, math, music theory, and drumming.
• Ashley can teach fermentation such as the art of kombucha.
• Kara can teach things related to plants, urban-edibles, cooking, fiber arts/knitting, science activities for kids, and beginning ukelele.
• Nate can teach math and physics, astronomy and weather.
• Shannon is interested in teaching/sharing about plants, herbal medicine making, kimchi fermentation, and chocolate making.

See a schedule of free workshops here.

The Zine Fest/Print Explosion will take place in the College Library at UW Madison in White Hall from 11-5 pm. The Workshops take place in the nearby Humanities building.

The roster of exhibitors is drawn from the world of experimental publishers, visual artists, artisanal bookmakers and printers, radical imprints, grassroots zine authors, and activist designers. The exhibitors hail from across Wisconsin and from around the United States. They include an array of subversively creative print media artists and publishers, including names such as Xexoxial, Anne Elizabeth Moore/Ladydrawers, The Baffler, WI Books to Prisoners, PM Press, Fresh Hot Press of the UW Printmakers, Polka Press, Sue Bietila, and many more who do their thing through print media.

Saturday, November 3rd
7pm: gathering, eating, 8 pm: talk about the free school, followed by more gathering and eating
at 1221 Spaight St.,(it’s a house with a rainbow flag on the porch railing, between baldwin and few sts. NOT wheelchair accessible, unfortunately)

I’ll make a big pot of veggie chili to start things off

Since the last time we saw each other…

After our last potluck in the spring, Allie and I had ideas about keeping the freeschool active through the summer and fall. But there was a reason the freeschool was originally a winter freeschool project, and Allie and I burnt out and turned our attention to other summer projects. Now, with the turning of the season, my thoughts are turning to the free school and Allie is moving on to other places.

I want to bid Allie a very, very fond farewell and thank her for spearheading this incarnation of the Madison Freeschool. I know she’ll be taking the freeschool with her, in a sense, because after all, freeschool is a state of mind.

Allie and I envisioned the freeschool as a network, a way to meet your neighbors, share skills, collaborate on projects, and form learning partnerships or groups. In the past couple years we’ve organized and hosted skill shares, workshops, field trips, and potlucks. The free school is also a community experiment to build relationships, and to spark conversation about the nature of learning and the possibilities of education. Anyone can teach a class, organize an event, or put together a workshop. For me personally, the freeschool is about curiosity, creativity, mystery, self-directed education, and exercising my power to build the society in which I wish to live. It’s also about empowering others.

That’s all for now! At the potluck we can share some ideas about what we’d like to learn and teach this winter, meet other freeskoolers, and eat some delicious food.

Feel free to email me with questions or to say hello. Hope to see you at the potluck!

cheers,
Shannon

Deadline: November 1st, 2012

It’s not too late to submit an entry of art, poetry, essays or musings on manarchy in the Midwest as we organize here to fight the good fight against all forms of oppression!

The zine is not done yet, as originally planned, so there is ample time for you to get your entry in for the copies coming out on November 10th to be presented in conjunction with the following workshop described below.

I have one poem, some song lyrics, three essays and some clip art I got off the internet so far, so come on! Let’s get YOUR amazing art, essays and poetry OUT there! Deadline for entries is November 1st.

And please contact me [thistle@riseup.net] about the wording of the workshop description too, if you think it needs to be tweaked. I am aiming for an amicable, solidarity-building mood that will help us all feel empowered and able to talk about these things in a productive, sensitive way.

Workshop description:

Identifying and dismantling male supremacist culture in our daily practice of organizing

This will be a workshop for women identified individuals to get together to share stories of organizing events, working on projects, working on radical institution building, doing childcare, and otherwise living our lives. It will be presented through the lens of anarcha-feminism which believes each of us have a voice and a story to share in our sisterhood as we collectively fight the good fight to dismantle patriarchy in our lives and beyond. We will explore the concepts of and styles of male supremacist culture in email exchanges, facebook comment threads and conversation. Thistle Pettersen is the workshop’s host, an anarcha-feminist living in Madison working on DIY projects such as the Grassroutes Caravan mobile bicycle villages of resistance, the Madison Infoshop and other radical endeavors around the Midwest. She will lead the discussion of male supremacist culture, what it looks like, sounds like and acts like, and then open up the floor for women to share their stories with each other of when they have experienced male supremacy in their lives. This workshop is open to women of all genders, queer women and individuals who suffer from women’s oppression. The focus of discussion will remain upon women’s unique plight and silencing in the patriarchy. If you do not feel comfortable coming to this workshop, but you have a story to share, consider making an entry to the zine to accompany the workshop, Musings on Manarchy in the Midwest: anarcha-feminist reader to accompany workshop presented at the Madison Zine Fest, November 10th, 2012. Deadline for entries is November 1st. You do not have to identify as an anarchist to write or do art for this zine!

In addition, please contact me about the format for this discussion and we can brainstorm ideas for other spaces where women can talk to each other.

Contact: thistle@riseup.net

Men, you are encouraged to attend a separate workshop prepared by Ken Klippenstein, a male feminist ally, that will be held at the same time as the women’s workshop.

When: Wednesday, August 1, beginning at 6pm

Where: Chakra Sonica, 1218 E. Mifflin

Join us for a potluck reunion for friends of the Grassroutes Caravan! If you have been on a GRC ride or helped out for one, or just want to learn more about bicycle culture, join us for some sweet reminiscences. If you live in Madison, bring a dish to pass, and bring your GRC ride pictures to add to our community super-collection!
If you are in need of a place to stay, please contact Seth, Carl or myself (Thistle, thistle[at]riseup[dot]net), and we can arrange for a place for you to pitch your tent or just throw down your bed roll.
All are welcome!

6 PM potluck — Cous cous, quinoa vegetable salad, and Seth’s famous Chakra Tonics, plus whatever you bring! Coming from out of town? Your presence is gift enough.
7:30-8 PM — Information and idea-sharing
8 PM — GRC slide show and open mic for sharing memories and performances
9ish PM — join in with the full moon bike ride that draws hundreds of cyclists in Madison. Bring your GRC flags, patches and bling bling for this ride!

About Grassroutes Caravan

The GRC has been part of the Madison activist scene since 2007 when some peeps at the Madison Infoshop came up with the idea of organizing a mobile village to travel by bicycle to the Republican National Convention being held in St. Paul in 2008.

We planned for over a year to recruit riders into our intentional mobile community and to make sure we would all have ample healthy food, places to stay and places to do volunteer service and perform. We traveled for thirteen days and twelve nights together in our village to St. Paul.

August 2012 marks the 5 year anniversary of this bike activist institution and the accomplishment of four large rides since 2008. For this reason, the elves at Grassroutes Caravan central are putting together a wonderful full moon night of reuniting and signing thank you cards for all the rad local businesses that have supported the Grassroutes Caravan through the years.

To learn more about the history of Grassroutes Caravan go to: http://www.grassroutescaravan.org/

The Wisconsin Books To Prisoners volunteer collective will be showing folks the process of how to help with sending books to prisoners. We have our donated book collection in the basement of Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative and we can show new volunteers how the program works.

Every  Wednesday at 4 PM, the Wisconsin Books To Prisoners collective meets at Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative to package books to be sent to Wisconsin prisoners or to discuss ways of keeping the program going. We have our donated book collection in the basement of Rainbow.

We have also have a LGBTQ books to prisoners part of the program, which a volunteer runs from their home and can always use help.The Madison Infoshop receives the LGBTQ prison letters and this program sends books to LGBTQ prisoners in and out of state.