The Baby Boomer Manifesto

 From each according to his abilities. I was going to wait until the general protests for the fascist military parade on June 14, but democracy is falling faster than I would have believed possible. This is the best I can come up with at the moment. Share it around, download it, print it out, post flyers. 

Cover

Back

Inside mini-poster

If you would like to print out and pass around a bunch of these, a free downloadable pdf is available here: The Boomer Manifesto download.

Basic Thrift Store Shirt Butchering

 

The end product - a perfect shirt filet!

This time around the focus is on basic thrift store shirt butchery. The shirts in question are those endless racks of classic man-tailored shirts ideally suited for boring nine to five office jobs, found by the armload at any thrift store. They can generally be had for anywhere from $3 to $5 depending on the thrift store. That means you are getting lots and lots of lovely cotton fabric (check labels and avoid synthetics) far more cheaply than you'd pay at a fabric store, and you are keeping all of those shirts in circulation and out of the landfill.

To create a jigsaw pieced creation like the one above, pick at least three shirts in complementary hues, or in contrasting colors that appeal to you. Butchering a man's shirt involves removing all useable expanses of fabric and gutting and tossing the reinforced seams. You may want to save collars and cuffs for other projects (see Power Cuffs for another fun and fashionable project). Stream something online, grab your scissors, and make an evening of it!

Shirt butchering diagram

Keep the front button and button hole plackets intact – they can contribute interesting and unexpected details to your final creation. What you end up with after an enjoyable evening of shirt butchering is a lovely array of useable fabric. At that point, let the creative fun begin. 

The salvaged fabric

Try piecing the fabric together in a variety of different ways. The end product in this case is a short-sleeved shirt formed from a rectangle, which gives you lots of leeway to mess around.

Let the piecing begin!

One priority for me has always been pockets, and I found a number of ways to incorporate them into this new creation from the butchered parts. The top center pocket is actually a meta-pocket, incorporating the breast pocket that was on one of the original shirts, which is itself simply the exterior of another, larger pocket formed from a panel that includes a portion of the buttoned front placket of the original shirt. A button placket was used again for the lower right pocket.

Pockets, count 'em!

There is no limit to your creativity when it comes to shirt butchery. 

Shirt back

And finally, here is the shirt in action. . . shown on me in a spaced out moment in my living room.

Moi

A Space-Time Portal for Stones

The portal

There are those among us with a love of stones, rocks and pebbles. We pick them up, put them in our pocket and take them home. There is no objective rhyme or reason for our selections, this obsession is highly subjective. We simply love stones and need to collect the ones that capture our fancy.

Part of my personal stone collection

For my initial theories on collecting rocks and the virtue of helping the stones move around the planet, see an earlier post, For the Love of Stones.

Now I have stumbled upon an even more effective and artful method for transporting rocks and giving them an extaordiary, once-in-a-millenium experience: a space-time portal for stones. The portal is a hollow  papiér-mâche bird, crafted from the pages of one of my old travel notebooks and scraps of gold joss paper.

The portal when closed

A small door on the chest of the bird features a small gold-bead handle. To operate the portal, open the door, place a stone inside, and let it rest inside the portal until it is ready for transit. The next time you go for a walk (preferably a meandering, pointless walk), remove the stone from the portal, take it with you, and leave it somewhere along your way. Select another rock from the landscape, employing the critical aesthetic judgement that makes sense only to you, and return home. Place the new rock in the portal to await its transit adventure.

The portal in operation

This may seem like a trivial, meaningless activity, but consider the implications. For the stone, which may remain in the same place with very little happening for centuries, this is a universe-changing, mind-blowing experience. Its reality has utterly changed. At the same time, though your part in this process may seem minor and irrelevant, you are in fact in the process of incrementally terraforming the planet.

While there are no plans at this end to start manufacturing space-time portals you are, as always, encouraged to create one of your own. Your stones will thank you for it.

Mourning in America

Click here for free, downloadable Mourning in America flyer. 

It is difficult to know how to respond to current events in America. As a child in the 1950s I was obsessed with the question of how the Germans - the nice, neighborhood, non-combatant, civilized, friendly Germans - could have let the Holocaust happen without doing anything to stop it. And now I find myself in the same situation, facing the same question. I am 77 years old, my lungs are too weak to allow me to participate in protest marches. So what does one do? One does what one can. Thus this participatory theater piece, which anyone from a toddler to an octogenarian ought to be able to pull off.

Wear black. That's it.

This idea was inspired by a friend, Pam O'Connell, who came up with the phrase, "mourning in America."

And we are in mourning — for the loss of our universities, our civil rights, our best and brightest immigrants, our constitution, our rule of law, our basic human decency.

Trump, among other misdeeds, is dismantling library and museum services, squelching any exhibits dealing with diversity or human rights, and demanding that cultural institutions in America focus on the anniversary of the founding of America on July 4, 2026. The celebration of America's 250th anniversary under the Trump regime looks likely to rival Hitler's most rabid, goose-stepping celebration of humanity at its absolute worst. What can one do?

Wear black. That's it.

Originally this piece was going to focus on wearing black on the dates of all key U.S. historical markers leading up to the grand debacle in 2026. The kickoff date, as shown above, is Paul Revere's ride on April 19. Other proposed dates included ratification of the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclomation, the Civil Rights Act, the 19th Amendment, and so on. In the brief few weeks I've been working on this I've adapted the original idea to simply wearing black whenever the occasion warrants.

Wear black. That's it.

This is a nationwide, participatory theater piece. A clear signal to the rest of the world that not only are we against everything Trump is doing, we are deeply grieved about the state of our nation. We are in mourning.

Click here for generic Mourning in America flyer.

Note the addition of the idea of wearing an armband. This is potentially even more effective than simply wearing black, because mourning armbands have become an anachronism. They are an oddity in current times, and more likely to provoke questions and comments. Happily, they are available very cheaply and in bulk from your favorite online shopping sites.

Mourning armbands

My plan, when not wearing black, is to wear an armband and keep several spares with me to give away to others. So what can one do?

Wear black, that's it.

Jumpin' Trump: Pull the String and Watch Him Go!

 

Jumpin' Trump: who's pulling the strings?

This contemporary take on a diverting little Victorian pull-toy highlights the current president's white supremacist leanings and points to one of the key oligarchs pulling his strings. Take time out from the depressing prospect of the loss of democracy and our entry into a new dark ages complete anti-science, book burning, and oppression of women and minorities to make this entertaining jumping jack. Feel free to give out the pdf worksheet at marches and protests, and to hang the toy from tree limbs, lamp posts, and Tesla rearview mirrors.

A man who is easily manipulated

The pdf worksheet below is free, comes complete with instructions, and is downloadable. Click here to download.

Here is a preview of your worksheet:

Grab your scissors and give it a go.

Nest Series: The Copper-Bamboo Nest

 

I thought I was done with the Nest Series when I finished the Garbage Nest, but compulsions have a mind of their own, and apparently my nesting days were not quite over. After trimming the roots off some root-clogged bamboo plants growing in water, I simply couldn't toss the trimmed roots. I knew from past experience (the Roots Project) what fun can be had with bamboo roots, but I also realized they weren't substantial enough (or I didn't have enough of them) to comprise the entire shape and structure of a nest. For no particular reason, I tried cutting off some thin strips of copper from copper sheeting I had in my stash and the problem was solved. The copper adds some much-needed structural integrity to the nest. This one is tiny and delicate and houses a papier-mâché bead constructed from old travel notebook pages and gold Chinese joss paper. (For more on how to make these beads, click here.)

A nest in the hand...

A nesting bardo bead

Copper strands offer structural support

The Nest Installation

And here, for the very first time, a few photos of the Nest Series installation.

Suspended amongst the philodendrons

I hadn't realized until a house guest arrived shortly after the nests were installed that my guest daybed in the front room is itself part of the nest series when converted into a comfy place to curl up with lots of fluffly pillows and quilts.

Guest daybed amidst the nests

Nest Series: The Garbage Nest

 

When garbage becomes home

This nest, comprised of plastic garbage bags, candy wrappers, and other bits of refuse fished from the trash, proved to be the trickiest to figure out.  I decided on knitting as the technique, but then had to invent a really wonky pattern that involved starting to knit from the tips of the pattern below, keeping them well separate, and adding stitches to each of four panels row by row until I merged them all together to form the nest wall. To construct, simply fold the triangular edges under, overlapping, until they form the base of the nest and stitch together.

How to knit garbage

How to knit garbage

Miraculously, when folded in place and stitched together, it does indeed form a nest.

The nest

I cannot think of anything better to make a cozy home in this nest than my extensive collection of pop-tops from cans, which I use for everything from jewelry making to assemblage to wall hangings. On reflection, I realize nests would be a perfect system for storing random art supplies.

A clutch of pop-top tabs

I thought this Nest Series has come to a fitting end with this garbage nest, but that was before I harvested roots from my bamboo. Stay tuned. . .

Nest Series: Krishnamurti Nest

 

Krishnamurti Nest

Next up in the nest series is the Krishnamurti Nest, inspired by a number of week-long retreats I've had the great good fortune to attend at the Krishnamurti Foundation of America down in Ojai, California. Situated on the site where K himself lived and taught, the setting of orange groves, pepper trees, and abundant wildlife is surrounded by the Topatopa Mountains. One pepper tree in particular, the tree under which K experienced a transformative spiritual rebirth, (backstory here), warrants special attention and a loving pat or two on its trunk.

This nest is partially made from one of the booklets offered as part of the superbly facilitated dialogue sessions run by Richard Waxberg and Deborah Kerner. The nest has been built to house an abundance of pink peppercorns and leaves from the property where K used to live.

Materials: booklet pages

Materials: pink peppercorns and leaves

Each nest in this series has required reinventing construction techniques based on the unique materials being used. In this case, thin wire was wrapped in strips of paper and used as a framework. More paper, cut into strips, was braided and then woven in and out of the infrastructure.

Nest building in progress

Nest building

The final nest is light, airy, and almost as magical as sitting on the back lawn during a K dialogue, listening to the birds and the rustle of trees and realizing, I am all of this.

The nest

Nest Series: The Seaweed Nest

 

The Seaweed Nest

The winter of 2025 seems to be a time for huddling down and nesting, and here we have number three in the Nest Series.  This organic creation was inspired by a rain walk on the shores of Lake Merritt, Oakland during one of the many atmospheric rivers that hit the Bay Area coast in the past few months. A king tide had created a surge that threw mounds of seaweed and shells onto the lake path. I collected a bunch, took it all home, and created this.

King tide seaweed

Really cool seaweed

I've worked with seaweed before (check past Seaweed Projects), and knew the trick was not to try to stitch or otherwise fasten the raw material together, but to mold it into the desired shape and keep tweaking the molding process as it dried.

Molding the seaweed

Tweaking the mold as it dries

One of the challenges in this nest series is to decide what to house in a particular nest. In this case the decision was relatively easy. I opted for a combination of seashells tossed up by the tide and a few choice pieces from my collection of sea beans. If you have walked the shores of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, or East Africa, you have encountered sea beans — seed pods that drop into waterways or shorelines and are carried away by the tides to travel to distant shores. For those curious to learn more, "What the Heck is a Sea Bean?" is an entertaining post with a sea bean identification guide.

The nest

A clutch of shells and sea beans

On to the next nest!