Yesterday at The Ohio City Market!

The Ohio City Market is a new Farmers Market, yesterday was its 2nd Sunday.

A dozen or so vendors and maybe a 150 shoppers. Still finding its identity and still being found! It is just a stone's throw from the Westside Market.

As i was setting up some of the vendors remembered me from the Sunday before when i was just checking it out!

Luckily i was able to rig up a sunshade since during the market the sun burnt of the low clouds and it got hot!

It was a much more casual day and it took a while for folks to come over and interact.

Had a bunch of lovely interaction and learned more about how Cleveland is put together. A new idea is for me to get people to draw maps of the city for me, explaining where and why i need to go places.

You can see the tire with some weights on it kept the Globe from falling over! And the plywood table is a little warped from driving through the rain on Saturday afternoon!

To the right of my was a Market Farmer with lovely tomatoes, blueberries, beans and sweetcorn.
To the left was The Lake Erie Creamery. Very yummy hand made cheeses.

Learned about a local movement called SoMo Leadership Labs. They are exploring Social EMotional Intelligence and how to train yourself from genetic habits of negativity to more optimistic and successful. There is a training this Sunday morning... maybe i'll go before the Market!

Cour, one of the vendors from across the way turned out to be a former WWOOFer, she lives in a collective house and was a nice connection!

Another vendor, Jessie came over to check things out and she read about The In The Moment Comic Book Workshop i am doing at The The Cleveland LGBT Center and she told me about Carol and John's Comics at Kamm's Corner as a possible place to do the workshop. We'll see.

When i went over to sample the Salsa i learned it was made with concentrated citrus juices and sweetened with honey! Amazing!

So all this was preamble to the significant moment that then happened. Across from the Salsa folks was the Icecream Maker and as i was downing another Salso sample he set out some Ice Cream Samples. i took that moment to turn and grab on before returning the the Lab and Ice Cream man asked me "What are you selling over there?"

What an amazing question! What am i selling at the Lab? What am i offering besides interesting activities and engaging conversations?

This question has been occupying my thoughts since then. i am so glad i came early to Cleveland and got to have these warm up experiences so i can have time to address them.

We'll see where this leads.

Here is the video of the Globe with Sunday's marks! So interesting to see how differently people interpret the offer!

Personalized Globalization Debut!

Today marked the début of Personalized Globalization! At the Shaker Square Farmers Market. Emma, the coordinator had me set up at the grassy turn on the eastside of the Market.

It was a nice simple set up. The Globe almost didn't get out the door of The Couch House because the door couldn't open all the way. The Staples store closed at 9 pm last night and so i didn't have all the things i had planned. All good!  OK IS OK!

Met many people getting to engage them on many levels.

Here are a few more photos to get a sense of it all!

This is Laura the first to make a mark on the Globe. She is a house sitter and piano tuner.

Her mark to describe Cleveland!

Many other people enjoyed learning about The Puzzlement Laboratory and what we are doing during The Gay Games 9. About 9000 participants are coming for the games from something like 44 countries and from all over The US. 18,000 spectators too.  It will be a great mingling of peoples. How do we find ways of making significant and refreshing connections that are meaningful???

This is an experiment. So glad i have this time to practice and try things out.

More later! More photos to share and a video! Need to take a shower and a nap!

New Mantra!

My new mantra is:  K.I.S.S.A.S.S.

Keep
It
Super
Simple
And
Seriously Silly

The simple is going better every minute, now just to increase the silly factor!

Here's a link to a video i made about The Cube: A Problem Jostler!

It is one of the projects of The PL in development. Eventually there will be 27 small cubes (cuz they will stack into a big cube!) There are currently 18.

The Cube: A Problem Jostler

Check it out!

The campaign is starting off slowly but there have been a few donations through the indiegogo and a few others via other means! Yeah for diversity and options.

Also have gotten the official go ahead for The Puzzlement Laboratory to set up at several farmers markets over the next weeks!

North Union Farmers Markets

We'll be at The Shaker Square Market tomorrow Saturday the 2nd. from 9 to Noon

And then at The Ohio City Market Sunday from 11 to 2pm.

Later Sunday afternoon i'll be hosting an open house for those curious to learn more about The Puzzlement Laboratory and my other Art projects including The Ladies!

Here is a video my friend Ka Baird from Spires That In The Sunset Rise made:

13 Full Moon Lunar Year Daily Ritual aka The Ladies

It is 15 minutes long. So take a gander!

Also next Wednesday The PL will be at the local independent farmers market at Gordon Square Farmers Market.

Then on Thursday i will go down to Baldwin-Wallace University in Berea for the Conference on Current Issues in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Intersex Health Research.  It is a 3 day conference in which the public, as in non-professionals, are welcome.  Having done a tremendous amount of work as a Safer Sex Promoter and Needle Exchange Worker it will be interesting to get my feet wet again. Plus i LOVE an academic conference!

i'll take the Personalized Globalization Project down there and see how it flies!


Yeh! Just got another donation!


Click here for The Puzzlement Laboratory Indiegogo Campaign!

The Puzzlement Laboaratory Fund Raising Campaign on Indiegogo is LIVE!

So it has started! 20 days to go on the campaign to raise some money for the activities here in Cleveland!

Indiegogo Campaign for The PUzzlement Laboratory

Check it out, Share It Forward, LIKE it! and even donate!

Lots of great perks!

with pleasure in the struggle!!!

Gulp! About to launch Indiegogo fund raising campaign!

So, the time has come to launch the crowd sourcing fund raising campaign. i am nervous and have lots of trepidation about this endeavour. Two years ago, i did the first for Having My Cake and Sharing It Too and it wasn't that great. i wasn't in the best situation to promote it and do all the work to make it successful.

Now i am in a much better place in my life, though not without challenges. i have had the experience of being a helper on other campaigns and have a sense of how it works.

i hope a few folks step up and help get the word out about this campaign because that is what makes it possible to succeed!

i'll do a separate post about the projects that are happening for GG9 and another with a more detailed explanation about the PERKS!

Got to do my first session at The LGBT Center of Cleveland yesterday and it turned out really well because i got pulled into meeting a group of youth from Mexico who are visiting the US learning about lots of stuff. The sponsoring organization's name i can't remember at the moment but it is something like The World Council of Nations..... will ask for it for what it really is.

The lot of youth spent a week in Vermont doing team building work and now a smaller group is visiting Cleveland doing a family stay and visiting different organizations. They participated in a Martial Arts Demonstration, some of them made a video about their time in the US so far, other helped with making dinner and then we all got to eat together and then we did an Inter-Galactic TransGender Warrior Cake Decorating Experience!!!  It was a lot of fun and i got to speak a bit of my "crudimentario" (crude and rudimentary) Spanish!

The Puzzlement Laboratory is in Cleveland through The Gay Games 9.

Arrived in Cleveland on Monday and have been settling into The Couch House (www.couchhouse.org). It is located in the Detroit-Shoreway neighbourhood, conveniently a few blocks from The LGBT Center (www.lgbtcleveland.org) and also the lake!

Have set up a few events for during the Games already.

In The Moment Comic Book Making
Monday 11th  3 - 5pm

And

The Inter-Galactic TransGender Cake Decorating Experience!!!
Wednesday 13th 3 - 5pm

Both at the Center.
6600 Detroit Avenue

We will be making several LARGE Globes as a part of an interactive "Where are you from? and Who are you?" activity.

Also creating another Puzzle!
Hands Up-Hands Down-Hands Out- Hands In
https://www.facebook.com/events/738275352905864/
Decorate your hand(s) to express an aspect of your identity and email them to audaciousyear@gmail.com They will become part of a slide show. From these photos, some will be turned into a line drawing collage. This collage will be made into the Puzzle!

The collage image will be cut into 25 post card sized pieces and these pieces will be then coloured by folks. Then assembled and reassembled in a variety of ways.

So lots of fun and excitement!

Glad to be blogging again!

There will also be an online crowd source fundraiser to help cover expenses and to make sure i get paid a bit of money for all this work!!!

The Puzzlement Laboratory Debut!

So this is just the second blog about The Puzzlement Laboratory. Well it finally made its debut within the Gypsy TransTemporalis Encampment as a part of The Figment Art Event last weekend on Governors Island here in NYC.

It was quite extraordinary and lovely though a lot of work.  Friends had been working on putting the Gypsy Camp together for a while and Ahnika got me to share about The Puzzlement Laboratory and asked my to make it a part of the Encampment.

i worked on creating 3 different puzzlements and ended up just using one of them.  The two i didn't use were the Inter-dimensional Giant Cross Stitch Project and Paint By Numbers Puzzle.

What did get worked was the Puzzlement Map Cubes.  i made 3" cubes and affixed sections of NYC Subway maps in the different sides and then encouraged people to figure out where they are coming from.

This was all done while in character (as per the Gypsy theme).  So i created Tuchi. Tuchi used the name "Mary Smith" when out in public working as the spokesmodel for the Laboratory.  She is the cousin of the Laboratory Overseer, Nown Variously. The story got more complicated and crazy as more people come through and interacted. Talking about Dr. Ramus who runs the Lab.  Have you heard of him?  Dr. Igno Ramus?  Very famous man he is.  And the Lab assistants Juan and Dan Udder. They are twins, cannot tell them apart until they speak which isn't often.  Very strong boys they are though and observant.

On Saturday, interestingly, there were more than a few people who ended up identifying themselves as soldiers. And so Tuchi engaged them in dialogue about the differences between soldiers and warriors.

"Soldiers are working for other powers, for the state or whatever. But Warriors fight for their cause, their people."  She encouraged the soldiers to find their way to being a Warrior. A Warrior for their Tribe for Good.

Sunday was much mellower. We were i think more comfortable in our Encampment and so it was wild to see folks come in and just accept us a Gypsy. Trying to differentiate between our take on being Time Travelling Trans Temporal Gypsies and Romani was at times not the point.  Though i did speak with someone who was aware that there ancestors where Romanian Gypsies.

i did get a chance to explore a bit the rest of Figment and got to see Jason's (from the Hungry March Band) sound piece of News Sound Bits from 2008.  An 8 hour segment of an 18 hour piece.  People could just listen and react and walk on or stop and talk or write and draw their reactions to the piece.

And then there was the Plastic Bag piece. Encouraging people to think twice or thrice about plastic bag use and reuse and also the Puzzle Guy. He had giant jugsaw puzzle pieces that he had people draw/paint on.  It was lovely.  He had problems overnight with rain so many of the pieces got damaged.

Oh i got to see and hear Reverend Billy and The Church Of Stop Shopping Choir and hold their Revival.  They are sounding GOOOD.. Haven't heard then live since seeing them in Chicago almost 10 years ago when Morgan Spurlock was following them around.

So i was fried and am still tired though that has to do with other things also.

More to come!