Shelter From the Storm

Please come out for "Shelter from the Storm" a double-location benefit reading for victims of Hurricane Katrina at the Bowery Poetry Club, Friday, Sept. 30th, 6pm - 4am
and St. Mark's Church, Saturday, Oct. 1st, 1pm -7pm

Be a part of artists coming together to create the world.

See you there!!
Acts of Art

for more info:
http://www.rattapallax.com/reading_093105.htm,
http://www.poetryproject.com/, http://www.bowerypoetry.com/
and see below.


SHELTER FROM THE STORM

Bowery Poetry Club
Sept. 30th, 6-4am
308 Bowery, 212-614-0505
Downtown Poets & Musicians Unite
to give Art and Aid to Katrina Dispossessed.
Baraka, Bogosian, Ribot, + 100 poets
burly-q stars & musicians!!


St. Mark's Poetry Project Katrina Relief Benefit. October 1st, 1-4pm,St. Mark's Church, 131 E. 10th St (2nd ave). http://www.poetryproject.com/. Suggested Donation: $20 NEW YORK, NY-On October 1st, 2005, artists, musicians,and poets from New York and New Orleans band togetherat the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina rebuild their lives and their city.

eaturing performances by Toni Morrison,Cecil Taylor, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dael Orlandersmith,Anne Waldman, Denize Lauture, Suheir Hammad, Roger Kamenetz, Steve Cannon, Bill Martin, Eddie Bobé, Moira Crone, Hal Sirowitz, Patricia Spears Jones, andothers, the Poetry Project will donate 100 percent ofproceeds from the event directly to the 21st Century Foundation's Hurricane Katrina Recovery Fund.

Emceed by poets and New Orleans natives Tonya Fosterand Greg Fuchs, this all-star afternoon of music,poetry, and testimonials begins at 1 pm and ends at 4pm in the Sanctuary of St. Mark's Church. Performanceswill be followed by a party from 4 pm to 7 pm in St.Mark's Church's Parish Hall, where books and NewOrleans-themed food, including pralines, gumbo, redbeans and rice, and chicory coffee will be for sale,with proceeds going to the 21CF Hurricane Katrina Recovery Fund. The Poetry Project is also asking fordonations of books, journals, artworks, and cleanclothing in good condition to go to Hurricane Katrina survivors.

Patriot Act Rally at Howl Festival!

Acts of Art participated in the Howl Festival on Saturday, August 27th, 2005. The parade began at 12 noon and proceed to Thompkin Square Park where the Howl Festival was in full swing.

Our Constitutional Freedoms Are In Jeopardy

Now is the time to restore real checks and balances to the worst sections of the Patriot Act. But our chance may be lost forever when Congress votes on whether to make it permanent and expand its powers. This sweeping legislation must be fixed if Americans are to preserve our basic freedoms and protect ourselves from broad government searches of our personal records and information. Under the Patriot Act, the government can:

• Search your home and not even tell you (Sec. 213)
• Collect information about what you read, what you buy, your hotel visits and your medical history (Sec. 215)
• Seize business and financial records (Sec. 505)
• Track your email activity and web usage (Sec. 216)

Learn more about the Patriot Act at the http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/
Sponsor links: Community Arts Network

ACTS OF ART MANIFESTO

We, the Creative Citizens of the United States of America, are gathered as an artistic force to celebrate and protect the Cultural Health of our Nation. We are a population of persons inhabiting this country who value and use the Creative Imagination as a vital means to resolve issues and build a brilliant future.

I. Our goal is to sound a well-heard united voice which will speak in defense of the individual rights and economic livelihood of artists; to protect a happy and healthy existence of artists within our communities, securing the essential importance of the people's right to a Nation's cultural and expressive survival. We will achieve this through exercising our rights of assembly, free speech and pursuit of happiness.

II. As Creative Citizens of this Nation, we hold dearly the rights of the 1st Amendment. We protest the enforcement of doctrines which comprise its integrity, which induces a social climate of mistrust, fear of surveillance and punishment. We vigilantly speak loudly against those doctrines which dampen our freedom of expression, as such; it is a freedom that plays a vital role in a healthy creative process.

III. The Cultural Health of our Nation is derived by the contributions of its Creative Citizens. The well-being of individuals is under direct threat due to our Nation's failure to provide healthcare. As Creative Citizens, we demand an adequate healthcare system which secures individuals' right to proper and modern healthcare.

IV. The commitment to creative careers requires economic support. Funding for artistic endeavors has been dramatically derailed towards economically bankrupting and humanly devastating projects. We, as Creative Citizens, vehemently denounce these projects in the name of humanity. We propose a redirection of government provisions and interest towards the cultivation of an educational and sustaining standard of living which better supports our Nation's Cultural Health.

V. Finally, and with great joy, we gather to raise a spirit of celebration and encouragement for those who wish to pursue and are pursuing a lifetime commitment to an artistic discipline. Within this spirit, we commit to exuberantly fuel a web of dialogue and exchange between artists of all disciplines; to offer these participants the opportunity and tools to create grassroots and personal networks which will act as resources of information, education, representation and connection to and of a political body representing an artistic identity.