Since we moved across the country in August, 2018, and left San Francisco, CA to settle in Pittsburgh, PA, we have undergone some major life changes. Starting in January 2019, we made a decision to shift our focus a little bit.
We started our YouTube channel and this site in 2016, as a way to explore culture and politics, as well as offer an armchair analysis of the psychological impact of humans on one another. We’ve learned a lot through our imperfect analysis of personal discoveries as well as the imperfect world around us. We grew. And well, we grew up. We severed ties with those who society says we are obligated to stay in contact with (family). Those ties were binding us to bitterness, jealousy, frustration, defensiveness and scapegoating.
We are not interested in popularity contests or how many followers we have on Twitter or YouTube or our still-existent Book of Ours FaceBook page. We know that the internet is simply a tool to archive our discoveries. Followers, usually in the form of bots, will come and go.
But our message must remain steadfastly focused: community building, real time outreach, gardening, empathy based dialogue with neighbors, open-ness and the idea that hope, and falling prey to hoping a system that has failed us will suddenly do better, is not a practical engagement of our time or energy. We are thinkers, then do-ers.
We are Anarchists.
With that in mind, we are building face to face organic relationships with our community by attending community meetings with merchants who have taken a special interest in revitalizing the area we live in, in Pittsburgh, PA. As we were researching an affordable home to buy, we discovered that this revitalization was beginning and it was the inspiration for our final decision to move here and settle in. So far we’ve attended three meetings and have offered valuable input on the launch of a celebratory community event happening this Summer, 2019.
We are developing relationships with children who are on the school-to-prison pipeline. We see and interact with them everyday. These children live in broken troubled family situations. Some of them have one incarcerated parent. We hope to get the green light and permission on a project where we can sit down with the children and give them a space where their young fertile imaginations can flourish through a creative discovery. This creative discovery then can be translated to audio, published in small books and ultimately shared with their incarcerated parent. This idea was inspired by Chris Hedges involvement in the play “Caged.”
We have revitalized our artistic analysis of the world around us by offering casual thoughts on bands, art museums, and whatever we can find that stimulates creativity. For, we know that when democracy dies, art and philosophy and all that it embodies becomes emboldened and can shift the paradigm of this ever changing world.
We have been asked by BikePGH to offer our input on the expansion of bike lanes and bike awareness and infrastructure.
Each day that we engage with those of you in the real world, or online, we become inspired for another piece or another project. Expect to see more of that as we move more into the realm of creative expression. A deep intolerance for injustice on any level will be the underlying message in most of our endeavors.
We are so happy to be a part of this vibrant community that has invigorated our imaginations, solidified our goals and helped give Book of Ours shape and direction.
Since we moved across the country in August, 2018, and left San Francisco, CA to settle in Pittsburgh, PA, we have undergone some major life changes. Starting in January 2019, we made a decision to shift our focus a little bit.
We started our YouTube channel and this site in 2016, as a way to explore culture and politics, as well as offer an armchair analysis of the psychological impact of humans on one another. We’ve learned a lot through our imperfect analysis of personal discoveries as well as the imperfect world around us. We grew. And well, we grew up. We severed ties with those who society says we are obligated to stay in contact with (family). Those ties were binding us to bitterness, jealousy, frustration, defensiveness and scapegoating.
We are not interested in popularity contests or how many followers we have on Twitter or YouTube or our still-existent Book of Ours FaceBook page. We know that the internet is simply a tool to archive our discoveries. Followers, usually in the form of bots, will come and go.
But our message must remain steadfastly focused: community building, real time outreach, gardening, empathy based dialogue with neighbors, open-ness and the idea that hope, and falling prey to hoping a system that has failed us will suddenly do better, is not a practical engagement of our time or energy. We are thinkers, then do-ers.
We are Anarchists.
With that in mind, we are building face to face organic relationships with our community by attending community meetings with merchants who have taken a special interest in revitalizing the area we live in, in Pittsburgh, PA. As we were researching an affordable home to buy, we discovered that this revitalization was beginning and it was the inspiration for our final decision to move here and settle in. So far we’ve attended three meetings and have offered valuable input on the launch of a celebratory community event happening this Summer, 2019.
We are developing relationships with children who are on the school-to-prison pipeline. We see and interact with them everyday. These children live in broken troubled family situations. Some of them have one incarcerated parent. We hope to get the green light and permission on a project where we can sit down with the children and give them a space where their young fertile imaginations can flourish through a creative discovery. This creative discovery then can be translated to audio, published in small books and ultimately shared with their incarcerated parent. This idea was inspired by Chris Hedges involvement in the play “Caged.”
We have revitalized our artistic analysis of the world around us by offering casual thoughts on bands, art museums, and whatever we can find that stimulates creativity. For, we know that when democracy dies, art and philosophy and all that it embodies becomes emboldened and can shift the paradigm of this ever changing world.
We have been asked by BikePGH to offer our input on the expansion of bike lanes and bike awareness and infrastructure.
Each day that we engage with those of you in the real world, or online, we become inspired for another piece or another project. Expect to see more of that as we move more into the realm of creative expression. A deep intolerance for injustice on any level will be the underlying message in most of our endeavors.
We are so happy to be a part of this vibrant community that has invigorated our imaginations, solidified our goals and helped give Book of Ours shape and direction.
JP and Julie