glen sed:
The ICE Protest Frogs Have a Long History of ‘Tactical Frivolity’
Can't help offering up the $.17 ICE scraper DDOS protest
<https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/home-depot-ice-boycott-protest-1523022.amp>
underway:
Behind Them
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/10/22/trump-ice-portland-no-kings-protest?ref=404media.co
(I normally delete url parameters as a courtesy to the victims of my
posts. But 404 media deserves attention.)
I think this (thread/link/etc hygiene) is (but) one expression of YOUR
craftiness. I understand (some) of the ways you deny your own
Craftyness but would never acknowledge that you are in fact a
performance art piece of craftiness in your linguistic expression.
Awhile back, I asked some friends why they were so *crafty*, in the
sense of making things themselves, mostly frivolous but sometimes
practical like "visible mending"
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_mending>.
I"m a fan of Kintsugi, which looked "showy" when I first encountered it,
but that gave over to recognizing it as a celebration of "Read Wear" in
the extreme.
I'm not crafty. And when I do something, I try to make it "fit in" as
best I can, to hide my involvement. The exception is words/concepts. I
like others to know how weird my language/thoughts are. They didn't
have a good answer. We rambled on about the difference between "art"
and "craft", but never really got anywhere.
I don't consider myself a "craftsperson" but rather (a bit of) an
"artifex", and for better or worse, one who ideates on artifexing more
than actually executing such... avoid driving the entropy of my
immediate environment more quickly than I might if I were more active
and willful (as I have been at other phases of life?)
Anyway, in the only protest circles I sometimes mix with, antifa,
there's a significant amount of crafting in the form of [de|of]fensive
materials, patches and other signage, etc.
I'd a young aquaintance during the DAPL protests at Standing Rock... who
spent weeks handcrafting a "riot shield" to take with him when he
planned to go sleep in the freezing mud with thousands of other
"allies". In the end, he failed to actually make the trip, but his
"crafting" and ideating on the possible utility of his artifact was very
theraputic for him. He had (what I pop-diagnosed as) PTSD, having
recently left the military (Army) after tours in Iraq and
Afghanistan... I think it was best he didn't go throw himself at the
Law Enforcement at Standing Rock. For everyone.
/ As an obligatory (and gratuitous?) anecdotal tangent, another
friend, Charles Rencountre (Lakota) took his own energy to Standing
Rock and left behind the (only?) remaining artifact
<https://www.nrdc.org/stories/statue-standing-rock-sends-powerful-message-resistance>of
that moment (Not Afraid To Look)... I also delivered a 12" clay
version of same to Greta Thunberg during our (Merle, Stephen,
myself, et al) visit to Stockholm in 2019. Greta was midway across
the Atlantic on an "electric sailboat" from the US to Portugal for
the COP that year, so it was handed off to friends of her family In
the circle we were meeting with). I also placed a 1" tall 3D
printed instance at the entrance to Parliament near where Greta
usually sat on Fridays (for future). I didn't have the heart to
glue it down to the stone wall or the cast iron lamp-post base so
suspect it is long gone from it's place of vigil./
Continuing the primary anecdote, I have heard/read stories of ancient
(iron if not bronze age) warriors meditating on a coming battle by
sharpening their swords (in sonic unison) on handy stones found
nearby... A kind of meditation, a re-visiting of personal and shared
intention, and an intimidation of the enemy? Thus the "buy a .17
ice-scraper and return it"? Next news story will be of someone on
trial for waving an ice-scraper at an ICE agent (attacking/threatening?)
not unlike the subway sandwich. Maybe Antifa Cells will start
paramilitary training on how to use various models of ice-scraper as an
effective weapon against SWATted up ICE/DHS goons? Let the games begin!
Pride parades and renfaires are similarly crafty. Also maker spaces
are rife with crafty people/projects, though they are often polluted
with Formalists (engineering and mathematics where the objective is to
"get it right"). The crafty aren't necessarily social, I guess. But
the ones I know *do* really rely on others for ideas of what/how to
craft.
I know more than a few who have traveled through an
SCA/RenFair/SteamPunk/DieselPunk/WarReEnactment phase in their life. I
suppose Burning Man is a steroidal/psychadelic pinnacle of same?
When talking to such people, I get inauthentic answers about
disposable culture or "what I can't create, I don't understand". But I
don't think that's the foundation. There's something
eusocial/illiberal about these people, akin to waiting in line to get
your Labubu doll from the vending machine or talking about the latest
Taylor Swift album around the water cooler.
Similar to tactical frivolity, the signage is bogglingly layered.
"Crafty" engagement in such may have a significant value both for
personal reflection and collective coherence?
<obligatory&gratuitous>/My own choice of wearing a "Burger King
crown" to both No Kings protests was a very low-investment
"crafting" and I passed a few extra crowns around to some of my
youth-activist friends (40somethings- gak!). I helped Mary
handcraft signs for each protest (he joins all of them) using the
set of metal stencils my own father used to make signage for more
plebian purposes in the 60s (maybe preceding me in the 50s also).
Despite being a very progressive thinker for his generation, he
would have donned a red MAGA hat if he hadn't lost his memory (and
died) before those became available. I heard him roll over in his
grave as I noted the different colors of spray-paint (we used
Sharpies) reminding me of some of the signs he made. The meditation
Mary put into deciding on the wording and asking me to craft/artifex
the actual /</obligatory&gratuitous>
I guess I'll go slap some home-made recycled-material patches on my Frog
Suit where the Burger King crown wore
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