Tod Seelie is a photographer and part of the Miss Rockaway Armada team. Here he reports on their encounters in Eindhoven. GO TO everydayilive.com/eindhoven to see more imagery from Tod Seelie and the encounters of the Miss Rockaway Armada in Eindhoven, read below what they have experienced in Eindhoven so far….

- Going to a thrift store in an old school to find John some new pants after he blew the seat out of his old ones. The old lady who was helping us insisted on leading him by the hand around the school showing people the hole in his pants, and then made him change out of them before he could leave the store.
- Rescuing damaged abandoned bikes and fixing them up to get around.
- Staying and working at the long-established squat Stroomhuis run by Andre Amaro, who on top of being amazingly generous, also happens to be an incredible chef.
- Working outside in the cold/rain.
- Competing for who has sustained the worst concussion so far.
- Feeling almost respectable when the Van Abbemuseum throws a welcome dinner for us.
- Finding it to be colder and damper than expected, which leads to the need for and the subsequent hunt for long underwear (which resulted in settling for blue camo stretchy pants from the little boys section of a fire-damage store).
- The resident chickens keeping us company, roosting in the bar we built, and of course shitting everywhere.
- The group attending an art opening at MU, and then promptly turning it into a crazy dance party. The momentum came down a bit after one of the crew broke the glass of a display case, but only momentarily. I heard there was an after party at a nearby bar where the remaining Rockaway members got thrown out, more than once.
- Andre cooking amazing dinners for us.
- I am able to convince friends of mine from Brooklyn, the band Team Robespierre, to come and play at Burgers in Eindhoven before they head to Amsterdam while touring Europe. A bunch of the Rockaway crew goes to the show and the band plays to a pretty full house.
- Going to the Election Brunch at the Van Abbemuseum and feeling a bit befuddled since we couldn’t understand all the things being said about our own country and election. At the same time it was probably better we couldn’t participate, it probably helped move things along quicker.- Planning a bit of waterborne adventure for the coming opening weekend.
- Really enjoying waking up (in the living room) of the nice artist housing and peering out into the back courtyard space. One almost is forced to feel civilized regardless of how late you were up hanging from dusty scaffolding screwing pieces of mismatched soggy scrapped wood together into something you hope can support its own weight.

Click “Continue Reading” for more photos. Furthermore check out the weblog of Tod Seelie at: suckapants.com

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Floating the Worlds

Miss Rockaway Armada is a group of artists which come from various parts of the United States. Two years ago they become known to the public because of their expedition alongside the Mississippi River. On a self-constructed float they took a journey alongside the river stopping randomly at places to offer music concerts, theater, performaces, workshops and discussions to locals. In Eindhoven they have been invited by Mu, Stroomhuis and Van Abbemuseum to contribute to the large scale art and music project Heartland.

Since the last two weeks about 16 Miss Rockaway people have been visiting Eindhoven and assembling materials in Eindhoven to build their large scale installation at Stroomhuis. DIY <Do It Yourself> is one principle that is forming the backbone of the interdisciplinary fragmented formation of The Miss Rockaway Armada. I would say a perfect mix of personas, intelligence, craftsmanship, expression, sound, interaction and creative potentiality.

Come and see - Take the chance and stop by at Stroomhuis on the 7th,8th and 9th of November to meet the Miss Rockaway Armada. A weekend long you are able to experience music, performances, puppet theater, art and others:

Opening: Friday, 7th of November, 8pm till midnight

Saturday, 8th of November, 7 till mdnight (incl. freegan dinner)

Sunday, 9th of November, 3 till 8pm

Location: Stroomhuis, Eindje 1 in Eindhoven

Note: I’m having trouble posting media so for now here’s a link to some images and a video from the past few days in Chicago: Images and video from the Obama rally in Chicago and the day after in Hyde Park

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It’s a great time to be in Chicago.

Tuesday night I was at the election rally in Grant Park. A friend lifted me up for a few minutes so I could see over the heads of the exuberantly hushed crowd to watch Barack Hussein Obama walk across the stage to speak us, to the nation, and to the world. People around us listened intently, cried quietly, spoke out an occasional “that’s right!” All of us joined the call-and-response rhythm of Obama’s refrain: “yes we can!” After the speech, we started hugging each other and dancing around in a circle chanting “yes we did!” like happy lunatics. Later, we wandered along Michigan Avenue, one of the city’s central streets. Not far from where policemen brutally beat student protesters during the 1968 Democratic Convention, cops now watched calmly as tens of thousands filled the street and groups of people sang impromptu choruses: “ohhhh-bama!” Michigan Avenue usually thrums with commerce and traffic but last night it brimmed with the joy of the people of Chicago on an historic occasion. Giddy, giddy, giddy.

Euphoria continued yesterday. I spent the morning soaking it in, talking to friends and family, and walking around in my neighborhood, Hyde Park. It’s the President-elect’s home turf too. Not only does he live here, but he and Michelle Obama also have strong ties to the University of Chicago (home to the Smart Museum, which is the Van Abbemuseum’s American partner for the Heartland project). It felt especially fine to be out on 53rd Street and on campus: a smattering of reporters, a line to buy newspapers, smiling conversations with random people on the streets.

Did I mention that it’s been warm and sunny in Chicago? It’s never warm and sunny in Chicago in November.

Of course, as I write, clouds are literally and figuratively rolling in to dispel the charmed aura of the past few days. Given the huge problems facing our country and the world, a tremendous amount of work lies ahead if we’re to achieve even a fraction of the promise embodied by President-elect Obama . . . but even that sobering prospect feels inspiring and new.

Election-day maps show that the region we’ve been exploring in the Heartland project includes both red and blue states. If you look at the finer levels of detail you’ll see that many of those states are blue around their cities and university towns, and red in rural areas. Ideological divides persist. Although states like Indiana and Ohio shifted away from recent voting patterns and fed into President-elect Obama’s victory, this remains a territory of strongly mixed political positions. Part of what’s so exciting, though, is the sense that with new leadership we might actually achieve a more civil civic discourse, one that reaches across boundaries and honors differences of opinion, one that inspires more generous and engaged ways of inhabiting our world, one that embodies the true potential of our united states.

I can feel a weight lifting, a release of eight years worth of anxiety. Many Americans responded to the trauma of September 11th with acts of extreme kindness and bravery, but as a nation we shrank inward, got afraid, went shopping, went to war. As individuals, many of us gave in to cynicism and a kind of low-grade depression. Because we didn’t see a path towards meaningful change in the way our nation is governed, we almost let ourselves forget about the senseless deaths in Iraq, the devastation of New Orleans, the endemic poverty in our cities and towns, and the social and environmental impacts of unheeding consumption.

Things look different now. Beyond all of Barack Obama’s strengths as a leader and the amazing, amazing fact that we’ve just elected an African American to the US presidency, one of the most important things about his success is that it is starting to lift that malaise. We’re seeing how small, individual actions can link up to create meaningful, even massive, change. With incredible organizational, technological, and psychological savvy, his campaign spurred people to contribute. It harnessed the pent-up desire of millions of people to build a better world. It matched inspiring goals with concrete steps that could be taken by individuals: give some money, give some time, talk to your neighbors, but above all, participate. The results demonstrated what we might achieve if we get to work and link up localized actions with a progressive national leadership. No single human can achieve the kinds of hopes pinned on our next president. Even with smart advisers and Congressional support, oppositional forces and institutional inertia will limit his capacity to achieve huge changes in government. But maybe that doesn’t matter as much as it used to. Lots of people—including artists and cultural workers of many different stripes—have been already been working long and hard toward greater goods, and now many more citizens seem poised to heed a call to service. We’re ready to use all kinds of talents and resources to build a more just, hospitable, and sustainable society. We’re ready for a little more joy, too—you can bet that we’ll be dancing at this revolution.

And maybe, together, we’ll form a more perfect union.