Yesterday I had a great time lindy hopping with 20-some other folks as part of the "Sunday Streets" festival in the Mission District of San Francisco. "Sunday Streets" is a city-sponsored series of events that creates car-free areas on the weekend for people to stroll, shop, eat, listen to music and just hang out….
“A Journey Into the Metaverse”: A Video on Multiple Realities and Identity
I'm simply blown away by "A Journey Into the Metaverse," a "mixed reality" video created by French filmmaker Tutsy Navarantha . He combines lush machinima footage shot in the virtual world of Second Life with equally surreal real life footage of India to create something completely new, unique and personal. I have been thinking about…
Last Day to Support Global Kids in Chase Community Challenge: Please Vote Now!
Just a reminder that TODAY is the last day of the Chase Community Giving Competition. My former employers and friends at Global Kids are in the running to win possibly up to $500,000 to support their amazing work helping at-risk teens become global leaders. Please take a second to vote for them at http://vote.globalkids.org and then share your…
Shim Sham for Frankie Manning on May 26!
Larry Peacock recently issued a call to swing communities around the world to do the Shim Sham line dance on May 26, 2011. That's the birthday of legendary lindy hopper Frankie Manning, who passed away in 2009 but whose legacy lives on in us. Here's his message: A call for all swing dance communities…
The “Wrist Roles” Project: Toward a More Open, Inclusive Social Dance System
For the past couple of years, I have been thinking about how gender roles interact with dance roles in lindy hop (and other social dances.) As someone who cares about this dance and wants it to be an artform that is welcoming and available to everyone, regardless of gender, orientation, identity or preference, the strict…
San Francisco Quaker Meeting: Sublime Silence in Downtown SF
Today I finally got to check out the San Francisco Quaker Meeting, almost completing my tour of local Bay Area Quaker communities. A fairly nondescript building on 9th Street near Market, the San Francisco meeting gathers every Sunday at 11am for worship, followed by socializing and committee meetings. This morning there were about 30-40 Friends…
Biking in San Francisco: From Mission Bay to the Golden Gate
I spent this weekend doing a lot of biking in San Francisco, which is a great way to get to know the city and to get around. I've been told that SF is one of the great biking cities in the United States. But it's famous hills and narrow, windy streets were wee bit intimidating….
What is Rik’s Secret Art Tech Project? Find out Monday
What is this? What is it for? Isuppose it's not that hard to guess. Feel free to conjecture in the comments anyway. UPDATE May 2: It's THIS.
Using Augmented Reality to Find Swing Dancing in San Francisco
I have been playing around with some augmented reality apps recently, including the Layar AR system, one of the most popular ones out there today. Layar provides a common platform for developers to share their augmented reality data using common standards, and then share them with a global community of users. There are currently more…
Virtual Worlds, Transgender Photos, and My Life as a Dancing Cyborg
Last Saturday I was involved in a really interesting conversation on the subject of "The Customizable Body: The Present / Future of Identity" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The featured speakers were Second Life founder Philip Rosedale and photographer Amos Mac, documents trans male lifestyles in his zine Original Plumbing. I love…