I stopped by briefly to check in my buddy Rafi and his fellow meditators as they entered the 17th hour of their 24 hour meditation marathon in the windows of ABC Home on Broadway and 19th. Entitled "Sit Down to Rise Up," the sit-in was organized to raise awareness of their group the Interdependence Project, a nonprofit that combines meditation and civic activism. Over 70 people were expected to participate in the meditate-a-thon, most doing four hour shifts, but four hardy souls including Rafi sitting for a full 24 hour period without sleep!
Rafi was surprisingly lucid and coherent given his tired state when I checked in on him at about 12pm today. I offered to buy him lunch or a coffee, but he said he wasn't hungry or thirsty. He said he was feeling pretty good, although one of his legs has been asleep and hurting for several hours. The hardest part he explained was dealing with the drunk people that passed by the windows starting at around midnight last night. "Someone offered by buy me and take me home," Rafi recounted. "Another mooned one of the other sitters."
More of my pics from "Sit Down to Rise Up" here. Congrats to all the sitters!
UPDATE: Rafi posts his own fascinating reflections on the 24 hour sit on his blog.
My buddy Voon was kind enough to share with me this hilarious picture of me lindy hopping with my friend Lynn on Halloween. I love how ridiculous I look as an "undead b-boy" and how calm Lynn is in the background.
Here's another priceless one, along the same lines.
Thanks, Voon! You rock!
My buddy Rafi sends out word that his organization the Interdependence Project is sponsoring a "meditation marathon" for 24 hours starting tonight till tomorrow, to raise funds for their innovative approach to activism. Rafi and three other leaders of the Interdependence Project will be sitting in the front windows of ABC Home on Broadway and 19th Street, starting tonight at 7pm and lasting until 7pm tomorrow. They will be joined by other meditator activists for 4-hours shifts over the course of the period.
I’m asking anyone reading to sponsor me as I meditate for a full twenty four hours as part of the Fall fundraiser. I’ll be joined in this full 24 hour marathon by Ethan Nichtern, IDP’s founder and director, along with Jessica Rasp, one of IDP’s meditation teachers, as well as by many members of our community that are committing to meditating with us for four hours blocks over the course of the day as we sit in the windows of ABC Home, who have generously offered their space for the event.
Head to Broadway and 19th Street to see all the meditators do their thing and show your support! And you can learn more about the Interdependence Project, their unique blend of meditation and action they call "integral activism."
Yesterday evening was the sixth annual "Kings of New York" Dance Competition at Saint Marks Church in the East Village. Here's a montage of some of the 8-on-8 crew battles. Sorry, I didn't catch all the names of the crews.
Congrats to Dynamic for winning the KONY6 best crew crown (again, apparently)! They featured incredible tricks, musicality, choreo and energy that was hard to match. And of course, congrats to all the other crews, house dancers, poppers and supporters for making it out.
see my pics from the event here. I've got some more popping footage that I'll try and get out shortly.
I'm totally exhausted and braindead, but I had an absolutely fantastic time dancing with the ThrillerNYC group in the Halloween parade as one of the boogie-ing zombies. It's such a wonderfully open and friendly dance group, presided over by Bridget, Severine and many, many other volunteers.
Thanks, ThrillerNYC, for organizing such a kick ass dance event!
More later as pics and videos become available, and my brain becomes functional again...
I plan on again rocking the Halloween Parade as a zombie with the gigantic Thriller group. But afterwards I'm going to want to get some more dancing on.
This Halloween there is a huge assortment of swing dancing parties going on all over the city. Which is awesome! Here's a quick rundown of what I know about going on this weekend:
I am posting this more for my own edification because I didn't really get what OpenSim was before. OpenSimulator, as I understand it, is a open source BSD-licensed virtual environment server that enables individuals and institutions to "roll their own" virtual world that can connect to various OpenSim platforms or exist on its own walled garden. In their own words:
OpenSimulator is a 3D Application Server. It can be used to create a virtual environment (or world) which can be accessed through a variety of clients, on multiple protocols. OpenSimulator allows you to develop your environment using the technologies you feel work best - we've designed the software to be easily extendable through loadable modules to build completely custom configurations. OpenSimulator is released under a BSD License, making it both open source, and commercially friendly to embed in products. Out of the box, OpenSimulator can be used to simulate a virtual environment similar to Second Life™ (including client compatibility).-- From http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page
Using the OpenSim freely available software, anyone with access to a server on the internet can run their own Second Life-type virtual world essentially for free.
Or you can connect to some of the non-profit and commercially available OpenSim compliant grids for a fraction of the cost of renting a Second Life sim. I.e. a basic setup on the opensim compliant Reaction Grid will cost you $25 a month for a sim. Or you can connect your opensim server for free to the OSGrid, the largest running opensim grid with 2,500 sims and 27,000 users.
Continue reading "What the heck is the OpenSimulator Project?" »
My swing dance podcast: The Yehoodi Talk Show! |
