Newsletter #13: Keep it Rolling
The Audacity Newsletter #13: Keep It Rolling!
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Plans are in motion right now; but to keep them moving we need everyone to push just a little bit. History calls us to each find our style of leadership and to step forward with it. This weekly newsletter is all about finding out about what's going on in the resistance movement and how you can get involved, right here in the Midcoast, right now.
Newsletter #13: April 22, 2025
Contents:
1. Saturday in the Park with You: What's Happening 4/26?
2. Meetings, Events, Actions: What Else is Shaking in Knox County?
3. Victory is a story: tell yours in video, in posts, in this newsletter
4. We're looking for space: can you help in the short-term?
5. We're looking for space: the long-term dream
6. Drop-by/Zoom hour 8 AM this Wed & Thurs at the Midcoast Villager Cafe
1. Saturday in the Park with You: What's Happening on 4/26 at Noon?
ACTION: Saturday, April 26 at Noon: Demonstration in Chapman Park (corner of Park & Main in Rockland). This is our biggest weekly happening, and there's lots going on:
Saturdays in the park have been wonderfully joyful, supportive, and nonviolent so far, but as the crowd size continues to grow (460 last week!), the chances of someone needing some kind of help will grow, and those needing help will get tricker to spot. This means that we'll need some helpers to circulate through the park as part of the day, keep an eye open for any personal or group difficulties, and get help from one of the event leaders if the need arises from an injury, a confrontation, or a person in crisis. We haven't had any big trouble yet, but you never know, and it's best to be prepared. You don't have to know how to solve every problem to be a helper; you just have to be willing to help, or to connect with people who can help. Call this a leadership opportunity! If you would like to be a Chapman Park helper, meet at the flagpole at 11:30 AM before the big demonstration. We'll get you a bright vest and talk through what to do.
Want to join the leadership of the Singers' Corner? Singing leaders Paula Coil and Shlomit Auciello put out the call: "The Saturday singing corner is growing and so is song & chant leadership. Consider joining the cadre! Every Saturday there is space for more folks to lead, and a supportive team and community resistance gathering to engage with! If you can, meet 15 minutes early at the flagpole to get a song sheet and connect with others. And if you'd like, afterward gather for another 10-15 minutes to de-brief. Note: This extra time is not required, but offered with warm solidarity. An additional way to contribute is to bring handheld instruments to help keep the group beat. Our Audacity heartbeat is strong!"
Fun Trial Run of Crafts in the Park: Make an Organize! Fish. We've all seen the "Don't Panic: Organize!" image with a big fish chasing a school of small fish, only for the small fish to mobilize into the shape of an even bigger fish:
Write engaging and informative content that will help your readers understand your message.
Well, we're going to be testing out the logistics to make an Organize! fish this Saturday in Chapman Park. Think of it as a massive activist craft project, perfect for kids and grownups alike. We'll be cutting up old torn sheets (do you have any? bring them!) into circles, stuffing them with paper, and sticking a googly eye on. The rest is up to you. Write your name on your fish so we know it's from you. Then or share your biggest hope for a better world, or a message of resistance, or color something more abstract on it: whatever suits your fancy. We'll waterproof the fish, and then...
... we could put each on a stick and have a giant Organize! fish parade,
... or we could string them up on a lattice to make one giant Organize! fish puppet,
... or we could find a benefactor on Route 1 with a big wall and stick our Organize! fish up there, as a reminder to everyone who passes by that the opposition is here in this town, and we're not going to put up with any hateful nonsense.
So many possibilities... and we can always keep growing our Organize! fish into something ever-bigger as we make ever more fish. Could your fish be the first? Find us at the new crafts table in the park and see what you can do.
HELP NEEDED! It might rain (it might not!) But just in case, by any chance do you have a pop-up canopy that you could bring on Saturday? If you're willing to bring it and come a bit early to set it up, please send an email to contact@audacitycat.com.
2. Meeting, Events, Actions: What Else is Shaking in Knox County in the next week or so?
Outreach Working Group Meeting
Wednesday, April 23 at 4:30 pm
90 Mechanic Street, Camden
Feel a need to reach out to others in the community? This working group welcomes members of The Audacity to join in on the planning for such efforts.
A Street Band for The Audacity - Gathering and Rehearsal
Friday, April 25, 2025
7 PM - 9ish
52 Conway Road, Camden (Gray Farmhouse at the top of the hill)
To be maximally audacious, The Audacity needs a really rocking Honk! band. As the Honkfest! organizers down in Somerville, Mass explain, "Acoustic and mobile, these bands play at street level, usually for free, with no stages to elevate them above the crowd and no sound systems or speaker columns to separate performers from participants. These bands don’t just play for the people; they play among the people and invite them to join the fun."
So let’s get a band together! Most people will think of brass instruments or percussion, but any other instrument that you can carry and play on the street will do. Accordions? Yes! Nose flutes? Sure!
You don't have to be a perfect musician to join: you just have to listen and find a way to add to the sound. We’ll look good, play loud, and sound alright — and we’ll help get this country back on the right track. Motivational, elevational, unificational, perspicacional, perseverational!
Resistance Faire Tabling/Presentation/Performance Application Deadline!
Resistance Faire takes place Saturday, May 10 (tentative: 1-5 pm) at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast (37 Miller Street, Belfast
Application Deadline to staff an information table, make a presentation, or mount a performance is Sunday, April 27 at noon
Share your Idea in an online application by April 27 at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAcjO3nDBaQwvOSMUX...
As the organizers put it, "This free, joyous event will allow Belfast and Midcoast community members to come together, learn about and share ways to advance justice in their communities, plug into existing work, enjoy local food and music, and join spaces for emergent change-making in real time."
Here's an opportunity for us to share what we do in The Audacity, so please share what you know by applying for a spot! While you're up there, see what you can learn from what other activist communities are up to. We have a lot to learn! While you're at it, connect. We'll need these connections all over Maine to prevail against the much mightier, more violent, obscenely funded forces of dictatorship, corruption, and bigotry.
I've put in an application for a table for The Audacity. If you'd like to staff that table and share our story with our neighbors up the coast, please let me know at contact@audacitycat.com.
Save Democracy Town Hall
Monday, April 28
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Waldo Theater, Waldoboro
Brought to you by our friends at Lincoln County Indivisible. On Monday, April 28th, 5:00 - 6:30 pm, there will be a Save Democracy Town Hall in the Waldo Theatre, Waldoboro. Historian Benjamin Carter Hett will open the meeting. He has written books on German History and the Nazi rise to power, including The Death of Democracy. Senator Susan Collins has been invited to participate, although so far has not accepted. Attendees will read personal statements describing how the policies and actions of the current administration are impacting them. The statements will be delivered to Senators Collins and King, and Representatives Pingree and Golden. Email Jan John at janjohn1us@yahoo.com to reserve your free ticket.
Rockland Pride Kick-Off Party
Monday, April 28, 2025
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Steelhouse Basement, 639 Main Street, Rockland
Pride month is coming, and it is so important for us to make a showing this year. So get yourself to the kick-off party, where we can get started with the organizing. All are welcome! Please bring food to share.
Email rocklandmainepride@gmail.com for more information.
Flatbread Benefit Concert for the Penobscot Nation Food Pantry on Indian Island
Tuesday, April 29
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
at Flatbread in Rockport (399 Commercial Street)
Grab a bite to eat and enjoy musicians Gabe Zacchai, Will Neils, and Aaron Englander as they play a unique blend of American music at the Flatbread Pizza joint on Route 1 in Rockport on Tues. April 29 from 4-7 pm. For every large pizza you buy (either to pick up or eat in the restaurant), the Flatbread folks will donate $3.50 to the Penobscot Nation Food Pantry. For every small pizza, Flatbread will donate $1.75. Together, we hope these dollars and cents will add up to a meaningful difference.
Dance Party Working Group Meeting
Wednesday, April 30, 3 PM
137 Main Street, Warren
Imagine we throw a dance party and invite everyone -- donations appreciated! It's a fundraiser, we'll have educational tables for when they just can't boogie no more, and that makes an opportunity for us to grow in budget and in new members. Plus, you know, we'll have fun. (Remember "fun?")
3. Victory is a story: how to tell yours in video, in posts, and in this newsletter
A huge part of the work we're trying to do here is to shift the story from the long, loud, dominant, angry, vengeful, downright illegal plot being thrown at the American people and the world every day. We have to struggle against that horrible story by offering counter-stories of our own that are ethical and caring and compelling in their own ways. We're telling stories collectively when we get together for demonstrations, but I'm sure you have your own compelling individual stories to tell, and The Audacity should be one way that you can share your story, putting it out into the world to do its work of softening hearts and changing minds.
Tell Your Story in Video
This movement has had large moments, but two of my favorite moments of the year were spent interviewing single members of The Audacity who have been at this arts-activism thing for quite some time in their own different ways:
Susan Beebe: watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZfpzhg8Big
Beedy Parker: watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qmweFZl2og
You have your own story. It may be long or short, measured in decades or years or months, but you've done work to get to this point, and you're putting work in to get your message out there.
If are good at recording and editing video, put your own story together! If you'd like someone to ask you questions and help draw out your story and edit it into final form, I'd be glad to help. If you're interested in telling your personal story of activism and adding it to Beedy Parker's and Susan Beebe's, send me an email to contact@audacitycat.com and we'll set something up.
Share Your Work, Your Event, Your Plans in the Newsletter, the Events Page and The Audacity Space
Your story is told through the work you do, the actions you stage, and the plans you have for an activist future. Any of this information can be submitted for any of three spaces The Audacity maintains; just fill out this all-in-one online form: https://forms.gle/3Y8mn44Zn4qZzGHq7
The Audacity Space is a great website for essays, documentation of your art, and information that might not fit in the newsletter but belongs out in the world. There are two ways to post in the Audacity Space -- first, you could go to http://audacityspace.org and follow the directions to sign up for a free account so you can make public posts by yourself. A second method, one that doesn't require any account, it to just fill out that same all-in one online form: https://forms.gle/3Y8mn44Zn4qZzGHq7
Our website has an updated list of events coming your way at http://audacitycat.com/events, and if you have an action, meeting or event you want to add to the list, just let me know using that same all-in one online form: https://forms.gle/3Y8mn44Zn4qZzGHq7
These are different venues for you to share your story, your art, your ideas, or your event -- but the most important thing you can do is to take what you do and make it public somehow. Each of us is small compared to the world, and none of us has the kind of promotional megaphone a billionaire could buy. Nevertheless, the resistance numbers in the millions, and our small stories add up to something magnificent and powerful... just like those little fish in the poster.
4. We're looking for space: can you help in the short term?
Since The Audacity started up just a little while ago with no funds and is only in the early stages of raising funds now, we've been using different spaces in different places, choosing places that have a low cost to rent.
Susan MacNeil-Densmore, who has been active in the marvelous effort to make free political buttons to hand out at demonstrations, writes in with an appeal as the Visual Arts Sunday workshops move on from their temporary space in the Hope Town Office. It's a bold ask:
"This is an appeal for meeting/working/planning space for the in the Midcoast area for activities of The Audacity. Do you have a Family Room, Recreation Room, or Work-out Room in your home that isn't being used? Maybe a barn or garage that is available? Over the next 5-6 months the space would hopefully provide a toilet, electricity, separate entrance (so as not to intrude on your personal space), and be large enough for our endeavors (perhaps in the range of 20'x30'). Working groups would bring their own materials and clean up after themselves. Currently, meetings are taking place at members' homes, in donated public spaces (such as the Hope Town Office/Library), and in rented locations (like Rockland UU Church). In the future, The Audacity hopes to have a permanent setting for ongoing work. In the meantime, the donation of as little as one day/week, from the morning into the evening (to accommodate working and non-working members) might do the trick. If you are able to help or have a suggestion, please contact smacdens@gmail.com. Thank you for your ideas!"
5. One Space to Do It All: the long-term dream
Like Susan points out, right now we're switching between spaces that meet different needs. That'll work for a while, but undoing the damage being done now will be the work of a generation, and that means we need a space that can last us for at least a generation. Ultimately, we need a single space that can support all of the following and leave room for more that we can't even imagine yet:
General, monthly public meetings
Workgroup planning meetings
Classes, workshops, colloquiums, forums, town halls, and conferences
Support and discussion groups
Theatrical, musical, and literary rehearsals and performances
A working studio with equipment for design and production in the visual arts
A production studio with for audio, visual, and written media
An incubation and support space for emerging low-resource social movement organizations sharing a similar mission
A community response center for moments of emerging crisis
A resource library
Supply storage
If we had our dream, in other words, we'd have a community center, meeting space, maker space, and education/conference spot that could be a resource for our local community and a place for more regional meetings too. Such a space would stabilize, strengthen, and defend our movement against all kinds of hostility and difficulty.
As we work on our small goals, let's keep our eyes on really long-term goals like this. Dream a little, visualize a little, and start to think about what we'd need to do to make that dream a reality.
6. Let's talk! Drop By Hour 8-9 AM Wednesday 4/23 and Thursday 4/24 at the Midcoast Villager Cafe & by Zoom
Finally, the new Midcoast Villager newspaper has a cafe where the bagel place used to be: 25 Mechanic Street in Camden. The publisher says he wants the Midcoast Villager Cafe to be a place where people meet to talk about issues of the day. Heck, he even wrote that he'd be there "all the time" and that we should give him "story pitches." Well, I'm going to give it a try this week. If you'd need to check in or just want to have a chat, meet me at the Cafe and grab a chair at my table! I'll be in from 8-9 AM on Wednesday the 23rd and Thursday the 24th.
I hope to see you in the cafe, or on a street corner with a sign, or in a living room with an instrument, or wherever you make your art, or wherever you speak your truth. I hope to find you dreaming.
- James Cook, Facilitator, The Audacity
