Todd and I met one beautiful day in Santa Cruz; we were both hanging out and having fun on Pacifc Ave. Todd is from the Portland area and went on a tour from Seattle to Santa Cruz. He is working on a book of guidelines for street performers. It was May 31, Food Not Bombs was serving up a top notch vegan stirfry, soup, salad and mixed fruits while Todd was getting down right funky, really tearing it up, on his buckets. Later in the evening we met up at the Free Radio Santa Cruz studio. ( 12 minutes / 5.5 megabytes )

Audio: Download the mp3

What makes a good spot to perform on as a street performer, or “busker?� There are several layers to that question. I will address the interpersonal human etiquette side of performing spots, or “pitches,� as they are called in street performer lingo, in another article. This is about the actual physicality of choosing street performer spots. For a successful show, one needs a spot where traffic passes, to gather a crowd. But the spot must also not interfere with the businesses around you, or police will be invoked. Obviously, the spot needs to be situated in a way that the sidewalk is maintained as a functioning passageway, while the area around the spot must have the capacity to hold an audience. You need to think, “Could this spot hold about 30 people without interrupting sidewalk flow or access to the doorways of the surrounding businesses?� This may sound difficult, and looking for good spots does consume a lot of street performers’ time, but it can be done. You’ll find a set back doorway of a closed business. Or some placement of planters, benches and payphones that you can exploit as some kind of street performer feng shui.

A "solitary, solo, or sole practitioner" in the pagan world, is someone who works, spiritually, alone, and not with a group or coven. The solo practitioners are embraced as part of the overall pagan community, but they work alone, for a variety of reasons. I understand the necessity for coalition building and alliances, but I wonder if there is not room for something like the "solitary practitioner" in the protest community as well.

From the studios of Hayao Miyazaki, creator of Princess Mononoke. Gorgeous animation and a great story. A 13-year-old witch strikes out on her own and learns about self-reliance, interdependence, and her own powers.

noticed a broken window tonight at 'boarders'